While it might sound obvious, one of the main advantages of being an online merchant is your business takes place on the internet. This presents a number of key ecommerce marketing tools you can implement at minimal expense.

Content Marketing

Roundly praised for its ability to “sell without selling”, content marketing is a terrific way to attract attention to your ecommerce store, while simultaneously establishing yourself as an authority in your area of business. Blog posts, videos, photography and infographics appealing to the needs and interests of your primary demographic are proven to attract visitors to ecommerce sites. The secret is to know your target audience’s needs, interests and other relevant information. You can then create “How To” posts, lists of relevant ideas involving your products and etc. The key is to be consistent and avoid coming off as sales-y.

eMail Marketing

Rumors of the demise of email are greatly exaggerated. Any solid marketing professional will tell you it’s one of the most powerful marketing tools available to ecommerce. The trick lies in using it the right way. First and foremost, you should build your list organically by inviting people to sign up when they visit your site, or read one of your blog posts. Yes, this takes longer, but you’ll get people who are genuinely interested in what you have to offer. Keep your mailings to one a week and make every effort to ensure they have value. Promote new products, offer discounts to mailing list members and include relevant articles from your blog. Lead with articles and sprinkle in promotions so it is more informative than sales oriented. It’s also important to ensure the look and tone of your messages mirror that of your website and other marketing materials. This will tell your loyal customers it’s you at a glance. A good logo is a useful tool here, as it can also serve as your signature.  If your budget is tight, use a logo generator to help you create one.

Social Media

Looking for a captive audience of people who will tell you everything you need to know to appeal to their sensibilities?  They’re already pouring their hearts out on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, et al every day. Forums dedicated to your area of business are fertile grounds too. You can engage potential customers in conversation and lead them to your products in a natural way. The important thing to remember here is to provide more information than sales pitches. Experts recommend making 80 percent of your posts informational and 20 percent promotional. This keeps people looking forward to your posts, rather than dismissing you as someone who thinks their personal agenda outweighs the benefit of the group.

Pay Per Click

While there are many options available in this area, the one with the most notoriety is Google AdWords.  Said simply, you’ll pay a search engine to include your ads among its results when someone pursues keywords related to your business. It’s basically an auction in which businesses put up money to bid on the keywords. The entity willing to pay the most gets ranked higher than the rest. Yes, this could put you at a bit of a disadvantage if you’re light on cash, but there are strategies you can employ to get noticed without raiding your piggy bank.

Affiliate Marketing

Aligning with someone whose audience is larger than yours is a smart way to generate new business. Known as affiliate marketing, you basically let them do the heavy lifting in exchange for a cut of the action when a customer they send to you makes a purchase. There are actually networks of marketers looking to work with entrepreneurs for just this purpose. With that said, you do need to choose carefully and implement a strategy likely to work best for your business. It takes time to see good results, but it can be quite lucrative under the proper circumstances.

Employed properly, these key ecommerce marketing tools can help you keep your best foot forward with potential customers. You’ll also see maximum results with minimal expense.

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