11 Tried and Tested Strategies For Growing Your E-commerce Brand

There’s immense competition for e-commerce customers, and even stores that operate in a niche sector often find that, at some point or another, their growth hits a wall.

There are two ways to look at growth stagnation: as a problem, or an opportunity. Kickstarting your brand’s journey can help to take it into uncharted waters, offering unparalleled potential.

If you’ve got some time, energy, and money at your disposal, then try some of the following e-commerce growth strategies. We’re confident that they’ll make a difference!

Hire a Marketing Firm To Reach New Customers

The digital marketing world is competitive — and it’s also not something that you can simply throw money at, and expect results. It’s too complex for that. If you’ve been running some PPC campaigns that aren’t getting the kind of results that you hoped for, then it might be time to outsource the task to a digital marketing agency. You’ll pay for it, but the investment is usually worth it since they’ll know exactly how and where your marketing money should be spent.

The proof of its success will be clearly evident. If you notice an uptick in customers, then it’ll have worked!

Retarget Your Existing Customers

Most e-commerce businesses go exclusively after new customers. However, while there is, of course, merit in attracting new people to your brand, it’s worth remembering that new customers aren’t the only way to push your business forward.

Most successful businesses rely on repeat customers, not one-time customers. Don’t assume that your previous customers will automatically come back to you. After all, people are busy. Sometimes, it’ll take a little reminder — and perhaps an incentive — for them to remember just how awesome your store is. A well-timed discount code for customers who haven’t made an order in a while can help bring them back into the fold.

Modern Growth Solutions

There’s more than one way to attract customers to your business, especially in this digital age of ours. In fact, the internet presents a near-endless number of options that simply wouldn’t have existed in the past!

One effective method is to work with ambassadors, which can help brands reach entirely new audiences. And not only that, but you’ll meet those potential customers in a space that makes sense, a space in which they’re comfortable. Combine this with working with affiliates, and you’ll have a turbocharged marketing strategy that can uncover plenty of new customers.

Upgrade Your Product Imagery

Website imagery has become increasingly important over the past few years. Remember way back when, when a website would be about 90% text? Today, it’s effectively the opposite. Most people browse e-commerce stores on their phones, and modern phones have exceptionally capable screens. By upgrading your product imagery, you can give your potential customers the experience of almost what it’s like to see your items in person. If you haven’t yet invested in product videos, then now’s the time to do it — this isn’t commonplace, but it’s becoming a trend, precisely because it delivers such a great experience to web users.

Offer Personalized Help

There’ll be people who arrive at your website and know exactly what they’re looking for. But there’ll also be people who are broadly interested in what you have to offer but don’t really know which of your products is right for them. In most cases, those people will simply leave your website. A few will make an educated guess, make an order, and hope for the best, but most will just leave.

One way to grab those customers is to offer personalized help that guides them towards making the right purchase decision. There are a couple of ways to do this. One method is to provide an AI-powered quiz which, once they’ve asked a few questions, will provide a list of recommended products. This can also be an effective way to grow your email marketing list (more on that later); simply ask for their email address at the end of the quiz, and email them the product list.

Another method is to have a live chat feature that connects confused customers with a customer service representative, who can help them find the right products.

Grow Your Email Marketing List

As much as you’d like to think otherwise, it’s unlikely that your website visitors are going to come back to your website time and time again. Even if they’re interested in your products, their lives will be busy, and it won’t be all that surprising if they forget about you.

Landing in their email inbox is a good way to remind them who you are. Building your email marketing list can be tricky, and takes time, but once you’ve got it, you’ll be able to unleash the power of email marketing. Studies have shown that email marketing has an ROI of around $36 for every dollar spent, making it one of the most effective marketing strategies out there.

Flash Those Happy Reviews

In a hypercompetitive market, there’s little place for timidness. If you’ve received some outstanding reviews, then let the world know about it — potential customers always look for signs that what they’re buying is the real deal, and there’s no better way to demonstrate that (before they’ve bought it, at least) than social proof. Having a few reviews on your website can subtly evoke trust in your brand, making it much more likely that someone will get out their credit card and make a purchase.

Rethink Your Checkout Processes

Your customers’ time is valuable, and it’s important to respect it. We can’t put a number on how many sales will have been lost because a brand has put too many steps between the customer making a product selection and actually paying.

This is one aspect of the e-commerce market that has become increasingly streamlined in recent years, and if you’re still behind the times, then you’ll only have yourself to blame!

So, what does a streamlined checkout process look like? First of all, try to minimize the number of pages a customer must visit. It’s also recommended to allow for auto-filling of the customer’s data (such as shipping address). Sometimes, just having to fill out that information is enough for a potential buyer to think twice. Finally, offer as many payment methods as possible.

Check New Industry Standards

You can normally tell when an e-commerce store is falling behind the times just by visiting its website. In some cases, this is by design — the owners are still selling items, but they’ve effectively moved on. In other cases, it’s not by design, and the owners don’t even realize that they’ve fallen behind.

One way to avoid this problem is to keep up with what others in your industry are doing. This should include checking out your direct competitors and also the brands who are a level up from where you are; what’s standard at that level will likely be standard at your level in the coming years, too.

Don’t rely on your own perception to determine whether your website is meeting the standards of others in your industry. Ask your friends, family, and others involved in your business. They might see something that you haven’t.

Dive into the Data

You’ll have a lot of data at your disposal. However, unless you actually do something with it, then it won’t be all that useful! There are a bunch of ways you can use your data to improve your processes. For example, you can understand the aspects of your website that are working, and which are not. You can figure out which are your low periods, which would indicate that you should have more sales and promotions around that time. More broadly, you can use data to get to know your customers on a deeper level, which in turn will allow you to present an even better experience.

Finally: SEO!

We’re not going to say that investing in your website’s SEO is the most insightful or mind-blowing strategy on this list. After all, unless this is your first day on the internet, you’ll already know all about SEO.

However, we’re mentioning it because it’s simply too important not to. One mistake that e-commerce brands make is believing that, just because they’ve invested in their SEO once, they don’t need to again. SEO is one of the most complex, dynamic aspects of the internet, and the strategies that worked a couple of years ago might be outdated today. If it’s been a while, then reviewing and updating your SEO, preferably with the help of a specialist, can have a significant impact.

Conclusion

It takes time for any business to establish itself, but it’s an even longer journey for e-commerce brands. The competition is fierce, so you can’t expect to build an empire overnight! However, you’ll want to see evidence that your business is moving in the right direction. By incorporating the strategies we’ve outlined above into your business operations, you’ll be giving your brand the best possible chance of reaching as many people as possible.