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In order to create a successful eCommerce business, there is never just one thing you need to do in order to get you there. Most of the time, there is a combination of strategies, tactics, execution and resources that you need to do in order to achieve a successful launch and support your business going forward.
In order to create a successful business, there is never just one thing you need to do in order to get you there.
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However, this doesn’t mean that focusing on high-impact activities isn’t important, in fact, it’s quite the opposite. You need to figure out how to allocate your limited time and resources effectively to achieve a successful launch.
While the majority of advice that people often get given is focused on the general look of your store and connecting with your customers, the tactics new store owners use are all different. What works for one business, or one person, may not be the right focus for you and your eCommerce store and there are always going to be other great options out there.
Finding your first customers is the best place to put your focus on first, below is a list of great but tactical advice in order to help you do so, but always remember that it’s you who knows your business best and should always select the tactics that will make the biggest difference to you.
Creating Streams Of Free Traffic.
Paid marketing is one of the more obvious ways to get people to your eCommerce store, and while it can be both quick and targeted it will cost you! This is why building up organic traffic from the likes of social media can be a great strategy to put your focus on if you have the time available but also if you’re a bit more limited when it comes to financial resources. As a bonus, it’ll also help you build stronger connections with your customers and be able to get early feedback.
Create social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram for your brand and let them grow naturally, also having an active blog on your store and using these as social posts which can drive traffic to relevant product pages. This will also have SEO benefits as well as help gain natural and free traffic.
Pitching To The Press
These days, getting press attention can mean getting coverage in local papers or probably more effective in this day and age on bigger blogs which are in your niche. Finding and pitching the right media outlets for your brand can be a brilliant tactic to drive that all important traffic, awareness and sales for your business.
Building Up Your Brand
When talking about your brand it isn’t just your logo, your theme or colours, although, it is important to build a strong visual brand it’s everything from how you work with your customers. Locking down these details early can help set you up with a pretty solid foundation for your business.
Connecting With Your Community
Each and every new follower and visit you have to your site is a real person, so being able to connect with them on a personal level can help build that connection and make them stronger which can result in more sales. You can do this in a few ways but the most obvious one is doing it over social media or on your blog, but building these connections is one way to build up momentum for your store.
As humans, we are constantly seeking for community and belonging, so when we feel appreciated and cared for, we’re more likely to want to give back. Including people in this process will foster an exhilarating feeling beyond anything just a generic sale can offer. You can demonstrate your mission and values by sending out personalised emails, giving away free tips and strategies on your blog or posting behind the scenes videos. Prioritising ways you can build up a genuine relationship will create a tight community of people who undeniably see the value of your products or services.
Collaborate With Established Brands & People.
Working with people and brands who already have a connection with your audience is one way to get in front quickly. Find the people that have an established following on social media and want to partner up. You don’t even need to pay anyone for featuring on your blog as people who just like and are excited about your brand will be more than happy to help. If you think that collaborations are a good fit for your business there are influencer platforms to help you try to find and connect with the right people to be potential partners, but it’s really important to find the right people that will fit your brand the best.
Testing Out Your Ideas First.
It’s one thing to launch a product and see how the market reacts to it, and quite another to launch a product based on hard data about how the market will react. If you test out your ideas before the actual launch of your new eCommerce store you’ll have a better foundation to make those key decisions.
In some cases, it’s easiest to work backwards. There is no point trying to launch a product you’re passionate about but have it keep failing when it comes to marketing it. When you decide to work backwards you can run ads on a lot of different products until a clear winner is found and from there you can design a store around that product.
Get Feedback From Family & Friends
While you’re building your store, you will know it inside and out which is a great thing when it comes down to making any changes and keeping things a bit more organised, but it can cause you to overlook things that might trip visitors up. In order to counter that, it’s important to get an outside perspective on your store.
Just before you fully open your online store for business it would be a great idea to get all your friends and family (the ones who aren’t afraid to be brutally honest with you) to visit and go through your entire store. You can then create a really quick and simple feedback form and have them fill it out with their constructive feedback in return for a decent offer such as 50% off or free shipping. This gives you time to tweak things on your store that could cause visitor friction before going out and investing any advertising or running social media campaigns which could end up costing you a lot of money.
Something you may want to keep in mind as you gather this feedback is that you want it about your products or brand from the target audience you are wanting to attract. If your target audience is a girl in their twenties then your grandad probably won’t give you the most useful feedback, so just bear that in mind.
However, you can get great user experience feedback from both, like if they found the shipping policy hard to find or how do they return an item. When it comes to feedback on the appeal of your products, make sure to only prioritize it when it’s from your top and ideal customers.
Handle The SEO Fundamentals
Optimising your store for search engines is important, but is often seen as a nice to have while you are in the midst of a busy launch. Focusing on building a solid foundation for your SEO efforts is a good way to set your online store up for long-term success.
Focusing on building a solid foundation for your SEO efforts is a good way to set your store up for long-term success.
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It may be tedious but it’s important to do this early on and spend some money with someone who knows exactly what they’re doing, even if its just to get you started. Getting all your alt text on images, both for accessibility and SEO as well as reviewing your metadata and doing the research into your competitors SEO to optimize your own are all areas which should be taken a look into. Yes, SEO is a long game but it’s worth starting early with this one for sure.
Top Tip: At the end of the day, there is no right way to launch your eCommerce store.
So whether you solidify your brand, by social media marketing, press coverage or SEO, many of the tactics recommended on this list are focused on connecting with the people that will ultimately become your customers and followers. Building up this connection is multifaceted and includes finding them initially but also keeping the interest, but if you’re looking for one area of the business to focus on first then customer acquisition it is.
While that may sound simple, because of course acquiring customers is on the top of your priority list, it’s also instructive to take note of the smaller things that you may not first think about. So, if your looking at launching and wondering what to focus on, based on these recommendations you can’t go wrong by focusing on finding and connecting with your customers.