How digital marketing has helped ecommerce grow
The advent of the iphone heralded a new era of smartphones, which were capable of executing most of the tasks a conventional laptop could, on a slightly smaller scale and which could fit in the palm of ones hand. Naturally the smartphone market received a huge boost after the events of September 2007. Where people were able to carry their smartphones with them at all times and still be able to do everything a laptop was considered vital for. This consequently resulted in people spending increasingly more time on their phones and this opened up a new exciting dimension to the world of marketing.
With the attention of the average human being shifted from devices like TVs and laptops to smartphones it became vital for marketers to exploit this space to conduct activities and further their business agenda. Ecommerce sites began cropping up everywhere to capitalise on the boom in smartphone market as this represented a huge opportunity for sellers to promote and sell their ware. This in turn called for a change in traditional means of marketing to better suit the online marketplace and its users. Thus the age of digital marketing began.Digital Marketing is the sum of all activities undertaken online to create awareness and or drive sales of a particular product or service.
Today online marketplaces have more than eroded the value in physical ones wherein over the last 10 years 70 percent of physical marketplaces have had to go online in order to maintain their customer base. Digital marketing has been a vital cog in the vast ecommerce machine that seems not to stop its onward march (growth). Given below are a few ways Digital marketing has helped the ecommerce sector grow over the years:
Search Engine Optimization:
Google is a search engine that uses programs (crawlers) to scan through your website index all its contents meticulously, an arsenal of complex algorithms them analyses these indexes and ranks them in such a way that the highest ranks appear first on the SERP (search engine results page). According to PowerReviews, 35% of consumers start their shopping journey on Google search. Making sure your eCommerce store is optimized for search engines is key. Both onsite & offsite SEO efforts must be put in place and constantly tweaked as search algorithms are changing.Search engines divert vast volumes of web traffic to ecommerce sites and remain integral to smooth operations. In order to be on top of this game, digital marketers combine quality and value adding content with keyword research and keyword targeting to make sure the site pops up as high up in the SERPs as possible when relevant keywords are input from the users side on search engines. This is an active ongoing process as search engine algorithms are constantly evolving and digital marketers must regularly adapt to these changes and accordingly optimise the site so it may continue to figure high on SERPs.
Search Engine Marketing:
Ranking on SERPs are a completely automated process and higher rankings cannot be sold, usually it takes SEO a few months to show meaningful results. However for more short term results SEM is an effective way to drive business. SEM entails paying for space on SERPs where your product/service is promoted on the result page itself. This is part of Googles Adwords service which is one of the largest of its kind in the world. Google projects your ad in places of highest relevance to the persons concerned and it helps businesses to connect with quality leads and genuine customers. Highly targeted advertising is a forte of this service that is provided by google and other search engines. Another avenue is PPC (pay per click). This entails bidding for certain keywords that if input by the user will project the sellers ads. The search engine charges the advertiser on the basis of number of clicks on the ad. PPC ads have 3 vital parts: The promise, the ad and the landing page which in unison helps to drive sale and contribute to a seamless shopping experience for the user.
Social Media Marketing:
Synonymous to the rise of smartphones before the last decade, the rise of social media has been equally meteoric. Social media represents a large share in the activities of smartphone users especially in the age group 18–32. This again represents an opportunity for sellers to vie for a users attention online. Social media platforms have access to huge troves of data on users and their algorithms can easily deduce any particular users likes, dislikes, attitudes and behavioral tendencies. They are thus in pole position to be able to forecast or infer the users need for any particular product or service. Shopable posts on social media has picked up steam over the past couple of months and has gradually grown to garner a respectable share in the online businesses of sellers. The aim here is to seamlessly guide a prospect from pre sale to sale in a quick and comfortable manner without actually exiting the app. This point to point sale strategy is highly effective due to the quality and relevance of ads that are on display on social media. Social media commands a huge number of daily users and thus targeted and relevant social media ads are a great way of not only generating sales figures but also creating awareness of products.
Quality Content:
It is important to accept that not all interactions with users/consumers result in a sale, some users are merely looking for information on a product or service. It is crucial for digital marketers to populate their website with quality content which not only can potentially generate a sale for the retailer but can also provide value to the user. This in turn results in a more deeper relationship between the buyer and seller and makes it easier for the seller to upsell and cross sell to this user in the future with minimal input thanks in no small part to the
Quality of the content on the website. There has been an upward trend in the use of personalised emails which provides a more deeper immersive experience for the user and even though it does not result in sale it garners more deeper and personal connections with prospective clients. Content management is a crucial part in SEO where the search engine algorithms only scan and rank pages with quality content which the algorithm feels can be relevant to a user. Content can make a user feel connected to a brand and this can sooner or later result in a sale.
