One of the primary goals of any ecommerce business is attracting as many leads as possible and converting them into engaged and loyal customers. Ecommerce market is highly competitive and overcrowded, making it difficult for any business to efficiently draw customers their way. Not only that, but online consumers are savvier and more aware of what they need and expect from an ecommerce store. That’s precisely why inbound marketing is essential for any ecommerce business.

What exactly is inbound marketing? Simply put, it’s a strategy to generate more qualified leads and turn them into customers by using activities such as social media campaigns, search engine optimization (SEO), email marketing, content marketing, and so on. You must have a compelling and quite efficient strategy in order for it to yield the best results. Here are a few essential inbound marketing tactics and their importance for your ecommerce business.

Improving website traffic

Website traffic is one of the most important business aspects for ecommerce stores. The main reason is that the more web traffic you have, the better your chances of scoring a sale. That’s why you need to improve your websites visibility and online presence, so that potential customers can easily find and access your store. The best way to achieve that is through search engine optimization (SEO).

SEO is a cost-effective marketing strategy that not only helps your business become more visible online, but also takes part in building your reputation and online credibility. SEO includes various activities, such as improving your website performance, creating and sharing top quality content, as well as ranking for specific keywords your customer may use to find what they need. The more time and effort you invest in SEO, the better your ranking will be, and thus your online presence as well.

Generating more qualified leads

As we have mentioned before, improving website traffic is essential for your ecommerce business, but not every website visitor is a qualified lead. A qualified lead is a consumer that’s actually interested in your products or services, but has yet to make the purchasing decision. That being said, the more qualified leads you have on your website, the higher the chances you have of making a sale. As a part of your inbound marketing strategy, you should start a social media campaign.

Social media platforms allow you to engage with your target audience and build long-lasting relationships with them. You must take part in conversations and share relevant content with your audience in order to build trust. That way, you’ll have more organic traffic and more qualified leads going straight to your website. If you have difficulties establishing your presence on social media, you can always consult a digital agency, such as Leafcutter, to give you a helping hand.

Nurturing leads

The buyer’s journey for each lead is different, but essentially it takes time and effort to convert a lead into a customer. For ecommerce business this step is arguably the crucial one. Nurturing leads means leading them down your sales funnel one step at the time, until you can encourage them to make a purchase. For this purpose, running an email marketing campaign can be of great assistance. Email allows you to send out customized and personal promotions and offers, in order to encourage the leads to take the desired action.

In addition, you can segment your email list to classify prospects based on investment, willingness to buy and importance, as well as personal preferences. That way, you can tailor your messages more efficiently to each individual lead or group of leads. As a matter of fact, email segmentation can help you improve open rate by 14.32% and click-through rate by 100.95%.

Ensuring customer loyalty and engagement

Attracting and converting customers is very important for ecommerce businesses, but that’s not the only factor that determines business success. As a matter of fact, retaining customers is equally important as converting them. That being said, it’s six to seven times more expensive to attract a new customer than to retain an existing one. What’s more, repeat business customers oftentimes spend around 67% more than new customers.

If you want to effectively keep your customers, you’ll have to give them a good reason to stay. An excellent content marketing strategy is crucial for this step. Delivering top quality content to your customers is the most reliable way to ensure loyalty and engagement. However, it must be highly relevant in order for it to be effective. That includes ranging, categorizing, and segmenting your products and services on your website, as well as publishing content over social media or email campaigns.

Inbound marketing plays a vital role in your ecommerce store’s success. No matter how good your products are, or how reasonable your prices may be, it’s all in vain if there’s no way to attract customers and make them aware of your offers.

Lauren Wiseman is marketing specialist, contributor to bizzmarkblog.com  and entrepreneur. She helps clients grow their personal and professional brands in fast-changing and demanding market, strongly believing in a holistic approach to business.

 

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