Essential Elements of a Successful Ecommerce Marketing Strategy

The Internet has provided a free and fair ground for all levels of retail businesses to carry out ecommerce marketing plans. The following components of online marketing are among the most critical that make up a successful ecommerce marketing strategy.

A Sound Ecommerce Business Model 

Having a business model prior to launching an ecommerce store creates a clearer picture of the resources required as well as the risks involved in the business. A business model incorporates the business vision and mission together with all important tactics involved in the success of ecommerce marketing.

A Precise Customer Profile

With a clear business model in place, an ecommerce business owner is able to identify the target audience. Customers are the most valuable users of an ecommerce website and understanding their needs with relation to the products on sale earns their loyalty and keeps the business relevant.

Deliverable Products

An ecommerce store displays all available products on customer friendly interfaces briefly describing them individually with price tags attached. These products will sell better when the customer’s needs are considered while producing and packaging and even when advertising on different internet marketing platforms.

Social Media Marketing

Marketing ecommerce products require an aggressive marketing strategy which is made easier with the proper use of Social Media Marketing. Leading social media sites like Facebook, Twitter and Google+ have enabled businesses of all sizes to market their products to their specific target market and eventually saving them money. Other social media platforms like Instagram, YouTube and Pinterest are well utilized by ecommerce marketers for their ability to share images and video clips to advertise their products.

Content Marketing

The impact of blogs and podcasts in ecommerce marketing has continued to prove the importance of content in any form of internet marketing. Product descriptions and reviews are key elements of any ecommerce web content. More than 60% of customers are now known to be searching online for reviews and descriptions of all the products they need before making the decision to buy. This means that an ecommerce marketer who creates appealing content for their products attracts more visitors to the online store.

Ecommerce Search Marketing

For customers to be drawn to ecommerce websites outside the realm of social media marketing, search engines play a major role in sending pre-qualified visitors to the site. A customer who requires a certain product normally uses the search engine to find all the information about the product.

However, with millions of results in most searches being displayed on the search engines, users are known to only focus on the information available on the first page of the search engine results. This means that a successful ecommerce website that ranks high on leading search engines will stand a greater chance of attracting the users.

Ecommerce Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the key tool to creating relevant content and getting an ecommerce site to the top search engine positions. Another successful method of ecommerce marketing using search engines is Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. This form of ecommerce search marketing makes use of Google AdWords and Bing AdCenter to create ads in the search engine results.

Mobile Marketing

The most influential form of ecommerce marketing for the future will be mobile phone apps which are already gaining popularity with users. Mobile apps and websites provide the same environment found in a computer only with added advantages of mobility.

Essential PPC Campaign Management Practices for Local Search Marketers

Local search marketers can capture a lot of quality leads by effectively leveraging Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising. Managing a PPC campaign with Google AdWords can be tricky, but with the right direction, it can be immensely powerful for local business marketing.

 To help your local business drive quality traffic and leads to its website using PPC advertising, below are a few key practices to help you make the most of your Google AdWords campaign.

Precise Keyword Research & Selection

Keyword research and selection is significantly influential to the success of any search marketing campaign. Take the time to conduct a thorough round of keyword research using the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. But what's more than simply choosing the most attractive keywords, is analyzing those keyword by actually searching for them in Google (along with your geo-modifier.)

The best tool for keyword research is Google search. By searching your keywords, you'll be able to see exactly what competitors are bidding on what terms, as well as what their PPC ads look like. This will enable you to structure your bids, and write your ad copy, accordingly.

Ensure Your PPC Campaigns Are Geo-Graphically Targeted

One of the most important practices in setting up a local PPC advertising campaign is to ensure that the geographic parameters have been set. This is done during the initial phases of setting up a campaign, and can also be modified by viewing the campaign's settings.

 With PPC campaign management via Google AdWords, you can set the geographic parameters by city, zip code, or a specified mile radius from a specific zip or city. You can also include multiple surrounding areas in one PPC campaign. This makes management much easier, without having to build out multiple PPC campaigns for numerous surrounding areas.

