Struggling to make your Shopify store a success?
We feel your pain.
That’s why we’ve put together this guide on how to market your Shopify store like a pro. It’s packed with free online marketing tips and tricks that will help you get more customers, increase online sales, boost your brand awareness and more.
Whether you have an existing website or you’ve just started your 14-day free trial today, simply follow these tips and you’ll be on your way to success!
Let’s get right into it…
What You Need Before Executing the Marketing Strategies
Before you implement any of the Shopify marketing strategies that we will discuss in this article, you need to have done the following:
- Defined your target customers
- Defined your repeat customers
- Developed your customer base
- Identified what your unique selling proposition is
Having the answers to each of these aspects of your business will serve as a helpful guide when it comes to applying each Shopify marketing strategy to your own online store.
As you develop and create a comprehensive marketing plan, the process can seem daunting. But it’s important to remember that you don’t have to do it all at once. Start by focusing on the most important elements of your plan and then build from there. Slowly test different marketing strategies and wait to see results before you start on a new bunch of marketing strategies.
Remember, a clear and actionable marketing plan is the ultimate blueprint that will help you in the long run.
Shopify Marketing Strategies
Influencer Marketing
Collaborating with influencers is a great way to promote your products. It’s a strategy that’s been around and has grown in popularity these past few years with the rise of different social channels.
It’s a fact that, as these social platforms continue to grow in ways we’ve never seen before, it’s brought about an increase in the number of people who want to make an impact online.
The idea behind influencer marketing is that brands need to work with influencers who have a relatively large following. Particularly their followers should be in the same niche as the brand. In return, businesses can offer them free products or pay a certain fee for the promotion.
There are many benefits to using influencer marketing as part of your overall marketing strategy. For one, it can help you reach a wider audience and build brand awareness.
Additionally, it can help you tap into new markets and create a stronger relationship with your current customers. And finally, it can help you generate leads and sales.
If you’re thinking of using this marketing strategy, we’ve listed a general step by step process and some tips to get you started.
Step 1: Identify the Right Influencers
Not all influencers are created equal. It’s important to take the time to identify the right influencers for your brand. To do this, keep reading on as we will provide some insightful tips that can help you with this step.
Step 2: Build a Relationship With Influencers
Once you’ve identified the right influencers, it’s important to start building relationships with them. This can be done in a number of ways, such as reaching out to them on social media for a quick chat, sending them product samples, or inviting them to discuss a potential partnership with your Shopify store.
Once you have a relationship with an influencer, it’s important to give them the freedom to be creative with the content they will create surrounding your product. This is why it’s very crucial to identify influencers that can best represent your overall brand and Shopify store.
You will also need to provide them with content that they can share with their audiences to leverage the power of their influence. You could provide them with your previous or most recent blog posts, videos, infographics, or even just images of your products.
Step 4: Monitor and Measure Your Results
As with any marketing strategy, it’s important to monitor and measure your results. This will help you determine what’s working and what isn’t, in order to make necessary changes.
By using influencers as part of your overall marketing strategy, you can reach a wider audience, create more brand awareness, and generate leads and sales.
Additionally, there are a few things to keep in mind before working with social media influencers which we’ve broken down in the next section of this blog post.
Make Sure the Influencer Is Relevant to Your Niche
When choosing influencers to work with, it’s important to make sure that they are relevant to your niche. This means that their audience should be in line with your target market, as they are more likely to be interested in the products that your online store offers.
Check if Their Following Is Genuine and Not Fake
When choosing influencers to work with, it’s important to make sure that their followers are genuine and not fake bots or spam accounts. There are a number of ways to determine whether or not an influencer’s following is authentic, such as looking at how users are engaging on their posts and checking the ratio of followers to likes.
If the majority of an influencer’s followers are fake, then this is something you’ll want to avoid. The point of working with an influencer is to showcase your products to real followers who can and will make an actual purchasing decision.
Ensure They Have an Engaged Audience
It’s also important to make sure that an influencer has an engaged audience. This can be done by looking at the number of likes, comments, views and shares a post has received.
Posts with a high level of engagement are more likely to result in better outcomes for your brand.
If an influencer has a large following but very few people engage with their content, it’s likely that their followers are not interested in what they have to say.
Therefore, when looking for influencers to work with, be sure to check their engagement rate first, prior to contacting them and negotiating a deal.
Determine What Kind of Influencer Your Shopify Store Needs
When it comes to social media influencers, there are two main types: Micro Influencers and Macro Influencers.
