Tag: marketing strategies

Marketing Strategies to Quickly Sell a Hoarder House in Los Angeles

Selling a hoarder house can be one of the most hectic jobs when it comes to someone who isn’t very much aware of this or is more new in the home selling business. Because just as much as of the efforts a normal house requires to be sold, a hoarder house takes more of it. This is mainly due to the reason that more than half of the population of people who move into new homes want to spend the least of their savings on their new homes. Rather a more reasonable and the least of what they can spend in making a house worthy of being lived in, is what they mainly look for.

Now due to this very reason, a lot of the people who’re looking for new homes especially in a city as beautiful as Los Angeles; barely look at hoarder houses to move in to. Now there isn’t necessarily just one serious reason for hoarder houses to not be sold easily. Instead, there’s much of it that people pay attention to when it comes to buying a hoarder house. But, some of the most common problems in such situations are mentioned on https://socalhomebuyers.com/4-common-problems-selling-a-hoarder-house-in-california/. Now just because it’s hard, it doesn’t really even mean that it is also impossible! Instead there still are many ways that you can make use of and improve the marketing of your hoarder house, in order to sell it faster. Let’s look into some such ways;

Basic Strategies to Sell a Hoarder House:

Understand the Problem:

Now this might not be a major or very necessary step to be considered on top priority, but if you really want to get done with selling your hoarder house or have someone you want to help in it; it’s surely the right start. Since hoarding isn’t really a huge disease but rather more of a habit that many don’t have much control over. So when you’re up in the process of helping a hoarder, it’s important you let them know that they shouldn’t be ashamed of it and that it’ll all be done just right and positively.

Don’t Publicize Its Interior Pictures Before:

Since the inside of the hoarder house you will have to sell may not be that catchy or interesting to make use of in the advertising to grab people’s attention, consider not at all doing it! Rather you can either take some tidy and suitable pictures of the exterior of the hoarder house, or probably skip on the publicizing part to eliminate more chances of making buyers leave right after one sight.

Tidy Up The Exterior for Better Marketing:

Because it’s important to market a house to sell it faster, there’s no way you’ll be able to get done with it without suitable pictures faster. But just because you can’t get one with tidying up the place from the inside fast, doesn’t mean it’ll be the same from the outside right? Instead, don’t waste much time and get right into tidying up the exterior of your house; from gardens to the entrance. This will help the house catch more attention of the buyers as well as market it well.

Explore The Extreme Damages Too:

Hoarder houses aren’t just full of the damage and mess we see on the outside, but rather a lot of it on the inside too. Because hoarders don’t really pay much into keeping an eye on what really goes wrong in their houses, there are more chances you’ll find plenty of things to be fixed in such houses. So before you set out to sell your or someone else’s hoarder house, it’s important you explore all the inner damages and get them fixed too!

Spend Some on Cleaning Professionals:

When it comes to cleaning a hoarder house, it’s far better to spend some money on cleaning professionals than looking for any other suitable options. And when I say cleaning professionals, I don’t just mean any home cleaners, but actual professionals who have previously cleaned hoarder houses. This is mainly because hoarder houses don’t just consist of large piles of trash newspapers as it seems to look. Rather there’s a lot more underneath it that you can’t really see; something more unhygienic and toxic to clean on your own, that extreme professionals have done before!

Now that you know some of the most major steps to work through with that hoarder house, you want to sell, it’s no more going to be impossible to sell it quickly even in a city like Los Angeles. Although things might not be as simple as selling a more suitable house, you would surely get rid of some of the major complications in terms of selling your hoarder house quickly.

October 16, 2024
Lesson 2: How To Plan The Perfect Blogging Strategy?
Blogging is all about using the right strategy and you already know that though the first lesson. If you have missed that out, it is all about The Art of Blogging for Beginners and I strongly suggest to dive into it as well (after reading this post).

Lesson Two in Blogging University would be all about planning the perfect blogging strategy. Yes, not your usual strategy but the perfect one.

You know, the one that actually kills your opponent and shooting you straight into the top spot. Yup, that’s the one!

The perfect blogging strategy consists of several parts:
1. Product
2. Potential buyers
3. Marketing strategy
4. Social media strategy
5. Outreach
6. Guest posting
7. Backlink building
8. Monitoring and benchmarking
There you go folks. The top 8 important rules when it comes planning your blogging.

