Different definitions of webshop marketing circulate on the worldwide Web. This is not surprising given the broad interpretation of the term. Concretely, you can put it simply: promoting your webshop to potential customers, by applying various marketing techniques. The goal? To ensure that people who are interested in your products land on your webshop and make a purchase.
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This can be done in three simple steps:
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Sounds simple, right? However, it goes much further than that.
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To give you an idea of what a web shop marketing strategy entails, how to implement it and which tools you can use for this, we give you some frequently used marketing channels. You can use them all to give your shop an extra boost.
Before you start social media marketing, research which channels are most appropriate for your product or service. A webshop is visually oriented, so make sure your products are displayed well. Beautiful images encourage visitors to click through to your webshop.
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Instagram is ideal for visual content and can quickly generate traffic to your shop.
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Choose your social media channels carefully, use them effectively and motivate your visitors to take action.
SEM (Search Engine Marketing) includes SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEA(Search Engine Advertising) to make your shop findable online.
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For your website's SEO, it's best to conduct keyword research first. Write relevant content and use SEO basics such as titles, subtitles, and images with alt text that target the right keywords. This will improve your organic findability.
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Through SEA, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns on Google ensure that your ads appear on relevant searches. You pay per click, which makes this method effective for generating targeted traffic, often through Google Ads.
Webshop marketing often uses imagery, such as photos and videos. Videos on your product pages can convince potential buyers of the suitability of your products.
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YouTube, the second largest search engine after Google with more than a billion users, is an essential platform for video marketing. Use popular keywords to determine your video topics and share content that is relevant to your target audience. Also distribute your videos through social media platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok to drive customers to your shop through multiple channels. Consider tutorial videos that demonstrate the use of your products or testimonials from satisfied customers, which helps build long-term relationships with your ambassadors.
Is content marketing directly related to web shop marketing? We often think of content marketing first as blogs, videos, storytelling, and the story behind a company. But when selling a product online, is content marketing necessary? Absolutely!
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Content marketing is crucial for online stores. Optimize your product pages with short, product-oriented keywords that include the name of your product. This will ensure that you are found faster when someone searches for that product.
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Blogging remains a powerful way to reach your target audience. By covering relevant and engaging topics, you can attract visitors and ultimately convert them into leads. A well-written blog can increase engagement and help readers see the value of your products, which is essential to the success of your online store.
Another way to publicize and promote the products on your online store is through influencer marketing. It starts from people or brands that already have influence on the target audience you want to address. Those people are called influencers. They build communities of people who know, like and trust them. So it's easier for an influencer to draw attention to one of your products through a recommendation or sponsored post. So this way of webshop marketing starts from an external source that recommends your products or services to a similar target audience.
Affiliate marketing is another channel that you don't manage 100 percent yourself. Like influencer marketing, it starts from an outside source. Affiliates are people or companies who help you sell your product online in exchange for a commission. Unlike influencers, affiliates are more likely to generate interest in products through more old-fashioned (but very efficient) marketing tactics. Basically, this can be seen as a vicious cycle:Â
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And the circle starts all over again.
Tired of receiving promotional emails in your inbox? It is and remains one of the oldest and most popular ways to do webshop marketing. Just make sure it stays effective! An excess of spam e-mails often has the opposite effect on your product or service.Â
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The biggest advantage of e-mail marketing? You can automate it. In short: less work in the long run, less worry and more time for other marketing channels! Specifically, you can set up a drip campaign for your customer base that you segment into different categories: interests, stage in the journey, purchase history... You set up your emails for the different categories, set your rules and let the campaigns do their magic!Â
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When email marketing, be sure to keep these two golden rules of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in mind:
Two brilliant ways to use emails in your webshop marketing are post-purchase follow-up and abandoned shopping cart.
Woocommerce, Shopify and Magento are the most common platforms for an online store. They are responsible for the majority of all e-commerce sites on the Internet. But how do you make the right choice between these three? And are there perhaps even better solutions than such a platform?Â
Woocommerce
With its two million installations, Woocommerce is by far the largest platform of the above three. It lends itself perfectly to smaller projects that still want to take advantage of the benefits of a large CMS system. Because, remember: this is a WordPress plugin.
Shopify
Shopify only has 25% of the installations that Woocommerce has despite its ease of use, affordable price and ever-growing community. Besides, the updates are done for you, so no hassle to make sure everything stays up to date.
Magento
Last to shoot Magento about. Magento is known for its incredible functionality. The downside? The price. With such a solidly built platform, price and a robust framework go hand in hand. So you have to put a decent sum on the table to purchase, implement and maintain it.
