Ever have that talk with yourself—you know—what can I do to make my e-commerce store better? You’ve taken advantage of everything eBay, Volusion, Big Commerce or whatever platform you use has to offer.
You’ve revisited your hot selling items and adjusted your inventory. You’ve got great feedback and a top seller rating. Heck, you’ve even taken advantage of a custom e-commerce store design yet still the sales revenues just aren’t where you want them to be.
Perhaps it’s time to find ways to promote your e-commerce store outside of your store in unique ways. Doing this means stepping away from your eBay store and taking advantage of brand building and marketing efforts guaranteed to boost sales and get buyers into your store.
1. Social Media
If you have a business Facebook page, you need to promote your eBay store on Facebook. Facebook does have some rules as far as promoting and selling but have you considered a custom Facebook e-commerce store design? OC Designs Online offers these custom Facebook pages and along with them being affordable, you can skip worrying about breaking any rules.
You also need to tweet and tweet some more on Twitter. The problem many e-commerce retailers face is what to tweet about and the tweet must be informative and engaging—all in 140 characters or less. Small Business Trends offers a great post on How to Write Better Tweets and by following their tips and advice, you’ll gain a Twitter following faster. Remember, you don’t want to be mundane on Twitter, you want your tweets to be mysterious enough that folks want to learn more and do make sure they are free of grammatical errors.
If you’re LinkedIn, are you promoting your e-commerce store on your profile page and posting links to it on LinkedIn? Have you joined any LinkedIn e-commerce groups where online retailers everywhere share ideas and advice?
LinkedIn is a very powerful tool if you take advantage of it. That means ensuring your profile is up-to-date, posting often and staying involved with discussions within your groups. If you’re not on LinkedIn, now is the time to start!
2. Viral Websites
Beyond your e-commerce store, you should also have a website and write blog posts. Google and Intuit have partnered up offering free websites for small business owners for one year and after that the charge is less than $5 a month. You can also browse the Top 10 Free Website Builder’s list and read unbiased reviews on how well each website provider performs.
As far as blogging goes, don’t avoid it because you think you’re not a writer. As an ecommerce retailer you know your products and inventory right? You understand them more than anyone else—especially online shoppers who are searching your store.
Write blog posts on your products—they don’t have to be long—300 words is fine. Provide as much information on your products as possible. Blogging is also a chance to let your readers know why your ecommerce store is a leader against your competitors. Write blogs about what you offer that’s unique or special and always write holiday-themed blog posts to reel in even more customers.
You will want to utilize good keywords when writing website content and blog posts. Utilize the free Google Adwords tool; you don’t have to have a Google account to find great keywords. A rule of thumb here, especially since Google Panda and Penguin search algorithms are now in play—don’t keyword overstuff or Google will penalize you for that. Instead, find a good keyword and then some keyword variations from the Google keyword tool and use all of them not just one of them over and over again. In addition, if you sell watches, don’t just search for “watches” using the keyword tool but be more specific. If you sell “antique watches” try that keyword and see what the results are—only choose suggested keywords that are rated as high in the keyword tool.
3. Car Wraps Advertising
Car wraps are a great way to advertise your e-commerce store uniquely. OC Designs Online wrapped our Scion xb and now, as it drives the streets of Ocean City New Jersey, we’re gaining all sorts of visuals and visuals do turn into sales leads! We thank Adam Sokoloff and his team at Sunrise Signs for this unique way to advertise offline and car wraps are more affordable than you think!
In the image below, you can see just how the Scion xb turned out and the wrap itself offers tons of imagery announcing what we do and sell and various ways to get in touch with us including our website URL, telephone number. In addition, viewers are informed they can find us on Facebook and Twitter!
It’s also important to ensure the design of your vehicle wraps stay consistent in color and theme as all your other branding efforts such as your website, logo and other marketing materials. This ensures a memorable brand!
4. Newsletters and Email
If you take advantage of a custom ecommerce store design such as the ones we offer here at OC Designs Online, your storefront can contain a sign-up for a newsletter area. Once you do this and have a list of followers, you can utilize your database to let customers know about specials and other promotions.
Another way to promote your e-commerce store outside of your store is to build an email customer database and send out regular emails and newsletters. When sending out emails and newsletters, make sure the colors and templates are consistent so you’re customers aren’t confused. Once you have a great newsletter template, keep it the same and consistent to help build your online store brand.
In addition, sending out emails with structured email signatures that include the link and name of your e-commerce store is another smart way to attract customers and offer them a way outside of your ecommerce platform to find your online store. In fact, include your e-commerce store link on every element of your business. That means business cards (include business cards when shipping products), mailing and shipping labels and within sent emails as a signature. The more ways you find to insert your e-commerce store link on various marketing tools, the better.
Custom Designs and Store Solutions
OC Designs Online is dedicated to helping all of our e-commerce clients succeed. That’s why we invite you to take advantage of our custom e-commerce store designs, listing templates and combo store solutions—like an eBay store design and a Volusion store design—or an eBay store design and a matching listing template.
If you utilize these ways to promote your e-commerce store outside of your store, you’ll have a better chance of driving sales and increasing revenues—even if you’re already a top seller!