How to Create an eCommerce Strategy (Part 1)

How to Create an eCommerce Marketing Strategy (Part 1)

A top-notch marketing strategy is an integral part of a company's profitability. When it comes to eCommerce, the variety of strategies may seem overwhelming. By creating a comprehensive plan, it's possible to bring eCommerce marketing into focus and start your journey toward achieving key business and marketing goals.

While each eCommerce business should have a unique marketing strategy, the general plan is often the same. You need to set goals, identify your audience, set KPIs, and adjust the most efficient marketing tactics to suit your business.

Let's take a closer look at creating a high-quality eCommerce marketing strategy for your business.

What is an eCommerce Marketing Strategy?

eCommerce marketing is the process of attracting consumers to a company that sells products or offers services online. An eCommerce marketing strategy is a set of tactics designed to achieve eCommerce marketing goals.

eCommerce marketing is a part of digital marketing. It involves the use of a variety of tools and channels to:

● Raise awareness

● Generate leads

● Achieve conversions

● Retain clients/customers

The strategy involves:

● Identifying goals

● Listing KPIs

● Designing tactics

● Implementing tactics

Overall, an eCommerce marketing strategy is a guide that marketing teams follow to achieve marketing and business goals.

The Importance of a Comprehensive Marketing Strategy

Without a clear eCommerce marketing strategy, promotional efforts tend to lack efficiency. By following one comprehensive plan, it's possible to optimise your tactics and increase marketing ROI.

A solid marketing strategy doesn't just help you attract clients or customers. It provides valuable insight into the efficiency of your products and services and helps you create the most profitable offers. Besides being a sale-driving set of tactics, a smart approach to marketing can become the power behind the company's growth.

How to Structure Your eCommerce Marketing Plan

A marketing plan is a roadmap that guides you toward reaching designated goals. It doesn't have to be complicated. Creating a layout can help you work on strategies in a structured manner.

Set the Objectives

What do you want to accomplish with your marketing strategy?

● Raise brand awareness

● Generate more leads

● Convert more customers

● Retain existing customers

A smart approach to goal setting simplifies the rest of your strategy. However, a straightforward list of goals isn't enough. Your objectives should help you take the next step. That's why they must be detailed. The best way to give your goals a good wrapper is to use a S.M.A.R.T or OKR goal-setting structure (we'll talk about it in detail later in the article).

Determine Your Audience

To go further with your marketing plan, you need to learn as much as you can about your audience. Whom are you aiming your marketing efforts at?

Once you analyse the market and come up with a target audience overview, you need to segment it. Group your potential or existing customers by demographics, buyer behaviour, interaction with your brand, and other parameters, depending on your goals.

Audience segmentation can help you personalise marketing messages and deliver them to the right people at the right time. Create a detailed buyer persona for each segment.

Once you have a clear understanding of what your audience is, you'll know which marketing channels to use for reaching it.

Run a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis can help you assess your businesses' Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The main goal of this analysis is to provide an objective view of your eCommerce business. It can help you choose the best marketing strategies

● Strengths — what are you already doing well? What puts you ahead of the competition?

● Weaknesses — which areas of the business need improvement? What are your financial weaknesses?

● Opportunities — can you expand in any areas? Can you fill another niche? Can you offer a unique product?

● Threats — what can threaten your current business position (new competitors, new technologies, changes in customer behaviour, etc.)?

The analysis can also give you an idea of where the company stands against the competition.

Define Marketing Strategies

By taking advantage of the gathered information, you can now define your marketing strategies. These strategies will include such elements as:

● Type of content (blogs, videos, infographics, case studies, etc.)

● Marketing channels (social media, email, website, TV, radio, etc.)

● Organic vs paid search marketing opportunities

You have to be specific on which areas you are ready to focus on depending on your goals and digital marketing budget.

Defining Your Goals and Key Metrics for Tracking Performance

As we mentioned earlier, defining your goals and KPIs works best with a S.M.A.R.T or OKR goal-setting tactic.

S.M.A.R.T Goal Setting for Your eCommerce Marketing Strategy

S.M.A.R.T stands for:

● Specific — a goal must be as precisely worded as possible

● Measurable — you should be able to measure the goal using the key performance indicators (KPI).

● Achievable — the goal should be realistic and achievable

● Relevant — you should choose goals that are currently relevant to your business and market.

● Timely — the goal should have a deadline.

What is the first marketing goal that comes to mind? Let's say it's "generate more leads."

S.M.A.R.T versions of this goal would be:

● Increase the number of visitors to my website by 10% by March 2021

● Bring 5% more unique visitors to the e-store by April 2021

For each S.M.A.R.T goal, you need to define Key Performance Indicators. Otherwise, you'll have a hard time tracking your team's performance. In the above example, they would be:

● Conversion rate

● Bounce rate

● Exit rate

● Average session duration

● Cost per lead

As soon as you define a goal and its KPIs, you can come up with several marketing tactics to achieve it depending on your target audience, resources, and budget.

OKRGoal Setting for Your eCommerce Marketing Strategy

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. It's a goal-setting structure that helps you identify marketing tactics, set expectations, and track progress.

● Objective — main goal

● Key Results — measurable results you need to achieve to get to your objectives.

An example for eCommerce marketing plan would be:

● Objective — increase social media reach (target date — March 2021)

● Key Result #1 — increase Facebook post shares from 30 to 50.

● Key Result #2 — publish at least 4 Instagram posts per week.

● Key Result #3 — reduce bounce rate of social media traffic by 20%.

OKR goal-setting approach is more specific than S.M.A.R.T goals. By identifying key results, you are already creating part of the marketing strategy. It's possible to use both OKR and S.M.A.R.T approaches for different marketing goals.

Continued in How to Create an eCommerce Marketing Strategy (Part 2).