Micro Influencers
Micro influencers are those with a following of anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000 followers. They tend to be more niche-focused, and their audiences are typically more engaged than those of macro influencers.
Macro Influencers
Macro influencers are those with a following of over 100,000 followers. They typically have a more general audience and are more expensive compared to micro influencers.
So, which type of influencer is right for your Shopify store?
Well, that depends on what you are looking to achieve as well as your budget. If you’re looking for broader reach and increased brand awareness, then a macro influencer might be the way to go. However, if you’re looking for more targeted and engaged followers, then micro influencers are a better option.
No matter which type of influencer you choose to work with, be sure to do your research first to find ones who are a good fit for your Shopify store.
Loyalty Program
A loyalty program is not only great to have whether your business is an online store or a physical shop with multiple retail locations. Focusing on the e-commerce landscape, specifically in terms of Shopify marketing, we’ve broken down why brands should consider having loyalty programs.
A Way to Reward Your Customers
Establishing a loyalty program rewards your existing customers for spending money on the products that are sold in your Shopify store. Depending on how you want your loyalty program to run, a loyalty program can usually include a points system and offers special discounts or free products over a specified duration of how long and how often your customers have been purchasing from your brand.
Online shoppers love loyalty programs because they can earn rewards for their purchases. These rewards can include:
- Discounts on future purchases
- Free shipping for being a long time customer
- Free samples of your products
Helps Build Customer Loyalty
Loyalty programs also help retailers build customer loyalty. The program encourages customers to keep coming back to your Shopify store instead of buying from alternatives. As a result, loyalty programs lead to increased sales, repeat purchases and referrals. You can definitely anticipate future sales with this Shopify marketing strategy.
Make sure your loyalty program is easy to use, and be sure to promote it on your website and social media pages so that everyone can get on board with it.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a great way to stay in touch with your customers and promote new products, special offers, upcoming sales and more. Be sure to send engaging and informative emails that will encourage people to buy from you.
Your marketing emails should be well-designed and well-written, and they should offer something of value to your customers. Additionally, you should make sure to segment your email list so that you’re only sending emails to people who are interested in what you have to say.
However, there are a few things you need to keep in mind to make sure your campaign is successful:
- Your subject lines should be catchy and interesting
- Your emails should represent your branding
- Your content should be informative and engaging
- Your email list should be thoroughly segmented
- You should test your email marketing campaigns before sending them to a wider audience
In addition, you should also allow customers to unsubscribe anytime.
Sometimes, your existing customers don’t want to receive marketing emails. They might rather want to know more about your offers on other marketing channels such as Instagram where they can see more user generated content or Pinterest where they are inclined to view more of your products’ aesthetically pleasing photos.
At the same time, you also want to bear in mind that because your online shoppers can unsubscribe anytime, having the right email content does truly matter. So think twice during the process of crafting your email marketing plan.
By following these tips, you can create successful email marketing campaigns that will drive traffic and sales to your ecommerce store.
Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate marketing is a fantastic approach for Shopify store owners to increase online sales and boost brand awareness. Having an affiliate marketing program as part of your marketing plan can help you connect with a network of affiliates who will promote your products to their followers. In return, you’ll pay them a commission on any sales they generate.
Referral Program
We highly recommend setting up a referral program for your Shopify store, as it helps increase online sales as well as brand awareness. They allow customers to share your products with their friends, family, and close followers, and in return, they can earn rewards similar to the ones in a loyalty program.
Referral programs are a win-win for both Shopify store owners and the customer. The ecommerce store gets more sales and brand exposure, while customers receive rewards for sharing the products they love.
Social Media Marketing
One of the best ways to market your Shopify store is through social media. But social media marketing isn’t just about broadcasting your marketing messages.
Platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram can help you reach both your potential and existing customer base by promoting your products on the social platforms. More than this, social media can help build trust and credibility for your brand.
Deciding on which social platform your online store will use depends on where your target market is, as well as the products you sell, and the industry of your business.
For example, if your Shopify store sells runners for men and women, Instagram might be a good option since it’s an image sharing platform where you can showcase aesthetic photos of your shoes. So it’s important to find where your customers are on social media marketing channels in order to be able to properly reach them.
Here are a few marketing tactics to implement for a more effective social media marketing strategy:
- Use relevant and niche hashtags
- Encourage stories engagement (if applicable on the chosen platform/s)
- Push for comments engagement (if applicable on the chosen platform/s)
- Optimise your business profiles
- Do some community engagement
Having a strong social media presence is important for two main reasons. First, it allows you to connect with your customers and build relationships with them. Second, it gives you a way to promote your products or services to a wider audience.
