Starting your e-business with Shopify it’s a good way to create an online shop. The Shopify platform is easy-to-use and user-friendly. It provides multiple interesting themes and applications that are aimed to improve online stores.
However, a website can’t attract customers by itself. While developing the Shopify store, start working on the marketing strategy. Of course, the easiest way is to pay money to a marketing company or an individual specialist. But what if a budget is limited? In this article, we offer you to consider different ways (both free and paid) on how to promote your Shopify store.
- Analytics and strategy
- Search engine optimization as an integral part of a promotion
- Ways to promote Shopify store in search engines
- Final thoughts
Analytics and strategy
Analytics and strategy are an essential part of the promotion. People can’t reach a new place without a road map, navigator, or guide. The same situation is with promotion. How can you move without knowing the direction and road condition? So, before you start promoting your Shopify store, naturally, you should create a marketing campaign.
The first step is analytics of competitors and a target audience. Define how your competitors generate traffic, what keywords they use, see the most popular pages of their stores, etc. Such services as Semrush will help you.
NOTE: If you want to learn more about competitor analysis tools, we recommend you to read this article.
Talking about analytics the first tool that comes to mind it’s Google Analytics and Ahrefs. These services are well known to users and they have won their reputation long ago. However, you are free to choose the tools that you prefer. There are many alternatives to Google Analytics.
NOTE: In our article, you can find the answer to the question How to add Google Analytics to Shopify.
Knowing your audience and features of competitor’s work, now you are ready to start creating a marketing strategy for your e-business. The strategy includes the selection of promotion channels. We are going to talk about them in the part below.
Search engine optimization as an integral part of a promotion
Before we start talking about promotion channels, let’s make your Shopify online store visible for search engines and as result to your customers.
Position in search results directly depends on how well your site is SEO optimized. Search engines are smart enough but even they can’t display your e-store to the correct audience if you don’t help them. And SEO is hurry to help you.
So, how to optimize the online shop, and is it possible to do it on your own?
The main actions you should make for the e-store:
- Competitor analysis – look at your competitors, examine their strengths and weaknesses.
- Keywords – create an extensive semantic core of the site.
- Content – start making content based on the keywords list.
- SEO audit – do a regular audit and make timely edits.
It would seem that these steps are not difficult. Anyway, the SEO profession is popular for a reason.
Yes, you can try to become a self-made SEO specialist, pass multiple courses, and read a lot. Furthermore, multiple tools are open for everyone. For example, to find out the SEO situation of your competitors you can use Similarweb, and Serpstat can help to find keywords. However, such an approach requires a lot of time.
The conclusion is only one – cooperate with specialists. Yes, it can be expensive but in the future, your costs will pay off several times.
Ways to promote Shopify store
There is an abundance of promotion methods. In this article we want to divide them into two categories:
- Free traffic sources
- Paid traffic sources
Naturally, you will start with free traffic sources. For example, social networks, online forums, and communities, cross-promotion. Let’s start with traffic sources that do not require special payments but need your time and efforts.
Free traffic sources
Email marketing
An email will help to remind customers about an abandoned cart, inform about new products, congratulate with holidays, provide special sales and offers, etc. It’s a good tool for establishing communication with customers and build trust. Just remember that too frequent letters can be too annoying and you will simply be unsubscribed. Thus, find a middle ground for yourself.
To save time and automate the process, use additional email marketing tools (require additional payments).
Cross-promotion with other merchants
A road is always easier with partners. Not only you are aiming to sell goods on Shopify or other platforms. Multiple sellers will be glad to cooperate in order to gain a new audience.
For instance, if you sell skincare cosmetics, maybe your customers will be interested in pretty towels, organizers, hair bands, accessories, etc.
Social networks
If you have not yet created an account for e-business, do it! As many links will be placed on the Internet the better for you. And by the way, we offer you to use not only Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Use Pinterest too!
However, there are pitfalls. It is fair to say that social networks should be active. The benefits of social networks will be regularly posting and content updates. Creating an account with three posts and forgetting about it is not a good idea. Maybe, for the first time, it’s better to select one or two socials and fill them with content.
So, before start posting, make sure you have time for this.
Online communities
Participate in discussions on different niche forums, communities, or groups in social networks. Define forums that highlights the relevant topics, fill a profile with info, and start to communicate with participants and share links.
What niche forums and communities can give you:
- Access to a place of concentration of the target audience.
