It is not easy to run an e commerce business structure. Almost every business, small or large, has a digital presence, making e commerce competition fierce. The customers are spoilt with varied choices and do not hesitate even a second before switching over to a site that offers them better deals.

Here are six useful tips to marketing Ecommerce and keep the costs in check:

• Advertise Smartly

Advertising can eat away thousands of dollars in your Ecommerce Business. With so many traditional (print, brochures, trade shows) and digital (social media, email marketing, blogs) marketing channels available, allocating the right marketing budget to each is crucial without giving a thought. A diversified marketing plan can help you advertise economically. It is advisable to research on which advertising channels are generating most leads or conversions. For example, if trade shows and LinkedIn are the top channels for your business, you may want to direct the budget of other channels to these two instead of stretching your resources further.

• Invest on Email Marketing

Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of email marketing in your overall marketing plan. Email is considered the highest performing channel as compared to popular social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter on various parameters such as total number of users (2.6 billion users), first online check of the day (58%), daily use (91%) and preference for receiving promotional messages (77%). The companies which use email marketing have acquired 7% more customers vis-a-vis 0-1% and 21% ROI vis-a-vis 15% on Facebook and Twitter. In fact, 66% of customers say that they make purchases based on marketing messages received by email.
Email marketing is affordable because you can easily do it on your own by signing up with an email service provider. You can reach out to mass customers in one single click, whether it is to inform about a new product, remind them to complete their transaction, offer deals or run targeted campaigns. You can even incorporate social media links, website address, videos and images to increase social clicks at low cost.

• Focus on Organic SEO Marketing, Retargeting and Remarketing

When it comes to the questions ‘how to market an ecommerce website’ and ‘how to boost low-cost acquisition’, ecommerce businesses often tend to overlook organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) marketing, retargeting and remarketing. Let’s understand these three tools further:

• • Organic SEO marketing is a better tool in comparison to paid clicks to drive targeted traffic. If your website, home page or landing page incorporates keywords that match customer intent, then the probability of customers visiting again and staying longer is higher. Moreover, paid ads work only till the time you pay money. In case of organic SEO, it is not only one time investment, but also gives you 24/7, long-term rankings in search engines.
  • Retargeting works when customers visit your website after clicking on ads, but leave without purchasing. Retargeting follows such visitors throughout the web through cookies and displays the ad again on different web pages to draw him again to your website. Retargeting ads get 10x higher click-through rate than regular display ads, while reducing customer acquisition cost.
    You can also explore Dynamic Retargeting which lets you personalize ads based on customer profile and buying behavior. So, in case of Retargeting, the ads are static while they keep on changing (dynamic) as per visitor behavior during their time on the site in Dynamic Retargeting.
    Read More: How to create an Unbeatable Remarketing Campaign for your E-commerce Business
  • Remarketing refers to collecting customer information and using it to remarket later through emails.

Retargeting and remarketing are often used interchangeably, but the major difference lies in re-engaging customers Google Adwords and emails respectively.

• Minimize Shipping Cost

Statistics highlight that shipping prices impact the decisions of 95% of ecommerce shoppers and it is also the sole reason for 36% of customers to abandon the online shopping cart. While customers expect free or affordable shipping, it is definitely a key overhead for B2C and B2B business models ecommerce. In order to convert customers, you should focus on slashing your shipping costs in the following ways:

• • Compare shipping prices across various courier services. You can also negotiate hard for differential rates based on volume, size, weight, delivery destination, expected delivery timeline, insurance and tracking.
  • Open an inbound shipping account with a chosen carrier and encourage your suppliers to use it so that incoming shipping cost overlapping can be avoided.
  • Outsource shipping to fulfillment services to save time and fixed costs associated with warehousing, packing materials, packaging & labelling, and inventory insurance. Since they handle large volumes, they offer cheaper shipping rates and shorter shipping time.

• Invest in Bulk Buying of Packing and Shipping Materials

Bulk buying of packing and shipping materials makes good sense, especially for small businesses, as it reduces cost per unit. If you stock products that are fast-moving or high sellers, or you are under a long-term contract with a buyer, then wholesale purchase can be beneficial in these cases as well. It can also reduce the shipment and delivery time as you don’t have to wait for the materials to arrive at the jobsite for order fulfillment before/within schedule. However, there is a word of caution to heed. Before you go bulk buying, make an estimate of the pipeline so that you don’t end up wasting the materials and block the warehouse space.

• Be Wise with Website UX Design Changes

A good website UX design can drive more conversions. It is quite likely that you consider changing the current website design if it’s not generating expected ROI. But, are you sure that website UX is responsible for low conversions, and not other reasons such as the quality of products you sell, delivery or customer service? The timing of redesign also makes a huge difference. Let’s say, if the holiday season is round the corner, it wouldn’t be wise to take such a risk. What if the redesign project could not be completed in time or the existing customers revisiting your site get confused with the new layout and navigation? Even, you may have difficulty adjusting to new variables, which could eventually result in higher input cost. So, don’t fool around with your website unless absolutely necessary.

Are you now ready to save money on your e commerce business?

The post 6 Hacks to Save Money on Your Ecommerce Business in 2017 appeared first on varstreet.