Want to download the PRF version instead? Download here.

Disclaimer: While I could probably write 20,000 words with these 8 points and bore you to death, I will explaining all of these in a very simple form. In the coming lessons, these will be divided into several parts for even deeper analysis and case studies. So stay tune!

Blogging strategy #1: Understanding your blogging products

Good products usually make more sales and good blogs get more love from readers.

Blogging product is your blog post. From the blogging topics to the quality of each blog posts. You need to nail it every time … or at least try to create that uber or epic article.

If you can’t write great articles, you are in trouble. In blogging, your blog post will determine your success.

Don’t forget, an uber or epic article is useless if you have a boring headline.

So, the combination of a great article plus eye catching headline will be a huge winner.

One of my case studies was so successful that until now, it is still generating traffic. Take a look here.

The title was “How I increased Google+ Traffic By Over 700% Under 7 Days”.

In the perfect blogging strategy, you need to have a great blogging product and in this case, it is a no-brainer case study. The goal was to achieve as much traffic as I possibly can under 7 days.

Do whatever it takes to maximize the power of the article and summarize the information after the test period. The second last step is to compare the information (before and after) which is relatively easy.

The last part to make this whole blogging strategy fits perfectly is the title. The title I created above has two meanings; utilizing human’s want and mysterious.

Increasing Google+ traffic is probably everyone’s dream and improvement of 700% under 7 days is definitely a mystery.

Actionable blogging strategy: Know what you can ‘sell’ as a blogger. Determine the topic, time factor and human’s reaction will prove to be a huge win-win solution.

Blogging strategy #2: Building a blog that involves your readers

As I have said in the first lesson, knowing what your readers is important.

But hold on a moment. If you have just started a blog, you would probably have problem finding out what your readers want to read.

And thus, you need to play a little guessing game which involves two steps:
- Topic selection
- Research
In topic selection, you need to decide on the topic you would to write on. Let’s take an example which is blogging tips.

With that information, you need to figure out what is the popular topics that is driving traffic and there are several tools to work on it namely Google search, Google Keyword Planner, Long Tail Pro and Scribe SEO.

Google search – Cheap and fast way to get the top 5 or top 10 results. It doesn’t give you the number of searches but it gives you an idea what are trending and who are your potential competitors.

Google Keyword Planner – Excellent tool for bloggers who are starting up. You get all the information you need under one roof and it doesn’t cost you a dime.

The below is a video on how to use Google Keyword Planner the right way.

Long Tail Pro – One of the fastest tool when it comes to keyword research. You can find the type of keywords which are trending as well as the chance of ranking for the keyword.

Did I mentioned that this is one of the most affordable keyword research tool for bloggers?

Scribe SEO (some call it Scribe Content) – The only SEO tool which I had used for a very long time. Created by CopyBlogger team, it helps serious bloggers and marketing agencies plan their strategy. For me, this is a great tool to help create the prefect blogging strategy.

This is how the back end looks like (analysis part).

Blogging strategy #3: Laying out your marketing strategy

Imagine the movie, The Italian Job. Plans are laid out, recheck and even practiced to ensure that the robbery plan will work using fully customized Mini Coopers.

The same concept goes for blogging.

Write great articles (and headlines) are just the starting point but no one is going to know what you had done, if you don’t tell.

Have you ever tried writing a couple of articles a day for a month straight just to realize that you are getting less than 500 traffic a day?

I did that and I was demoralized, big time. The problem lies in me!

Strangely, I was hoping that Google will ‘spot’ me writing great article and shoved me up the top spot.

Yeah, right! Keep on dreaming.

The truth is, you need to market it.

Adam Connell from Blogging Wizard (a very close buddy) did told me this, “If you are putting 100% into writing an article, you need to put the same effort or twice as much into marketing”.

Actionable blogging strategy could consists of:
- Blogging approach (tutorial based, case studies and blogging series like Blogging University and interviews)
- Utilizing social media to your advantage
- Outreaching and community works
- Guest posting and collaborations
Blogging strategy #4: The importance of social media in blogging

Social media is growing and the numbers are increasing nearly double yearly. Like it or not, social media is already playing a role in your blogging strategy.

Let’s take a look at the largest social media platform today; Facebook.

Credits to Statistic Brain

People say social media ROI is crap. You get a mere 3% outreach (max) if you do it right. So, this means that you have the chance to reach up to 18,864,000 active members. And let’s say only 0.5% of them who will actually respond to your social update.

