9 tips to promote your eCommerce website: Easy ways to grow your online store

Growing your eCommerce website is like a chemical reaction. In theory, a certain reaction will take a certain amount of time, and there’s nothing you can do about – you must be patient and watch the reaction take place over a period of time. However, any scientist will tell you that you can use something called a catalyst to speed up the process. A catalyst will speed up the rate of reaction, in order to create the final product quicker. 

The tips we are about to share with you are catalysts. They are easy, and great ways to grow your eCommerce website. Whilst they aren’t going to sky rocket your sales immediately, they are likely to contribute to gaining you extra views to your website, and possibly sales. Some of these methods not be time-consuming nor cost you a cent, but some of them will take a bit more effort and time dedicated to them. You don’t have to follow all the tips on this list, but by doing so you will maximize your potential growth. 

If you are an offline business owner who has converted to an eCommerce website, then you may already have some experience of how to market a business. However, growing a physical store is a completely different ball park to growing an online one. It’s important to pay close attention to these tips as growing an online store helps you reach a much larger, global audience. This means you can go from advertizing to your local town or city, to advertizing to the world. Big difference. So if you’re ready to take on a possibly exponential amount of growth for your website, let’s take a look at the nine tips for growing your eCommerce website.

1 – Use social media to your advantage

Social media can make someone viral overnight. And yes, you may not be a funny meme of a cute dog, but because social media requires so little investment, it’s completely worth setting up a profile. Since you already have an eCommerce website, you should have access to a range of images that you can use to decorate your profile with, including a favicon for your website that you can use for your profile picture.

Once your profile is set up, the next trick is consistency and connection. By engaging with followers, you’ll gain the reputation of a friendly, welcoming company that people are more likely to invest in. Furthermore, by being consistent with posts, you’ll give followers something to look forward to, as well as keep your brand relevant.

If you’re looking for more ways to use social media effectively when establishing an online brand, check out this helpful article.

2 – Keep people informed with an email list

In the same vein as to why social media can benefit you, using an email listing is a great way to reach out and engage with customers. You can use this strategy to promote a newsletter, or new product, or even send out discounts to those signed up. Even with the introduction and takeover of social media platforms, email persists to be one of the most powerful ways of marketing. Make sure to use this to your advantage and be consistent with your emails.

Don’t have a current email listing? If you’re looking for ways to start marketing via email, look no further than The Elite Web Co’s., Email Marketing service. From just $9.99, enjoy access to their email editor, which includes a drag-and-drop feature, allowing you to easily compose beautiful emails. You’ll also be able to view insights to your emails, including when emails are opened, clicked and shared. As well as great integration with apps like Facebook and Etsy, using Email Marketing with Elite can bring in some great results for your eCommerce website!

3 – Start up a blog to go with your eCommerce website

It may not seem productive to launch a blog. Especially if you are a store manager or are focusing on growing an online store. However, the truth is that many online businesses also run an online blog to work alongside their eCommerce website. By building out a blog providing content that works in conjunction to your website, you’ll provide your customers with helpful, relevant information, as well as giving people a reason to visit your website regularly aside from purchasing products.

It’s also a smart idea to plan blog posts to link into when you are updating your website. For example, if you’re about to launch a new range of products, write an article about it and why people should care. Take a look at the below example from Autopot.co.uk, and their monthly blog which talks about their latest products and how the community are using them:

4 – Get on other blogs

If you’re starting your own blog that’s great. However, if you’re looking to take it one step further then you should be looking to get your products featured on other blogs. If you don’t ask then you don’t get – it’s simple. You’ll never lose anything by sending a message or email to a successful blog. Contact them to see if they’d like to review or write a piece about one of your products.

To give the blog something to benefit from, see if they’d be interested in an affiliate program or equivalent. The best way to find out which blogs are worth contacting is by doing a general search for your product. Take a look at the first blog which comes up and see if they seem suitable, as they will be bringing in a lot of views. This means they can bring in a lot of new traffic to your site.

