Robert owns a business in his local community that attracts visitors from far and wide. People love his products, so he decides to open an online store to enable more people to buy from him. After creating and launching his store, however, he doesn’t see many sales.

What’s Robert missing? A marketing plan.

Without an online store marketing plan, people can’t find your online store. You need to promote your store online, so more people discover your products and buy them.

Not sure how to get started? You’ve come to the right page!

On this page, we’ll provide you with seven online store marketing ideas to help you get started!

P.S. Want to get the latest tips and tricks for marketing your business? Join 150,000 marketers by subscribing to Revenue Weekly!

1. Invest in your site’s design to set a positive first impression

First on our list of online store marketing ideas is to invest in your site’s design. Your website is the heart of your online marketing efforts. Regardless of the marketing methods you use, you will drive leads to your website to get them to purchase your products.

You need to set a positive impression with your audience, so you must invest in your site’s design.

There are a few key components you need to have a top-notch design:

A style that reflects your brand

Did you know that 94% of first impressions relate to web design? Your audience judges your business based on how you design your site, so building a beautifully designed site is critical.

You want to choose a style that reflects your brand, so your audience builds better brand recognition. When they remember your brand, they’re more likely to choose you when it comes time to convert.

Choose a style and color scheme that fits with your business’s aesthetic.

So, for example, if you own a luxury brand store, you may opt for a clean and sleek design with a black and white color scheme, like Chanel.

Consistency

To have a good website design, you need to make sure your site’s design is consistent. You want your audience to feel like they’re on the same website, regardless of what page they browse. While your pages can have different formats, they should all have the same style.

The best way to ensure consistency is to create a style guide. A style guide sets guidelines for designing each page on your site, which ensures that no matter who works on your site, you have a consistent design.

Mobile-friendly design

People will browse on your site from multiple devices, so you need to ensure your site looks good on all devices. You need to integrate responsive design, which enables your site to adapt to whatever device a user uses. It allows you to deliver the best experience for your audience.

Fast load time

Users hate to wait for slow-loading pages. If your site takes too long to load, users will bounce from your site. Your audience expects your website to load within two seconds.

To improve site load time, use Google PageSpeed Insights to see your site’s current load time and get suggestions for how to improve your site. If you aren’t experienced with optimizing the backend of your site, you can invest in page speed services from a digital marketing agency like WebFX.

2. Advertise your products through social media to reach new leads

If you want to know how to promote your online store, start by advertising your store through social media. Social media ads are an excellent way for you to get your business in front of the people most interested in your products.

You can advertise on numerous platforms, including:

• Facebook
• Instagram
• Twitter
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn

Social media ads offer advanced targeting, which means you can refine your target audience to reach the most qualified leads. You can target leads based on demographics, buying habits, and more.

When you create social media ads to market your online store, use high-quality visuals. Whether you use photos or videos, be sure that they’re clear and high-quality. If you use grainy or stretched images, people won’t click on your ads.

Additionally, have an appropriate call to action (CTA) when you set up your ads. If you want people to buy your products (and you’re targeting people in the bottom of the funnel), using a CTA like “Shop Now” is better than a CTA like “Learn More.”

3. Use email marketing to promote your online store to qualified leads

When you learn how to market your online store, you learn the value of using email marketing as a tool for promoting your business. This strategy has a return on investment (ROI) of $44 for every $1 spent.

Email marketing enables you to send the content directly to your audience.

To get started with email marketing, you need a list of subscribers. You can obtain subscribers by asking people to sign up at your physical location (if you have one), adding an email sign up bar to your header or footer, or integrating email sign-up pop-ups on your pages.

Once you have a list of subscribers, you’ll want to segment your subscribers into relevant groups. Not everyone interested in your business will have the same interests, so segmenting your audience will help you deliver email content tailored to the subscriber’s interests.

You can send your audience dozens of email types, from newsletters to promotions to product launches.

When you send this tailored content, you can increase engagement by personalizing your emails. Something as simple as adding the subscriber’s name in the subject line can go a long way in boosting engagement.

Overall, email is a great medium that enables you to promote your online store directly to people who already have an interest in your business, which can help nudge them towards conversion.

Considering email marketing generates 50% more sales than other lead generation methods, you don’t want to neglect this strategy from your list.