This means that you have a chance of reaching out 94,320 people in a single day.

While 94,000 plus is the maximum outreach you could get, even reaching a fraction of them would prove to have a crazy impact in your blogging.

There are dozens of platforms you can choose from today. One of the biggest mistake many bloggers do is that they are putting too many eggs in various baskets.

Unless you have 48 hours a day to spend, you need to maximize your social media strategy for better ROI. Focusing on 3 (example) platforms could easily be much better than focusing a dozen sites at one time.

Actionable blogging strategy: Choose the right platform to start working. Always focus in having one primary and two secondaries. If you need help choosing, here are the top 7 social media platforms for bloggers.

Blogging strategy #5: Increase blog traffic using bloggers outreach

If you are blogger who wish to have more traffic or looking for ways to build authority, you need to practice outreach.

Outreach is a blogging strategy to reach out to other bloggers (in most cases, popular bloggers). The concept is pretty easy.

Create a chance of building a relationship by including them in:
- Case studies
- Interview series
- Round ups
In return, they would probably share the article or even feature you on their blogs. Now, if they have 5,000 followers, you have just increased the chance of reaching out to another 5,000 readers.

If you are planning to perform outreach, the rule is to be humble. Avoid contacting them just because you wanted their help but instead, be their friend and follower for at least a period of time.

Once the path is set, all you need to do is to ask.

Actionable blogging strategy: Focus on influencers who are highly related to your niche. Sometimes, the number of followers they have are not that relevant.

Blogging strategy #6: Using guest blogging to your advantage

Google hates guest posting like children hate their veggies.

Back in those days, you start asking around (randomly) on guest posting and that’s it. Nowadays, the tide has turned and you need more than that to be safe.

Advantages of guest posting:
- Good chance of building a name
- Reaching out to the fans in the particular blog
- Building a better readership
- Fostering relationship with other bloggers
Disadvantages of guest posting:
- A huge red flag if you are not careful
- Easy penalization by Google
While it is absolutely fine to do guest posting, you have to be safe and the only way is to be choosy.

If you are interested in the new guest posting methods, I strongly suggest you to dive into this article, How to do guest postings while avoiding Google penalization?

Actionable blogging strategies: Choose to work only with bloggers you really know and the websites are NOT guest posting hubs. Here’s a simple guest posting checklist you can start with.

Blogging strategy #7: The meaning of backlink and how it affects SEO

Backlink is still important and SEO is not dead.

The rule of the game is simple. The more backlinks you have, the better chance for you to obtain a better PageRank score (plus ranking). But take this with a pinch of salt since having 1 backlink from PR6 blog is much better than 100 backlinks from PR1 blogs.

As a blogger, keep in mind that backlink is very important. For every article you publish, make sure you have ‘backlink’ in mind.

The easiest way for backlinking is ‘shared to be shared’ concept. Linking an external link from your blog could easily trigger and link back to your site (trackback for example).

Of course, backlink is an extremely lengthy and I will continue my preaching in the following lessons.

As for SEO, bloggers who are starting up do not need to have those epic SEO tools. All you need is to practice the basic SEO fundamentals and you are probably good for the next couple of months.

The video below explains everything you need to know about SEO.

Actionable blogging strategy: Keep in mind the power of backlinks and SEO. While SEO is always overrated, you should not underestimate the power of it.

Blogging strategy #8: Monitoring the blog progress and keeping an eye on your competitors

This is a tedious process and what you’ll be reading below are just the icing of the cake.

Monitoring works in several ways; from monitoring the process of your own blog to visitor’s reaction to colours and your competitor’s ranking.

In blogging, monitoring allows you to gain an upper hand advantage. For example, Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools give you data on the location of your visitors, click through rates and how your blog is ranking on search engines.

These are good information for you to analyze and amend your blogging strategy to keep up with the current trend.

Benchmarking on the other hand relates closely to your competitors’ scores. You need to know:
- Why they are ranking
- How they are ranking
For me, I consider myself in the middle of the league table and I often benchmark myself with others. At times, it is really cool to see some bloggers contacting me via email and sharing stats.

In this blogging technique, you focus on two very simple things; Personal and competitors’ blogs.

What does it felt like when you know a lot about your competitors? It felt like having an UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) preying on your target from 5 miles away and they have absolutely no clue about it.