Develop Effective PPC Landing Pages

When a PPC landing page is a generic inside page of your website, you could be missing out on conversions by not integrating the essential elements for PPC landing pages. This why you should always creative PPC-specific landing pages for your campaign.

 When developing effective PPC landing pages, always have a very obvious call-to-action. This can be a button, form, or other eye-grabbing message that compels users to take action. This will help to ensure that you make the most of your PPC search traffic and convert more visitors on your website.

Leverage Google AdWords' Ad Extension

Google AdWords offers a number of "Ad Extensions" which are free features to make you ads pop even more in the search results. The most effective Ad Extensions for local PPC campaign management are "Location Extensions" and "Call Extensions."

 With Location Extensions, the address of your business appears in the PPC ad. This helps to establish great credibility in your ad and business. Call Extensions enable search engine users to place a direct call to your business from the ad itself. This can be very effective when targeting mobile-based search users.

 For more tips and insights about PPC best practices, visit the Web Presence Group. In addition to a free audit, you can take advantage of many great articles about Google AdWords PPC campaign management and PPC optimization.

Discovering Your Ideal Customer: How to Build a Group of Passionate Fans from Nothing

Too many small businesses picture their target market to be everyone in their local proximity. This fallacy can lead to loss of focus, and potentially, a loss of business.

For small businesses and start-ups, finding and catering to your target market as soon as possible will minimize time spent lost in the dark. Without a precise target market, your business plan will be spread too thin and you won’t be able to be everything to everyone.

A good word in marketing is empathy, which is defined as the intellectual identification with or vicarious experiencing of the feelings, thoughts, or attitudes of another. Marketers need to be empathetic in order to cultivate a following of people who find value in your products and services.

Below I offer some insights to help you discover your ideal customer and overall target market.

Starting with the Smallest Market Possible

Don’t get hung up only focusing on one customer, or one message. When starting out, there’s little to hang your hat on. The key is to not spend time lost in the dark. Highlighting one aspect that makes your company valuable and then communicating that to your target market will get the ball rolling in building an audience.

Discover Why You’re Valuable

Your business plan will be successful only if the market cares about it. Defining why you’re valuable to a market and testing whether the hypothesis holds up is important in moving forward. Moving forward in business is impossible when the hypotheses don’t test well in the lab.

Desire Feedback

Small businesses and start-ups don’t have the capabilities that a thriving corporation has where they can learn a lot each day from customer interaction. Formulating and testing theories on the fly is the only option available in the early stages of implementing a business plan.

Setting up meetings with prospects who fall within your smallest market group is a good way to start finding out what’s working and what’s not. It can be hard to find the prospects, so joining industry or trade groups containing your target market is a safe start.

Offering free samples and beta test relationships to individuals willing to provide feedback is also helpful. Your business will only start to evolve when you get the message and focus out to the target you’re intending to reach.

Make a Customer Sketch

After all these plans and tests, you need to identify every last detail of your customer. Most of the information attained will not be commonly understood, and thus needs to be gathered through additional research in heavy behavioral places such as social media.

Thorough research in the social media platforms will help kick start your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and allow you to start building custom profiles. There are several CRM platforms to assist you in your customer sketch.

Worketc, Batchbook, Nimble, Highrise and Cubesocial all provide excellent CRM tools, collecting as much customer data in one place as currently possible. These tools will help you build custom profiles with more information than you could ever capture on your own.

Never Stop Evolving

Perhaps the most important step to learn is that your business will always undergo changes to the strategy. When you discover your ideal customer you should look back at your basic business model and overall strategy. If you want to have a great business model, it needs to be customer-influenced, even customer-forced. It’s wise to think about how your perfect client will affect your offerings, revenue streams, pricing and ways of distribution.

Think of finding your market as a pivotal line in a crossword puzzle; it should help you figure out more lines to the puzzle, or strategies to the model. Game plan how you can reach your target market, potential partners and the resources you either need or have in order to reach the target market effectively.

You’re never done evolving if you want to be successful. Businesses learn and grow; their models change shape. The on-going process of experimentation and discovery is equally important to what you’re discovering.

This article was scribed by blogger, SEO, and web marketer Kyle Blasco. You can connect with Kyle on Google+.