Online marketing strategy is key to success of any ecommerce business. Each business is unique and hence online marketing strategy will vary. However, here are some areas that should be covered while devising online marketing plan for an ecommerce website.

Again, I’ll keep updating this list as and when I learn more and so, watch this space…

• Affiliate Marketing: It brings in traffic and hence profits to the website. Amazon is a good case study to prove it.
• Banner Advertising: examples are Google Banner Ads, Yahoo Banner Ads.
• Blogs: It is a really helpful PR tool and SEO tool. You can use this to establish relationships with your customers. You can use blogs to provide expert opinions in your industry to your customers and hence instill confidence in them. As you keep adding content, it also helps higher rankings for your website in search engines for innumerable keywords relevant to your industry.

  For some reason, if you do not want to add blogs to your website, then you should definitely have an information section where you can add informative articles about your company, product and/or service. Remember, the more you inform your visitors the more confident they will feel as they will perceive you as an expert.

• Comparison Shopping: providing product data feeds to comparison shopping websites such as: Amazon, BizRate, Froogle, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, Yahoo Shopping.
• Customer Reviews: Customer reviews are helpful beyond words. So, provide incentive and encourage your customers to write positively about you in various review websites. Most savvy customers check customer reviews before taking the risk of buying your product and/or service. If you can, it’s helpful to allow customers to write reviews on your website. Again, Amazon is a good example.
• Get Listed: It is worth it to get listed in as many reputable and relevant websites as possible. Try to get your website listed in all websites that have good reputations and/or are authoritative organization in your industry. It’s important to get listed in as many directories, main search engines and yellow pages. Here is a list that you can refer. If you write articles about your industry, you can publish these articles in various websites. Hence, get listed to attract traffic to your website.
• Google and Yahoo: Pay very close attention to Google and Yahoo. They provide us many ways to get to our customers. So, explore all possibilities. For example: Submit xml site map to Google, take advantage of Google Base, generate ROR Site map, Yahoo Site Explorer.
• Newsletters: This is one of the effective tools to introduce new products and/or services to your existing customers if done right. It can be a means to keep your customers informed and hence maintain a relationship with them. Remember, out of sight means out of mind. So, by keeping in touch with them through newsletters you should aim to establish a place for yourself in you customers’ mind. This will make sure that they will remember to recommend your company to their friends and/or acquaintances if and when needed.
• Offline Marketing: If you have the resources, you should not ignore offline marketing. Using TV, radio and/or press will only help your marketing efforts to succeed. Hence, I recommend exploring this avenue if you have the resources for it.
• Pay Per Click Advertising: examples are Google Adwords, Overture Sponsored Search.
• Press Releases: It is worth it to hire a PR company or a consultant who can manage press releases for your company on a regular basis. Press releases can be distributed over the Internet via websites such as PRWeb.
• RSS: Use RSS technology to provide feeds to the RSS aggregator on your customers’ PC. You can provide product information and services information. You can distribute your newsletters using RSS. Sky is the limit here. So, make sure to take full advantage of it.
• Search Engine Optimization: This should be first and foremost strategy to plan before going to a web designer. It’s important to plan the structure and design accordingly. It’s important to optimize the website and make it user friendly and search engine friendly.
• Study Your Competitors: Keep your eyes open and watch your competitors. Learn from them as much as possible.
• Update Your Website: Update your website at least weekly and keep it fresh. Add fresh content and give a reason for your customers to bookmark your website and visit your website often. From time to time, you should do a complete overhaul of your website as and when the need arises.
• Website Analytics: It is important to get website analytic software to analyze your data before you launch a website. Ideally, this should be the case but it’s never too late. Website analytics is the only way to find out which marketing strategy is working and which one isn’t. It will give you an insight into your marketing strategy. I’m using Google Analytics. I have used and will refer ClickTracks if you have the budget for it.

Related Articles:

• Submit Website to Directories, Yellow Pages and Search Engines
• SEO Checklist - What Not to Do
• How to write Meta tags?
• How to write Title tag?
• How to Select Keywords?
• Web Usability - Part of Search Engine Optimization

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