- Ability to share links and promote your e-business.
- Ability to communicate with an audience, share thoughts, learn more about the audience’s needs.
- Building reputation, authority, and credibility for your e-business.
So, be active, and you’ll reach your audience;)
We’ve considered the most popular of free promotion methods. For merchants who just start their steps in marketing, it would be great to start from something, so these 4 ways are good for this aim. Now, let’s talk about paid traffic sources.
Paid traffic sources
Paid ads in social networks
Every social platform provides different promotion services. For example, Facebook offers its users a Business Page. There every user has an opportunity to set up a marketing campaign and create ads.
Should we say that it’s one of the most popular methods? According to Statista researches, Facebook has 2.85 billion monthly active users. No matter what is your e-business area, you’ll definitely find your target audience in social networks and paid ads help a lot.
Difficulty can arise in setting up ads. However, social platforms provide so many tutorials and guides, that everyone can start a marketing campaign. Furthermore, the initial budget does not have to be large. It is enough to start small and gradually develops. If there is no time to do this, contact a specialist.
Influencers
The social media era has brought many changes in our lives. A new type of celebrity has appeared – influencers. They are like pop or rock stars. Thousands and millions of people follow them in social media and trust their opinion.
The advantage of this method is that influencers have already had a loyal audience. They already have a reputation and their opinion is valuable for subscribers. So, in order to attract new customers, build a brand’s reputation, find a relevant blogger in the appropriate niche, and order advertisement.
Ways of collaboration with influencers:
- Mention in the post. This type of collaboration was the first on the vastness of social networks. Anyway, it’s still effective for e-business and popular among bloggers. In this situation, you pay for postage.
- Giveaway. Your company allocates a certain number of goods that it can give for free. A blogger gives these products as a gift to random followers for certain actions.
- Brand ambassador. It’s a complex of services. A blogger should use your products in everyday life, promote them, mention them in posts and stories from time to time.
- Campaign in Stories. It’s not a secret that the majority of Internet users prefer watching videos rather than read long posts. Therefore, this format of ad is also popular among bloggers. So, just order a campaign in stories.
Let us remind that the result also depends on the level of the blogger and his professionalism. So, choose a partner carefully and try to discuss the conditions of collaboration in detail.
Referral programs
What is a referral program? It’s another great opportunity to involve new customers in the store. A referral program it’s a set of actions that you make in order to motivate other people to talk about your product.
On the Internet, you can also meet the following definitions: affiliate program, customer referral, or partner program. All of them mean the same and can be included in the term referral program.
The principle of the program is simple:
- Participants of your referral program share info with active links (referral links) about your product in their blogs (social media, websites, stores, etc.).
- Your potential customers click on the referral link and move to your website. There they make a purchase or an action you want them to do (fill the form, share a post, etc.).
- You pay compensation to your partner. The compensation can be different and depends on your agreements. For example, you can offer your referrals real money (a percentage of the sale of a product that was sold by using a referral link), discounts on your product or services, etc.
This method guarantees an influx of customers.
Blogging and guest posting
Create your own blog and start writing. Easy to say, but not so easy to do. Creating a blog implies that you will be sharing useful and expert content. Therefore, if you don’t have a talent for writing good texts, it is better to seek professional help.
If your store sells a particular segment of products, you can write about this and related topics. Explore competitor’s websites, blogs, and social media. Note what people of your trade area write about, think what customers’ questions you can answer in posts, etc.
There are 2 reasons to start guest posting:
- Show your expert knowledge – being a merchant in a particular area you may know many interesting things about your sphere and products. So, show your expert knowledge in your area and people will start to trust you and your products.
- Reach new audience – publishing articles in different blogs allows mentioning your company/e-store more. The more mentions and valuable backlinks, the more likely target customers will find information about you.
Guest blogging is posting articles/posts with a link to your store/blog in other blogs. So, before you start writing select the most interesting blogs and examine their style. It can increase your chances to be approved.
Final thoughts
In this article, we’ve offered you different ideas for promotion. You can use them all or choose the most interesting and suitable for your business.
To make a conclusion, let’s define important steps of promotion:
- Analysis and strategy
- Search engine optimization
- Free and paid promotion channels
A successful promotion campaign it’s a combination of strategy, creativity, and a piece of fortune So, be active, creative, flexible, and open for new experience and cooperation. And your e-business starts to prosper. Good luck!;)