Actionable blogging strategy: Start a simple blogging strategy for a month. Compare your stats with your competitors and after that, setting up benchmarks for you to achieve. The goal here is to ensure that you are creating logical and achievable goals for yourself.

Wrapping up the perfect blogging strategy for bloggers

Using a single blogging strategy doesn’t really make the cut in today’s world. With the amount of competition, you need to have various strategies and the above are 8 very simple ones that you can execute in no time.

It would take a few adjustment and amendments to be able to create the perfect blogging strategy. That’s why it is important to ensure that you learn from every strategy you have used.

Now, it’s your turn. What do you think and what was your blogging strategy before reading this post?

Stay tune for more and the next lesson in Blogging University would be ‘Finding Profitable Niche And Topics To Blog’.
February 19, 2024
5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic
Content marketing is all about putting your articles on the first page of Google search.

Or at least, that’s one of the top three goals for many bloggers.

I started a simple survey that comes in my newsletter. The goal was simple; Drop your request to me and I will blog it up for you. And if you have yet to participate in the survey, you can do it here – Content Survey.

The request was made by one of my readers in Kerala, India with the question, “Anything along the lines of content marketing.”

I hope you are reading this and here are some useful content marketing strategies which can potentially double your website traffic in a very short period of time.

Want to save the article for later? Download the PDF copy here.

Content Marketing Strategies

How do you do content marketing for 2014?

Content marketing is never easy. If it is hard last year, expect a bomb this year instead.

If you think that content marketing is just for businesses, you are dead wrong. You need it even if you are a small time blogger.

Want to rank on the first page of Google? You need content marketing. Period.

While that literally answered the question on how important content marketing is in today’s world, the biggest question I am going to touch today is as below.

How do you do content marketing with just 5 steps?

Content marketing #1 – Strategies

In my latest blog post on professional blogging tutorial, I outlined one very important factor; having a bulletproof strategy.

Even before you purchase a domain or pick one up for free on Blogspot, you need to consider:
- What your blog is all about? (single vs multiple niche)
- Who would be your readers?
- What makes others come to your blog?
- How to make readers come back for more?
- What makes the blog different from the rest?
And the list continues.

In content marketing, you need to be absolutely sure on the path you are heading to. The goals set have to be:
1. Achievable
2. Logical
3. Within a specific time frame
When it comes to content marketing strategy, putting a high bars in the beginning of the ‘race’ would easily lead to many failures.

Content marketing #2 – Headlines

Article headlines are the first thing your readers read and therefore, it is a no brainer to put all your effort into constructing a great one.

Headlines should be craved accordingly to:
- Reader’s interest
- Latest headlines
- Mysterious
- Delivering promises
Let’s take for example, both of these headlines:

5 Simple Content Marketing Strategies To Double Your Traffic

5 Content Marketing Strategies To Build Traffic

For starters, both the above are very close to each other but by just adding a few words, you could easily skyrocket your conversion rate; getting more readers to read your article.

The first title is obviously a better choice because it has the word ‘simple’ and ‘double’.

This give an impression for the readers that the 5 tips are easy to do (less time consuming) and a promise that it would increase blog traffic by at least once.

A few other headlines that you could use are:
- Best 10 … To …
- A versus B
- How to make money while you are sleeping (example for mystery headlines)
Want to dig in more? You can check out what Brian Clark wrote here, How to write magnetic headlines.

Content marketing #3 – The content itself

Two questions that easily pop into mind would be:
- The length of the article
- Creating out of this world discussion
While there are probably hundreds of discussions in regards to this matter, I ought to differ.

People says longer articles gets ranked better by Google and many of us are scratching our heads just to reach the 1,200 words mark.

True?

Honestly speaking, my case studies (unpublished yet) show that articles between 1,000 to 2,000 words would rank better but with heavy optimization; keyword density, title tags etc.

Not only that, I have a website ranking on page two of Google without any SEO done to it and the epic part? The articles published on the site are created by a robot, has around 600 words on average per article and articles created are around 60% readable.

Does longer articles get ranked better? Probably.

Do you really need lengthy articles to rank well on Google now? Not really (or until Google changes its algorithm again).

So, truth debunked? Go figure!

And our next discussion, article creation.

When it comes to content marketing, you need great content if you want to stand out from the crowd. If your blog posts are plain and simple, you are already losing half the battle.