4. Use search engine optimization (SEO) to help people discover your business

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most crucial online store marketing ideas. Users search on Google for products like yours every day. If you want these users to find your business in the search results, SEO is a critical strategy for helping you achieve that goal.

If you want your business to rank in search results, start by choosing the right keywords.

Keywords trigger your site to appear in search results.

To find relevant keywords, conduct keyword research. You can use a keyword research tool like KeywordsFX to find search terms for your site to target.

When you search for keywords, focus on long-tail keywords, which contain three or more words. Long-tail keywords are better for your site because they have a more specific search intent, which indicates the people searching those terms know what they want.

When you find your long-tail keywords, you’ll integrate them throughout your page to help it rank. Don’t incorporate your keywords too much, though, as it will lead to keyword stuffing and negatively impact your ranking.

Aside from selecting keywords, there are a few other best practices you’ll want to follow to help your site rank in search results:

• Ensure your site works on mobile
• Optimize your title tag and meta description
• Blog regularly
• Ensure your site loads quickly
• Build a backlink profile

5. Offer special promotions to entice people to buy

When you’re marketing an online store, you need to develop ways to get people to notice your store and take an interest in your products. One great way to do this is to offer special promotions.

Special promotions or coupons can drive people to check out your business and order your products. Whether you offer an exclusive discount or a special price on a product, it can get people to buy.

You can offer these special promotions through your emails or social media platforms. These channels are great for getting your offers out to people who are most interested in your products.

When you create your promotion, try adding a sense of urgency. Make it a limited time offer and add an expiration date. When it’s more urgent, your audience is more likely to act on it.

6. Use pay-per-click (PPC) advertising to boost sales

Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is an integral part of online store marketing. These paid ads appear at the top of Google search results. This prominent placement enables businesses to earn more clicks and conversions.

Like SEO, the key to a top-notch ecommerce PPC campaign involves choosing the right keywords. Your keywords determine when your ad appears.

You’ll want to select long-tail keywords for this strategy too. Long-tail keywords cost less because they’re more specific, so they have less competition. Additionally, people who search for long-tail keywords know what they want, which is why their search is so detailed.

For example, if you ran an ad for the keyword “water bottle,” you may or may not fit the user’s search intent — it’s hard to determine because the keyword isn’t specific.

On the other hand, if you run an ad that targets the keyword, “pink insulated water bottle,” and someone searches that term, you know they’re more likely interested in your product.

Once you select your keywords, you’ll bid for your placement. You’ll set your maximum bid, which is the most you will pay when someone clicks on your ad. Your maximum bid and quality score determine where your ad ranks on the page.

After choosing your bid and uploading your ad copy, you’ll launch your campaign, receive your placement, and start driving leads to your page.

Bonus tip: Take your PPC campaign a step further by running Google Shopping ads! These ads appear at the top of search results with a picture of your product, which can entice shoppers to pick your item!

RELATED CONTENT: Google Shopping Ads

7. Optimize product listings with high-quality images

Have you ever heard someone say, “These things sell themselves!” about a product? In some cases, it’s true! That’s why having an optimizing product listing is on our list of online store marketing ideas. Optimizing your product listings with photos can go a long way in helping you earn more sales.

The crucial thing to remember with selling online is that people can’t physically see or touch your product. You need to sell them through the photos you post on your product listings.

You must use high-quality images so your audience can get a good look at your products. High-quality images enable them to see every detail of your product and market your products better.

So, for example, check out this product listing from Adidas for their golf shorts. When you look at the listing, you can see numerous high-quality images for the product listing.

Adidas also enables you to zoom in on each photo to see the finite details, like the button style.

Adding high-quality visuals, like photos, videos, and interactive 360 photos can help you market your products better and earn more sales as a result.

Online store marketing can help you earn more leads and sales

Now that you know how to promote your online store, you can start using these tactics to reach more people who want to buy your products.

If you aren’t sure how to start implementing these tactics for online store marketing, WebFX can help.

We’re a full-service digital marketing company that has a team of over 250 experts ready to help drive positive results for your business — we’ve driven over $2.4 billion in sales and managed over 11.6 million transactions for our clients in the past five years.

Ready to put these online store marketing ideas to work? Contact us online or call us today at 888-601-5359 to speak with a strategist about our ecommerce marketing services!