User Generated Content
An effective Shopify marketing strategy is the utilisation of user generated content.
User generated content (UGC) is any type of content that is created by users of a specific platform. This can include photos, videos and any other type of content.
There are a number of reasons why Shopify stores can benefit from posting user generated content which we’ve broken down below.
Helps Build Trust and Credibility for Your Brand
When you post user generated content, it helps show that your ecommerce business is legitimate and trustworthy. This is because when users see photos and videos of other people using your products, users are more likely to trust content that is created by other users who are actually using the product. As a result, they’re more likely to want to buy from you. UGC can help in driving traffic and sales to your online store.
Can Help Increase Brand Awareness
Adding a branded hashtag to user generated content builds a community and a sense of awareness around your brand. Similar to how people place a hashtag on their post when joining a viral challenge online.
Can Help You Connect With Your Target Audience
When you post user generated content, it allows you to connect with your target audience more personally. This is because users are more likely to relate to and engage with content that showcases users who are similar (shares the same likes and interests) to your target audience.
Allows You to Show Off Your Products in Action
One of the best things about UGC is that it allows you to show off your products in action from the point of view of others. Meaning users will often post photos and videos of themselves using your products. This gives potential customers a better idea of how your products look and work in real life.
Helps Build a More Engaged Community
UGC can help you create a more engaged community around your brand. When users feel like they’re a part of the brand, they’re more likely to be loyal and advocate for it.
Helps You Keep Up With the Latest Trends
Since user generated content is created by users, it can help you keep up with the latest trends through their content. This is because users are usually the first to adopt new trends.
Can Help You Save Time and Money
Creating user generated content is one of the Shopify marketing strategies that can actually save time and money. This is because you don’t have to create all of the content from scratch, all by yourself. You are simply repurposing existing content from users who made it themselves.
Bonus! UGC Assists in Generating Ideas for Marketing Campaigns
Another great thing about UGC is that it can help you generate ideas for marketing campaigns. How? Users will often post photos and videos of themselves using your products in creative ways. You can then use these ideas to create marketing campaigns.
If you’re looking for a way to improve your Shopify store, then consider user generated content as one of your Shopify marketing strategies to implement. Through UGC you can build trust and credibility, increase sales, connect with your target audience. It’s also a great way to show off your products in action, create a more engaged community, and keep up with the latest trends.
Run a Contest or Host Giveaways
People love free stuff. Who doesn’t?
And running a contest or doing a giveaway definitely builds momentum and interest in your Shopify store. As you offer your customers a chance to win prizes and giveaways, you could ask them to do some of the following that will benefit your brand greatly:
- Enter their email address
- Follow you on social media
- Like a few of your posts
- Comment on your most recent post
- Engage and share your recent story
- Share your social media posts to their story and other social platforms
As you can see, there’s a great opportunity to not only gain new followers on social channels but also to attract new customers through existing customers that share posts about your Shopify store’s contest or giveaway.
Make sure your contest and giveaway rules are clear and be sure to promote them on your website and social media pages. Lastly, choose prizes that will appeal to your target audience.
Set Up Campaigns for Major Sale Days
Brands should have a campaign for major sales such as Black Friday or Cyber Monday. You can even have a sale to celebrate your business’ anniversary. This builds anticipation and excitement on the customers’ end. It also allows customers to plan for the big shopping day and get excited about the deals they will be able to get.
Because brands promote their products that are discounted during these sales events, brands can easily increase online sales compared to a regular priced item on a regular day. Finally, running a sale can not only drive repeat purchases but also help a brand stay competitive and attract new buyers.
When it comes to sales, there are a few things brands should keep in mind. First, it’s important to create anticipation and excitement for the sale. This can be done by releasing teasers or sneak peeks about the sale ahead of time.
Here are a few tips for executing this Shopify marketing strategy:
- Plan ahead. It’s important to start planning your sale in advance, as you’ll need time to promote it and get everything in order.
- Offer discounts. This is self-explanatory, as a sale wouldn’t be considered as one if there were no discounts offered. Make sure you provide a good deal that your customers cannot refuse.
- Promote, promote, promote. Make sure to promote your sale heavily both online and offline to attract as many customers as possible.
- Keep it fresh. Keep your sale interesting by offering new and different deals each year. This will keep customers coming back to your Shopify store for more.