I often consider content marketing (or writing articles in this sense) as an art; The art to captivates audience.

Take a read on what some of the professional and prominent figures in the blogging industry on their blogs and you will notice a huge difference between them. Some would simple start with a story while others, would give you bits of the story to drive you nuts.

Either way, those are real darn good content marketing techniques.

Moral of the story? Every single word that you use should be followed by another to make your reader NOT pressing the X button.

If you are wondering, the below is one of the oldest tricks in blogging.

Bribe your visitors with information they are looking for, not opposite.

Content marketing #4 – The effect of images in a blog post

Okay, so you had written a super lengthy post of 2,500 words.

Great ~ but why is your bounce rate so high? Why are readers not digging into your articles?

Chances are you are not using images.

A picture represents a thousand words. Same goes to blogging!

The concept here is fairly simple. Readers (including me) will not read your article from A to Z if it is over 1,000 words. Unless you are a great writer like Brian Clark, you are probably nowhere near success.

In content marketing, you need to make sure that you are using the power of images. You don’t need to use high resolution images for all your blog posts. Instead, choose the right one which represents the best meaning of the word/sentence.

Have you noticed that Pinterest is one of the prominent social media platform growing in the shadows of Facebook?

Images are getting more important and if you are losing if you are not using images.

Blogging or content marketing as what I call is a business. If you want to start growing your ‘business’, start utilizing images for Christ’s sake.

It probably cost you around 10 seconds to find one thanks to Google.

So seriously, use images, slides, videos or any visual related sources to drive your website visitors crazy. Yes, make them “wow”!

Content marketing #5 – Are you ‘marketing’?

Social media is apart of the content marketing strategy

You may have:
- The best content
- Fully optimized with on-page SEO
- More than 2,000 words
- Killer headlines
- Epic images, slides and videos
And you are popped a beer and congratulate yourself for the job well done. Well, you are nearly there … but not there yet!

Traffic is not going to flow in just-like-that with the above optimization techniques.

Seriously!

If you want your content to go viral or being shared across the various social media platforms, you need to market the article to ready-listeners.

Yes, you’re right; Those followers you have in your mailing list.

If you do not have a mailing list yet, you can get one here for 30 days free and no credit card required.

While you can reach hundreds or thousands of followers with the right email marketing provider, the job doesn’t stop there.

You need to continue marketing the article as long as it is still published and this, my friend, is one of the biggest mistakes done by many content writers.

People tend to share new articles for the first 2 to 4 weeks from the date published and after that, everything goes flat; no more marketing after reaching the 5th week mark.

If you are writing evergreen articles, then make sure you schedule them for social media sharing at least once a month. You can easily promote these articles across various social media platforms using Buffer.

Not sure how to use it? Check this article out – How to schedule posts using Buffer App?

Do you like the content marketing tips above?

Tell me what you think using the comment form below and if you like to throw in your request, head over to this link and drop your request there!
February 4, 2024
4 Steps To Transform From A Newbie To A Professional Blogger
Some call it professional blogger while others call it problogger.

Out of every 10 bloggers I meet, 9 wish to be one. The chances of success you are asking?

I’ll give it a 5% chance of success.

There are tons of blogs out there but are there so less bloggers who really achieve success in this blogging industry? Is it really that tough to become a problogger?

Have you ever wonder why there are so many bloggers fail to achieve success in blogging?

It was lunch time and as usual, I was having my meal with the accompany of Feedly. I saw the notification bar and I had over 70 new posts to read and I thought “Okay, let’s choose 10 and that should be just nice for an hour break”.

I ended up reading only one.

Yes, you hear me right. Just one article.

It was an article written by Jay Baer from Convince And Convert. You can find the article here. Basically, it was about 6 steps to build a great content marketing strategy. And heck, he is really successful (off topic).

And this struck me like lightning bolt as I remembered a received a message on Facebook the day before from a friend asking about ‘being an problogger’.

While Jay outlined 6 steps, mine is much more simpler with just 4.

So, let’d dive in and get the ball rolling!

If you want to be a problogger, you need to constantly blogging … even Gandalf does that behind the scenes!

How do you become a problogger in just 4 steps?

Blogging is no longer the 90’s way where backlinks and normal blogging would lead to a successful blog. Now, you need to be different and by different I mean being bold.

Don’t just share the darn information you can find on the web but instead, share something others are not doing (at least for starters).