5 – Use Google Ads

It does comes at a price, but using Google Ads allows your website to be found at the top of search results page. You can do this by bidding on keywords. If you’re successful then your desired page will show up at the top of this page. Advertizing in this way is great as it doesn’t require any design, as opposed to designing pages or advertizements for social media. The average cost for an ad per click is $2 – $4, so it isn’t cheap. However, this price can fluctuate or defluctuate, depending on how in demand the key word is.

6 – Get customers to review products on your eCommerce website

Customer reviews are crucial when selling online, physical products. This is because customers cannot pick up and evaluate a product in person (as they would in a store). So, validation from other customers can give them reassurance of the quality of the product and trustworthiness of the website. If you can encourage a large amount of customers to leave a review, you’ll make your products seem more reliable. Customers love to see a star rating, and how many reviews have been left.

You can also encourage customers to leave reviews through your email marketing scheme. Set up emails to send to customers when they receive their product; perhaps you could even tempt them with a discount code on future purchases, or entry into a contest of some kind!

Take a look at the example from The Elite Web Co., and how they’ve integrated customer reviews onto their website in order to give customers a great first impression about their products and customer service:

7 – Use social media as a storefront

When customers buy your product, they undergo a journey of breadcrumbs to get to your site. This means that they will discover your brand through one means, which then leads them to a social media page for instance, which then directs them to your website’s homepage, then to your shop, then to the individual product – before they finally get the opportunity to purchase it. Seems like a long process, doesn’t it? When something takes as long as this could, it is more likely to put customers off your products, as the end goal can seem far away, especially for an older audience.

In order to minimize the journey to the checkout, why not sell products on social media. As platforms such as Instagram and Facebook grow larger and larger each day, the means in which you can utilize them to boost your business does too! One of the more recent features that has appeared on sites recently, is a shop. Now, sellers can sell directly on their social media platforms and showcase prices, sizings, and other variables directly to customers. Whilst this is something available on a wide variety on platforms, such as Facebook and TikTok, I personally believe Instagram has implemented this in the best way. Take a look at the example below from Instagram, where the posts also work as product placement for the clothing. They link through to a shop where people can view everything they normally would on a product page.

8 – Use a referral program on your eCommerce website to get the word out there

One of the most common ways that people discover new products is through recommendations from people they know and trust. You may think that this is something out of your control, as it is hard to dictate word-of-mouth. However, you’d be wrong! Referral programs, where a customer receives a benefit by encouraging a friend or family member to do something, are a powerful advertizing tool that can not only bring in more customers to your business, but simultaneously generate loyalty from those who refer as well as the referred ones. Here are some examples of great ways to set up a referral program:

• Offering customers who purchase products through a referral program a discount, while rewarding the customer who refers them with a discount code on their next purchase. This is great as it gives the customer who refers someone an incentive to buy again while bringing in a new customer.
• Entry to a competition, early access to a new product, or any other kind of exclusive benefit to those who refer a friend.
• If you offer a subscription service, offer an extra month of subscription to both parties when one signs up – not only is this a win-win for both the referred customer and the one who refers, it gives you an extra customer.
• There are many more great examples of how you could work this into your business. Take a look at this great blog for examples from Google, Uber, and more standout brands.

9 – Consider influencer marketing

This final tip will not be applicable to every business, but can be an effective one for the businesses which it does apply to. The concept of an influencer is a rising trend across social media, and one which would be smart to hop on while it’s hot. Influencer marketing involves paying an influencer on and having your product sponsor or endorse a piece of content they make. This could be anything from an ad on their YouTube video, or a dedicated Instagram story where they talk about how much they enjoy using your product.

In conclusion

Marketing is a key aspect to nail done in order to grow and expand your business. However, the ways in which you do it completely depend on your businesses unique needs, the audience you are trying to reach, and other factors which will change the way in which you choose to go about promoting your online store. Hopefully, this blog has given you some inspiration as to where to start promoting your business.