Marketing for E-commerce: 5 strategies companies should consider
Shopping online has gained so much relevance in the last two years that it has led to a significant increase in the number of e-commerce and online sales in Brazil. The pandemic was, without a doubt, the driving factor of these new habits and ways of buying and selling. Only in the first semester of 2022, e-commerce has reached almost R$120 bi on sales, a growth of 6% in comparison to the same period of 2021, according to a report elaborated by Nielsen Q|Ebit, in partnership with Bexs Pay.
Another study, from CupomValido, shows that Brazil has a growth expectation two times bigger than the global average, surpassing countries such as Japan (14,7%), The United States of America (14,55%) and France (11,68%). It is esteemed that Brazil will grow 20,73% per year, from this current year until 2025. ,
However, we know that selling online is not an easy task. Internet has become more an influential tool in the consumer´s purchase journey, empowering consumers with the possibility of looking at products, comparing prices and collecting information before making their purchase decision. Also, the number of competitors and lookalike products have also grown, making it more challenging for brands to stand out.
If you are an international brand that is not known yet in Brazil, the challenge is even bigger. Not only you will need to understand about e-commerce, but also understand how is the right way to communicate with Brazilians. That is why working with e-commerce requires special dedication to marketing and communication in order to be able to attract leads and convert them info customers.
In this article, we will talk about 5 main strategies you should consider in your strategy to improve awareness and sales.
1. Brand reputation and identification
When consumers identifiy with your brand, they tend to create trust which motivates them to buy and even, in some cases, advocate on your behalf. A research made by KPMG about customers loyalty has shown that people talk to each other about the shopping experiences. 66% of consumers say they would leave a positive review after a great experience and 86% recommend brands to friends and family.
Even though the main focus of e-commerces is conversion, have in mind that you will not be successful if you only focus on that goal. Building awareness and engaging with your target is very important to increase your sales because it amplifies the volume of direct traffic to the website – when the user looks for the name of your brand in the internet.
Social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Tik Tok are the main channels to disseminate products and contents to strengthen your brand´s image and awareness. You don´t need to be present on all of them, you have to understand where your potential target is first.
Build a strategy that considers the top of the funnel, bringing people to know more about your brand, products and its benefits, differentials, attributes and, most importantly, how the brand connects with the person on the other side of the screen.
2. Work with Inbound and Outbound Marketing
Both strategies have the aim new customers offering solutions for their needs and desires. The main difference is that Inbound Marketing attracts consumers with relevant content on each stage of the funnel and Outbound Marketing attracts consumers in a more active way through traditional advertising.
Inbound Marketing – you can develop content to attract, engage and gain customer´s loyalty by reaching their main needs and interests. For instance, if you have a clothes shop, for example, you can create content with tips and trends for looks positioning your business as a reference on the fashion market. This contents can be developed for different channels in various formats, such as: articles for blogs, posts on social media, email marketing, videos for Youtube, etc. The important thing is to understand where your target is and how do they like to communicate.
Outbound Marketing – when it comes to e-commerce, nothing better than work on digital solutions for your outbound strategies. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are the most popular tools for paid media, but you can also explore other channels such as: Tik Tok Ads, Pinterest Ads, Mercado Livre Ads and Amazon Ads. The key to the success here is to work very well on segmenting your brand´s target so you can reach the right people at the right time.
3. Email Marketing is not dead at all
You can think email is becoming a thing of the past, but you are nothing but wrong. Gmail, for example, has more than 1 billions active users all over the world and everyone still uses email. So, working with email marketing is definitely a great strategy. You can work with newsletters, transactional emails after sales, inform about news and promotions, satisfaction surveys, etc.
To start, you will need an initial contacts base to work with. But keep in mind that the person needs to give you permission to send the email. Do not use or buy lists that are not yours. This is forbidden by the LGPD – Data Protection Law – and increases the chances of your email becoming a SPAM. You should adopt legal methods to get the emails of potential customers such as pop-ups, e-books and other materials and tools that will ask for your customer´s information (email, phone, etc).
In terms of content, you should consider some important points for a successful strategy:
- Invest on attractive and segmented content
- Try to send emails with short and straight to the point titles
- Moderate frequency (once/twice a week)
- Personalized and attractive design – easy to read
- Always measure the results and optimize your leads base
4. SEO is key to being relevant
Search Engine Optimization or SEO consists on a set of optimization and techniques for websites, blogs and web pages that aim to improve organic positioning in search engines such as Google by generating traffic and digital authority.
It works related to a good User Experience (EU). In other words, when typing their question in the search engine, the user will always see in the first positions the sites and blogs that have the best answer in terms of content and platform performance. That is why invest in blogs in your e-commerce, for example, can be very helpful for a better ranking for your brand. Other important things to consider when building your website that can help a lot on your ranking:
- Strategic choice of key words – think of all the words people can use to look for your product, names of competitors and sentences they might use.
- Have a clean URL page
- Bet on a clean and interactive design of your site
- Work on internal links on blog posts
- Check the page loading time
5. Remarketing follows you wherever you go
Another efficient marketing strategy is the remarketing (or retargeting) as they show ads to users that have already interacted with your e-commerce but didn´t finish a purchase.
The system identifies theses consumers and products they have visualized, showing them again through paid content on Google Ads or Facebook Ads. This helps the consumer remember your brand and increases the chances of finishing the purchase.
It is also an excellent strategy to recover abandoned carts. For that, brands are betting on giving the customer some advantage – such as discounts – if they come back and buy the product.
It´s important that your remarketing strategy considers the stage of the funnel, creating more assertive campaigns for each target , talking directly to their needs and desires.
These are some of the marketing strategies that will help you build trust and increase your e-commerce sales. If you are an international company looking for establishing your online sales in Brazil, Novatrade can help you building the right marketing strategy for your business.