Putting aside all my rant (above), here are the 4 points:
- Goals
- Strategies
- Marketing
- Measurement
Step 1 – Setting actionable blogging goals

If you are expecting blogging once a day and traffic will pour in itself, then you are dead wrong, dear friend.

For Christ’s sake, blogging nowadays is not the same with years back. Everything is evolving!

Setting the right goals in blogging is always simple and allow me to share my goals with you:
- What are you good in? – Consider blogging on things you know is highly recommended
- Who do I target? – Questions such as male, female, age and location are great starts
- Why would people come to my site? – Ask yourself what you can offer to your visitors
- What do you consider as success? – Realistic is the key here
I got to admin the above has little or nothing to do with goals but those are great start to get your goals ‘moving in’.

One important thing I would like to stress is NEVER consider these as your goals:
- I want lots of traffic
- I want to get PageRank 6 (or any digit)
- I want to make thousands of dollars like Mr You Know Who
Those hopes and dreams won’t bring you far. Sorry.

Be realistic or else, you will forever miles away from the big boys in blogging.

Step 2 – Strategies determine both success and failure in blogging

You want to be a problogger and I get it. Now, do you have an action plan to work with?

Today, everything in blogging is changing. For example, SEO in 2014 is different from 2013.

The keyword in blogging is balance. Make sure you have a balance strategy which involves SEO, social media, content marketing and link building.

Being good in one doesn’t guarantee you success in blogging.

If your content strategy is still ‘creating tons of articles and wait for traffic to flow in’, you are in for trouble.

A few sources to help you with blogging strategy could be:
- Getting feedbacks from readers (I uses GetResponse for Q&A survey ~ Try it for 30 days free)
- Social listening (check out the trending topics on Gogole, Facebook and Twitter)
- Search engine analysis (I uses SEO PowerSuite for a comprehensive analysis ~ Free trial version)
Step 3 – The viral effect of marketing

You need to market your content. People will not magically find your content … unless you are as popular as Neil Patel, Pat Flynn or Darren Rowse.

You should treat your blog like a product and launch them the same way you would do for a product (Jay Baer).

One of the biggest mistake I often see on Facebook is sharing and article, tagging God knows how many people and hoping it goes viral.

Well my friend, that is only going to land in you the spam. *Most of us hate irrelevant tagging. So please cut it off.*

Instead, find the right group and tell them to read about it. Of course, a good way to start is by informing your mailing list and you can start one using this guide.

Why is it important to measure blog success?

Step 4 – Measuring your blogging success

If you want to be a problogger, make sure that you are measuring your success. You don’t have to do it on a daily basis but instead, you can opt for weekly or monthly measuring.

A few metrics that you could measure in blogging are:
- Strategy vs Traffic
- Conversion rate
- New vs Returning visitors
So, why do you need measurements in blogging?

Measurements align you with your blogging goals (refer step #1). It gives you a complete outlook of what you come short of getting more blog traffic and of course, possible steps to start becoming a professional blogger.

When it comes to measuring blog success, ensure that you are giving yourself goals which are achievable as raising the bar sky high would lead to much failures and a drop in motivation.

Now, what do you think it takes to become a professional blogger?

I certainly hope this short article could give you a simple outlook on becoming a problogger. Do you have any plans to strategies you would want to share with all of us?

Use the comment form below and tell me your thoughts on this matter.
February 4, 2024
Marketing Strategies For Ecommerce Platforms
These days, the majority of consumers (perhaps you included) prefer shopping online as opposed to driving or walking to the mall. It’s more convenient, saves time, provides more variety, and leads to money savings. However, this is something that many entrepreneurs are well aware of, which only means one thing. Competition in eCommerce is only getting stiffer. This also means that to have an edge over your competition and come out on top, you have to go the extra mile in satisfying your target customer’s needs. Most importantly, your marketing strategies will be a huge determinant of success or failure. They will dictate your brand’s popularity, sales conversions, profits, and ultimately, the growth curve of your eCommerce business.

So, if you just launched your eCommerce business website or you’re about to, it’s important to understand the various ways you can market your business, products, or services to win more customers and make more sales. Starting with the definition of the subject, here are some marketing strategies for eCommerce platforms online entrepreneurs should know about.

What An eCommerce Platform?