Following these tips can help ensure that your sale is a success. By planning ahead, promoting heavily, and offering fantastic discounts, you’ll be able to attract new buyers and increase online sales.
Content Marketing
Every marketing plan has a content strategy and there is one thing that every good content marketing strategy should have: a clear, defined and actionable goal.
All marketers need to figure out what they want to achieve with content marketing. The clearer you are about your goals, the easier it will be for you to tailor your marketing message and create content that will achieve those objectives.
Some common goals for content marketing could be to:
- Increase brand awareness
- Generate leads
- Engage customers
- Build relationships
- Create loyalty/trust
Whichever goal you have chosen, make sure that it is specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound. Once you have your goal in place, you can start creating content that will help you achieve it.
It can be easy to fall into the trap of creating an abundance of content, only to realise that most of them aren’t in line with what your audience expects from your brand. We’ve listed some tips and marketing tactics below that you might want to consider when creating content, if applicable to your goals.
Inform and Educate Your Audience
You want to provide valuable information that people will find interesting and helpful.
Use Trends and Challenges to Your Advantage
You can join in the trends and challenges for either promoting your products or simply just entertaining your target market. But be mindful that some trends and challenges that use music that make the trend or challenge popular can have a copyright issue. We recommend that you research about your competitors to see what challenges or trends they are doing, to know which ones you can hop on.
Write Evergreen Content
This is the kind of content that remains relevant and useful no matter how long the months have gone by.
Blog posts such as How To’s, FAQs, tutorials and more are examples of evergreen content. All of which can be helpful for your online shoppers and even your target market if they’re are considering to choose your product among other alternatives or substitutes.
Provide Social Proof About How Great Your Product Is
When it comes to making purchase decisions, customers often look for feedback and reviews from other shoppers before deciding to buy a product from you. This is especially true when the product is a new or untested one.
You want to show your target customers how others have benefited from using your product based on real reviews and ratings from your existing customers.
Therefore, it’s important for businesses to encourage repeat customers to leave their reviews and ratings of your products. Positive reviews and ratings can help increase confidence in potential buyers to choose your brand, leading to more online sales.
On the other hand, negative reviews can be damaging to a business’s reputation. So it’s crucial for businesses to address any negative reviews quickly and courteously in order to maintain customer trust.
Do Not Use Stock Images to Replace Your Content
There is nothing wrong with using stock images.
You can explore stock images here and there, and even add them to some of the content you produce.
However, make sure that the majority of your content isn’t stock photos. It should not replace the products that your online store is showcasing. Otherwise, your potential customers might find your business to be an untrusted brand when it comes to delivering an actual product.
Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)
Search engine optimisation is an important aspect of marketing for almost all businesses, and this is especially true for any Shopify store.
Optimising your online store for search engines can help you increase traffic to your website, and boost your ranking in the search engine results pages.
There are several things that you can do to improve your SEO, and some of the most important marketing tactics include:
- Writing high quality, keyword-rich, and relevant content for your blog and other pages on your online store.
- Optimising your page titles and meta descriptions for maximum visibility and click-through rates.
- Using relevant keywords throughout your site, including in your titles, headings, and in the text of your pages.
- Optimise your images for search engines, by adding keywords and descriptive file names.
SEO is one of the most effective ways to market your Shopify store. By optimising your website and its content for Google, you can attract more visitors and increase your sales.
Shopify has a resource section for improving your SEO which we highly recommend you to go through in order to further improve your search engine optimisation efforts. Click here to read all about it.
Host Live Sessions on Social Media
Shopify store owners can gather insights and information (similar to gathering free tips) from customers by conducting live sessions. With live sessions, you can do informal Q&As (question and answers), where customers can ask questions about the products that you offer. These sessions can help your online store connect with customers in a welcoming and engaging manner. It also shows your audience that you want to hear their thoughts and provide answers to help them.
But don’t limit yourself to Q&As, you can get creative with how you want your live sessions to be. Here’s what you can do for live sessions, depending on what can best represent or complement your brand:
- Workouts
- Cooking with influencers
- Tutorials on how to use your products
- Sit down chat with your brand ambassadors or influencers
Offer Discounts, Special Deals or Free Shipping
Discounts and coupons are a great way to encourage people to buy from you. Be sure to offer them sparingly, though, as you don’t want to devalue your products.
Another way to entice online shoppers is by offering free shipping. This is especially effective if you’re selling physical goods. Free shipping helps remove the worry that your customers experience when checking out their cart.
You can also offer other special deals, such as a buy one get one deal or product bundles where the products included are complementary to each other.
