Get Started With Getting An Audience For Your eCommerce Store

There are exceptions to most rules, so feel free to take issue with this thought, but here’s a piece of free advice that is generally true: don’t get into eCommerce selling solely on the basis you don’t like interacting with real people. Or rejection. Or networking. Many Magento businesses fail because their eCommerce business plan only goes as far as their own backyard, followed by an imaginary universe of nameless mystery purchasers who they expect to flood in automatically after 3 months for no reason other than the natural magnetism of your brand. Let’s get real: your startup business needs you to actively go out and grab the attention of a lot of people you don’t know.

You could invest a great deal of money on widespread eCommerce advertising and networking to gain a greater audience, but until your sales make up the amount you spend on this it’s always going to feel like you’re playing catch-up. A more creative idea is to start making sales and natural contacts by making business friends and cashing in on their influence. Try this for starters. Have a look to see who is advertising on Google in your industry – those movers and shakers who are ready to invest in pricey frontline advertising just because it’s a Tuesday, not because their life depends on it. Find out who to speak to regarding their marketing and actually phone them up. Make that human connection. Let them know who you are and what you’re up to and find out what it would take to get a mention on their site or a recommendation from their brand. Maybe you can negotiate an affiliate program.

Make sure you let them know how much you respect their brand, and come up with ways in which associating the two eCommerce businesses has an upside for them as well as you. Have confidence in your own brand, or why should they? Deal with any rejection as if you were an actor waiting for the big break they know will happen. Pick yourself up and try again. Then one sunny day you’ll find yourself being landed with more work to do than you can possibly manage without expansion. Bam! That’s what you’re after.