Simply defined, an e-commerce platform is a software solution that incorporates various functions and operations of online business into a single central solution. It includes features to allow functions such as the following:
- Marketing
- Inventory & order management
- Promotions and pricing
- Procurement
- Reporting & analytics
- Content management
- Customer support
Now, as you might have guessed already, this article focuses more on the marketing bit of eCommerce platforms. There are several types of eCommerce platforms (software), including SaaS, open source, Pass, and store-owner variants. However, most of these features or functions are more or less the same in terms of how they work. So how can you get the most out of your eCommerce platform’s marketing bit? Well, read on as we count together, the eCommerce marketing strategies you should know about as a smart entrepreneur.

1. Search Optimization is Paramount

Over the past few years, many online entrepreneurs have discovered the importance of search engine optimization and the impact it can have on a business. It is undoubtedly one of the most essential parts of marketing in the digital world we live in. As you may already know, SEO involves strategically enriching your site pages with content and keywords that your target audience is more likely to search for. Sunshine Prame from Mass Appeal, a digital marketing and SEO company in the UK says that when done right, Search engine optimization places your site on the top most positions of search engines like Google. This not only makes your site easy to find online, but it also increases your site’s traffic, and sales conversions because consumers will easily find the products or services you‘re offering.

To get the most out of SEO, you’ll need to perform thorough research, so you can identify the right keywords as well as their variations. Other than research, SEO also takes a bit of work because it requires continuous performance analysis, creating content, monitoring the results, and so forth. This is all the more reason to consider working with a reputed digital marketing agency that provides SEO services to businesses like yours.

2. Content Marketing

As they say, “Content is King”. Especially in the digital space, nothing is more important than content as far as marketing is concerned. Apart from providing descriptions and product information on your site pages, content marketing means using various types of content to attract potential customers to your site and even influencing them into making a purchase. Content marketing is by far one of the most effective ways to generate leads for your business. The most commonly used types of content are blogs, although many people also use stunning images, interesting videos (ads), and ebooks for marketing purposes.

When it comes to content marketing, you generally have two main options. You can make your own content and save money, or hire experienced content marketers for the job. Your decision will largely depend on your budget as well as how ambitious you are in seeing your venture grow into a household name.

If you choose to create your own blog content, it is important to watch that you don’t make your posts all about your new products. Instead, you can write an interesting post with related content that lures the reader into checking out your site. If you’re selling kitchen appliances, for instance, the post could be about amazing recipes to try out on weekends and suggest a few appliances or tools the reader would need to make these recipes. You’ll be surprised at how effective this strategy can be in generating leads over time.

3. Social Media Marketing

Social media has become a way of life over the past few years. With the ever-growing number of users worldwide, social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest have turned into a goldmine for business owners, big and small alike. The best part is that social media marketing is actually free, with an option to upgrade to a paid plan for a better experience. Apart from being a platform where you can showcase your products or services and promote your brand, it also allows you to connect, engage, and interact with your customers as well as potential customers. This is not to forget that social media presence can be a good way to build trust as it shows customers that you’re a legitimate business. For many businesses, it also doubles up as one of the most reliable customer service platforms. When promoting your eCommerce site over social media, here are some helpful tips.
- Ensure consistency in presence and branding
- Keep your followers engaged
- Provide new content and posts regularly
- Use stunning images and videos
- Create a shoppable IG page
- Try Facebook ads and promoted pins
- Make your blogs/content shareable
4. Product Page Reviews

The importance of user and professional online reviews can never be overstated when it comes to eCommerce. According to a recent publication on Inc.com, at least 84% of shoppers trust online reviews as much as they would rely on recommendations from their close circle. Before making a purchase decision, the majority of shoppers read reviews first. In other words, very few people want to buy something that hasn’t been tried by another person before. This is basically why many companies invite potential customers and target consumers into a practical demonstration of what the product can do, and so forth. Such customers can give their account of what they think of the product, meaning that even entirely new products can have reviews.

It also means that customer reviews are an essential part of eCommerce marketing. While not all reviews may be positive, it is important to have customers provide feedback on your site or other platforms after using or trying your product. In case a customer wasn’t satisfied and ended up leaving a negative review, you’ll want to follow up with the issue and ensure that the customer’s concerns are addressed. This will paint a bright picture of your brand, and future potential consumers will see that you care about their experience and needs. Depending on the e-commerce platform you’re using, features and plugins to help you upload customer reviews are available.

