The future is looking bright for your business. The competition might be tough, but with these 14 strategies you’ll have no problem competing and scaling up in 2022 & beyond!
Expand – increase the size of what’s being sold on an online store by adding more items or services; Compete – trying not just to sell products at competitive prices as opposed to higher priced ones (this makes it easier when customers switch brands); Scaling Up- increasing inventory turns over quickly so this involves getting new suppliers while maintaining relationships between old ones.
Here are 7 ways to promote your online store:
The process of developing a marketing strategy begins and ends with the writing of an executive summary. Like the name suggests, it will summarize — i.e., catalog, align, and bring together — all the other sections in the document as well as provide you, your employees, your advisors, and your (potential) investors an easy-to-understand and implement overview.
This is where you set the stage and paint a broad picture of what your marketing activities will be focused on for the upcoming year.
Goals could include (but are not limited to):
As you define your objectives, use real numbers to add gravity to how you plan to achieve the goal.
If the goal is “Grow revenue by 25 percent each quarter” your objectives might be:
Don’t worry about getting into the “how” just yet, but rather let this Goals & Objectives summary set the stage for the rest of your ecommerce marketing strategy. As you flesh out the next few sections, you’ll build the case for why the market will be receptive, and how to achieve these objectives tactically.
You can expect a well-honed paragraph here, one that takes into account the following:
Of course, not everything on this list needs to be included in the mission statement. However, being aware of each item will help you prioritize. For example, there’s an old, high-end men’s shoe store in my town. If they were to launch an online store, I would write their mission statement to say: “Since 1915, Lexington Shoes has outfitted gentlemen with luxury, hand-crafted footwear.
Our founder Charles Lexington believed the only way to deliver a premium experience was to make eye contact, listen deeply and make recommendations based on the person, not the products on the shelf. “
After a century and three generations, we still believe in this principle and recognize its growing significance in our globalized, fast-paced society.
The mission statement differs from the value proposition, in that the value proposition is a concise promise of value.
Peep Laja of CXL says: “A value proposition is a promise of value to be delivered. It’s the primary reason a prospect should buy from you.“ In a nutshell, a value proposition is a clear statement that explains how your product solves customers’ problems or improves their situation (relevancy), delivers specific benefits (quantified value), tells the ideal customer why they should buy from you and not from the competition (unique differentiation) (unique differentiation).
Your value proposition is the first thing people should see when they land on your site, and it needs to be front and center on every page and accessible from every major entry point.
In this part of the marketing strategy, you should give as much information as possible about your ideal clientele.
This includes any relevant customers demographics:
“Customer Psychology in Ecommerce” offers a sphenomenal summary the various elements that go into building personas. If your customers are U.S based, I recommend using the Census Bureau and Bureau of Labor’s website to gather the information. I’ve also found City- Data(dot)com to be an excellent source of quantifiable demographic information.
The target customers section should also include relevant psychographic profile information:
Everything from your brand’s positioning and advertising strategy to the kind of local markets you aim to break into will be affected by this. Finding your niche can help you “speak the language” of your consumers and generate more revenue from your creative endeavors.
Describe your target market strategy using this. Are you targeting the mainstream market or a specific audience? Try to provide answers to the following questions while assessing your target market:
Customers’ impressions of your product in comparison to those of competitors’ products or alternative solutions to the same problem should be discussed here as well. What are their attitudes toward your company, and to the general product category you serve?
Specify how they make their purchases:
And finally, provide market size estimates for those included in your target market.
An overview of the situation as it is at the moment the plan is given should be included in this area of your marketing strategy.
As it examines many aspects of your company, your market, where you are, and how your rivals are performing, this component in particular can take a considerable lot of time.
If your firm is already established, now is the time to evaluate what is currently effective and what is not. This study will be helpful to new firms in understanding the market they will be entering. Analyses of the following domains are also included:
The “product” would be in how you’re positioning the product category and the advantages of buying from you instead of everyone else if you’re selling the same product as other retailers. What are the main features of the products, the major benefits received by those using the product, current branding strategies, etc.?
Describe the pricing utilized at all levels of distribution, including the cost for wholesale purchasers, retail customers, and any incentives or discounts provided.
Distribution Describe the many methods by which the product is made available to consumers, including the distribution channels employed, the main advantages enjoyed by distributors, the methods by which the items are transported, and the procedures for processing orders.
In terms of advertising, sales promotions, personal selling, public relations, and how the product is now positioned in the market, describe the promotional techniques and methods.
Think on which marketing campaigns over the last year succeeded where others had failed. Include precise numbers wherever you can.
Talk about the many services provided to distributors and end users before, during, and after the transaction. Include utilization and performance figures for each service, as well as the effect they have on the bottom line. Customers who use our personal styling service often spend four times as much as non-users. Wholesalers who use the ordering portal’s fast order feature process two times as many orders as wholesalers who do not.
Analyze the distribution of the goods offered by your business.
This includes your own website, any external e-commerce sites you could sell on, physical stores, pop-up stores, affiliates, recommendations from past clients, etc.
It’s also worthwhile for your own website to analyze which traditional sources generated the most revenue in the past (i.e., Adwords, Facebook Ads, Organic Search, etc.).
List each supply chain channel and give a summary of how well they are performing.
Include the requirements/benefits that distributors are looking for. The necessity for localized co-promotion with a physical merchant or referral fees on marketplace websites like Amazon or Etsy may fall under this category.
Include how your product contributes to the distributor’s operations as well.
List the sort of distributor, their size, their geographic area, and the markets they service when analyzing distributors.
Here, you’ll take a close look at the companies that also cater to your ideal customer base.
You’ll want to study direct competitors:
You’ll also want to discuss their weaknesses and strengths including:
perceptions of the target market
Capacity for research and development
It will take some searching to find this. A fantastic article on Audienti may be helpful.
A SWOT analysis of your rivals could also be a good idea to give a general summary of their Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
In this part of your marketing plan, explain how you want to stand out in your industry and how your prices will help you do that.
Using the information you gathered in your situational analysis, prices will likely need to be changed by distribution channel, competitor positioning, geographic region, and so on.
The prices on your own channels shouldn’t be too close to those of your distribution partners who sell the same product. For example, if you sell for 20% less than a well-known partner, you could upset the partner and lose their distribution.
When talking about positioning, you might also want to say a few words about how you’ll position your product with your current distribution partners.
Do you make exclusive lines of products for certain distributors? Will you give customers who buy through that partner extra bonuses? Are there things that a customer can only get if they order directly?
Make sure to show how all of these changes and adjustments affect the bottom line.
This will show the effect of:
Also, show the margins that come with working with each channel and how profitable potential price/positioning changes will be.
Since this is about your current channels, the goal is to show how these changes will help you reach the goals you set up above.
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