Shopify has a built-in discount system which you can learn about here.
Perfect Your Website
Another Shopify marketing strategy that is crucial to your business’s existence is that your website should be well-designed and easy to read. The text should be easy to see and the layout should be simple and uncluttered. Your website should also load quickly, and be mobile and desktop friendly.
It’s also important to showcase compelling videos on your Shopify site, as videos are helpful when it comes to engaging your customers. It gives them a more immersive experience. However, take note that if you add too many videos, your website might take longer to load, which might cause your potential customers to leave and seek out another alternative seller.
Lastly, ensure that your online store checkout is seamless. If you have the budget, you can get a professional from the Shopify experts marketplace to create a seamless buyer’s journey in your ecommerce site.
To have your customers remember you, besides the marketing strategies above, ensure that your online store checkout is as easy as adding items to their cart. This also helps with driving repeat purchases.
By perfecting your website, you can more or less confirm that your customers will have a positive experience when they visit your online store.
Create a Compelling Product Page
Your product pages are a key part of your marketing efforts. Make sure they are designed in a way that presents your products clearly. Additionally, use persuasive language to encourage more customers to buy your products. Including high-quality images and videos are a must, as it helps show off your products in the best possible light.
Participate in Online Forums and Discussions
Online forums and discussion boards are additional avenues to reach new buyers and build credibility for your brand. You can maximise the freedom to share your expertise on relevant topics, but be sure to include links to your store whenever appropriate.
However, you shouldn’t only speak about the expertise your brand provides, you should also allow users of the platform to engage in a conversation with your brand where you receive valuable insights and information from them.
But what does that mean?
It means that you can ask not only ask for feedback but also some tips on what your next post should be or what products do they want you to sell next and so on. Users will feel involved in the process of your business while your brand received free online marketing tips.
Discussions are definitely a fun way to keep the momentum going about your products and Shopify store.
Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is another option to explore if you want to reach new customers and grow your business. It might be a bit expensive, but the return on investment can be worth it.
There are a variety of different paid advertising options available, such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, Instagram Ads and more.
But platforms such as Facebook and Google, allow you to target new customers, get more traffic to your Shopify store and increase online sales by creating custom ads that target specific demographics, interests, and even behaviours. To know more about advertising on Google and Facebook, Shopify has created a blog regarding it which you can read here.
Make sure you research the different paid advertising platforms available and choose the one that best suits your needs.
Give Your Customers Lots of Value
Running your Shopify store takes a lot of work, but it’s important to remember that your customers are the most important thing. Without customers, who will enjoy the benefits that your products have to offer? If you can give them a lot of value, they’ll be more likely to stick around and continue doing business with you, increasing customer lifetime value. We’ve listed some tips for providing your customers more value which you can find below.
Provide Excellent Customer Service
If your customers have a positive experience with your company, they’re much more likely to stick around. On the other hand, if they have a negative experience, they’ll likely never do business with you again.
When it comes to providing great customer service, you can have multiple approaches but you need to set yourself apart from the competition. Fortunately, we have two suggestions that can definitely help a lot.
First, be sure to respond to inquiries quickly and politely. If there is a problem with an order, be sure to take care of it as soon as possible. And second, be sure to go above and beyond for your customers. If they are happy, they are likely to return and recommend your business to others.
With these two tips and the other efforts you plan on implementing, you can provide great customer service, where your customers connect on a more personal level with your brand. It all boils down on how you make them feel seen, heard and valued, for them to actually notice that the value your provide stems beyond your products.
Provide Complementary Products That Are Personalised
Now, we’ve briefly mentioned this in the previous section of this article, but by providing products that are complementary to what your customers want to checkout, can make your buyers feel that you actually understand their needs and wants.
Keep Track of Your Results
At this point, you can see why its’ important to measure your results and make changes to your Shopify marketing strategies based on what’s working and what’s not.
Furthermore, being flexible and adapting to changes in consumer preferences, industry trends, best practices and so on, are all necessary in the world of marketing.
Finally, don’t forget to have fun! Marketing should be enjoyable throughout the process of implementing your Shopify marketing strategies.
Conclusion
Marketing your Shopify store can be tricky, but if you follow these tips and strategies you’ll be well on your way to success. Just remember to be patient and keep trying new things until you find what works best for you.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed, don’t worry – we have all the solutions you need to start seeing better results from your ecommerce marketing campaigns.
Contact us today so we can help you get the most out of your online store. Thanks for reading!
