Selling goods online through an e-commerce website is very similar to selling in a marketplace. Your products need to be presented well, and they need to draw attention. Otherwise, your customers will turn to other shops that work harder on getting their attention.
Especially given that getting noticed on the Internet has never been so hard. The rise of e-commerce means that everyone is selling and buying online. You need to be creative to stand out when selling goods on the web.
Distribute valuable content for a clearly-defined audience
The best way to do that today is through content marketing. “Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly-defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
That means that you should not focus on significant and shiny ad slogans. Your marketing activities need to generate extra value for the potential customer and generate trust in you as a qualified provider of goods. You are not selling goods. You are selling the idea that they solve a problem or a need that your customer has.
When this approach is used parallelly with well-displayed products and a unique website, you can reach a wider range of customers and establish yourself as an expert in your field.
Social Media
Social media and “word of mouth” marketing are the most effective ways to reach new customers and generate trust in potential buyers. Studies show that consumers influenced by social media are four times more likely to spend more on purchases.
Facebook is a worldwide social networking site
And that means that social media is the best way to promote the content you create for your blog, as you should not spam your Facebook or Instagram page with offers and products. Social media works best if it offers some real extra value for a customer. For example, if you’re selling plants in your online shop, you might use social media to post about how to take care of them.
Use your blog for content marketing
Content marketing is maybe the most popular form of marketing out there at the moment. It is a “strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience — and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.”
Blogs can be used for distributing valuable content
Like with social media, instead of pitching your products or services, you provide genuinely relevant and valuable content to your prospects and customers to help them solve their issues.
If you haven’t produced content for a site before, it helps to build a content calendar and stick to it. A content calendar is a plan that determines when and what you’ll post on your blog or social media. They can be done a month or three in advance. If you have a calendar, it will also feel more like a task than something to do when you have free time. So it’s essential in the beginning when you don’t yet have a habit of creating content.
An effective content calendar also has an SEO strategy behind it that will help you write optimized content that people want to read and will hopefully convince them to buy from you. Search engine optimization might sound like a daunting task, but getting familiar with only a few basic SEO tools can greatly improve your strategy.
Pictures and video
In addition to being an expert in your own field, your online store also needs to present your products in an eye-catching way. Depending on the type of goods you’re selling, these might be the main things influencing customer’s buying decisions.
Taking great pictures can be tricky, especially if you have little experience in photography. Luckily, there are a lot of guides that can help you take quality photos at home. The main point here is to capture the product’s story and use the proper lighting. Also, make sure you optimize your photos for speed, responsiveness, and accessibility.
At the same time, you don’t want to clutter your website and make it too noisy. In our experience, the best online stores don’t have too many products. We have seen that the most successful shops only have up to 20 products. After all, uploading and photographing items into the shop is one of the most time-consuming parts of setting up a store. So it makes sense to keep your marketplace tidy and clean.
If you think you’re ready to reach new customers online, then sign up to Voog and get started. You have nothing to lose.