5. Pay-Per-Click Advertising

Perhaps next to SEO, PPC is the next big thing, a strategy you can’t afford to ignore as an e-commerce entrepreneur. It basically involves working with PPC advertisers and affiliates, paying them for every click, like, or conversion made by users on your money link. As a marketing strategy, PPC will cost you a bit more on average, but when used well, it is one of the most effective strategies to spread awareness and increase sales. This largely relies on how strategic you are in tracing your target audience’s whereabouts and placing the products in front of them at the right time. There are various ways and avenues to use PPC ads, including the following:
- Search advertising (Adwords)
- Social media ads
- Display ads
- Google shopping
- Remarketing ads
- Sequential remarketing
When it comes to PPC, you will need to work with an experienced digital marketing agency to get the most out of it. This is basically why it tends to be costlier than most of the e-commerce marketing strategies discussed above and below. All the same, it is an investment that you won’t regret making if you choose the right expert.

6. Use Influencer Marketing

This is another strategy that many online businesses and eCommerce retailers are profiting hugely from. In the simplest of terms, influencer marketing involves using already-popular brands and personalities to attract leads and profit from their already-established audience. The popular brands or personalities are referred to as influencers, who may also be celebrities, professionals, or even business entities.

In most cases, influencer marketing works best when used in social media marketing campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube. The amount you pay for these deals will largely depend on how popular the influencer is, how many followers they are, and how many conversions or clicks you’ll get from the same. When choosing an influencer, it is important to ensure you pick one that is followed by your target audience. Influencer marketing can be an amazing way to not only popularize your brand; but also attract traffic to your eCommerce site, increase revenue, and see it grow to newer heights.

7. Don’t Forget Email Marketing

Email marketing is another great way to keep your target consumers engaged and coming back for more purchases. It is often a great channel to deliver product and service updates to subscribed users, as well as send reminders, offers, and other tools to improve sales conversions. It especially works best for potential consumers who already have an interest in your product line or business. With an effective email marketing campaign strategy, you can automate personalized emails to increase the chances that the recipient will read it and it won’t end up in the junk folder.

8. Use Quizzes for Leads

For most eCommerce marketers, it can be a huge challenge to acquire a user’s personal information during sign-up. This is because some shoppers don’t like providing their personal information online, meaning that it’s easy for a willing buyer to click cancel or back as soon as the site requests for personal information. It ends up hurting conversion rates in the long run. However, Quizzes can provide a way around this challenge. On this note, lead generation quizzes can be an amazing way to compel your prospects with reasons to share more of their personal information apart from just their email addresses. With more personal information, it becomes easier to create personalized marketing information for prospects in your email list and other sources.

9. Use Gift Guides More

Many e-commerce sellers will only use specific seasons to promote items and products that make great gifts. However, you don’t actually have to wait until it’s almost Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, or Christmas to promote giftable items for those occasions. These seasons are also more competitive. Instead, you can have a gift-guide page and provide content all-year-round to help your prospects to make meaningful giftable purchases. After all, no day is a bad day for gifting!

10. Link Wishlists and Subscriptions to Discounts

There are several types of online shoppers. One; are those who shop in advance and may leave items in the cart. Number two; are those who keep items in the wishlist for when they’re sure enough they can make the purchase or when it becomes available. The third category, are those who just make a purchase, never to be heard from again. Now, for the latter, you can use offers and discounts to get them to subscribe to your site or email newsletter. In the case of abandoned carts and wishlists, reaching out to such users with a reminder email and a discount or incentive attached can be a great way to increase conversions.

11. Tap Into Sold-Out Products

One of the most common frustrations online shoppers face is finding that a product they’re so interested in is out of stock. It also means lost profits for the business, but you can also make it work for you. Whenever you have sold-out products, you can ease the frustration by suggesting similar or alternative products (using tags) or asking the user to request a notification once the product is back in stock.

12. Have an App Developed

Lastly, you can also have an app developed for your eCommerce business and ensure it is enabled with push notifications. This can be a great way to keep your brand in the minds of your customers while also making their shopping experience easier and faster.

While e-commerce is among the most effective ways to do business these days, it doesn’t always come easy. You’ll often have a competition to beat, not forgetting several hurdles and challenges on your way. As far as marketing and lead generation are concerned, the above are a few strategies you can take to the bank as an e-commerce entrepreneur.
May 28, 2020