Four Essential Marketing Pillars To Accelerate Your Ecom Growth

When it comes to marketing, the industry is rapidly changing. New technologies and opportunities are entering the industry, keeping marketers and business owners on their toes.

Facebook and Google, which are both great ways to advertise your business are constantly changing, and improving can make or break your business when marketing online. The complications of these two platforms require constant attention and trial and error.

Let's take a break from Facebook and Google ads for a minute; although they are relevant, in this article we will be discussing marketing fundamentals that have remained true even with online marketing taking over.

These fundamentals are a must-know for business owners. Even though these essentials are rather basic, the importance and implementation in your business can ensure that customers are more satisfied than ever.

Take Risks

In the context of online marketing, thousands of businesses are taking the same approaches and sticking to the “safe” methods. This could be to portray a professional image to customers, or simply because they're afraid of trying different things since they could potentially hurt the business.

Marketing has never been about following a trend. Sticking with the trends and what's considered safe will mean you'll never move past all the businesses that are selling the same things and using the same marketing approaches. Essentially, you'll get forgotten along with the hundreds of ads people see each day; You'll just be another advertisement that a person won’t give a second thought about.

Market your products that define who you are. Don't stick to all the safe techniques. Express your products and business in your advertisements, this makes more of an imprint on a customer than any other basic ad they may see. Even if your advertisement is out of the ordinary, the effect it will have on a customer will prove to be more beneficial to your company, as it catches a person's attention.

This approach can be expressed in many ways; you could incorporate puns into your copy, rent out a big billboard, a more colorful landing page, a witty FAQ page, etc. These could offend some people but in the end, the positive will outweigh the negative, just don't go too far and completely abandon professionalism.

A good way to start off and get ideas on how to express your business is to rethink your current marketing strategies. Write down what your business represents, and then formulate new strategies that include that and grab attention, while also highlighting what your business offers.

Analyze Your Customer's Actions, Not their Words

Have you ever launched a product that didn't do so well even after your customers seemed excited about its release? Let's say you did a survey on what customers thought of a demo on this product before you released the full thing, and the responses were positive, and then when it actually released, it didn't do as well as intended. This is because the customer's words don't mean as much as their actions.

While a customer may say that they loved something, they could just be saying that and not actually care enough to give their honest opinion. At the end of the day, what matters is if your audience takes out their wallets or not.

Rather than asking a customer if they would buy it, get them to buy the product on the spot. For example, let's say you're releasing a new video editing software for your customers, rather than asking them if they would be interested in a new product with new features, suggest a pre-order option at a discount. The customer is more likely to purchase something they want prior to release at a discount than wait till its release date, when they may not be as enthusiastic about it.

If this doesn't end up working, you need to further analyze what type of purchasing habits your customers have and launch your product or service targeted to the customers that show interest and/or have purchasing habits that will likely end up in them making that purchase.

Don't Inform Your Customers, Explain Your Solution

When it comes to marketing a product, your customer doesn't care about all the specifics, just if it can do the job it's needed for. Yes, your product has tons of benefits and specifics, but this doesn't mean you need to list all the features.

This is a common marketing mistake that surprisingly many marketers make. Rather than listing each feature of your product or service, show people how this product solves their problem and brings something into their life that they need.

For example, back when the iPod was released, it wasn't marketed as having 5GB of storage space, but rather “1000 Songs in Your pocket”. Clearly, this means the same thing, but the simplicity of the ‘1000 songs in your pocket’ appeals to what customers want, rather than a specific storage size.

Since people were rather frustrated with having to carry around a heavy walkman with all their songs, this offered a solution to them, with 1000 sounds they can carry around in their pocket. This shows that you don't need to include every specification in your advertisement. If Apple included every tiny feature of the iPod, they would end up having tons of writing and complications, confusing customers on what they're actually getting. By simplifying it to saying “1000 songs in your pocket” the attention of customers is caught, without having to explain to them all the individual features.

The goal is to make the customer think “this is the product I need”. Essentially, talk to your customer in a way that they will understand, don't include specifics that won't attend to their interests.

Make Your Customers Market For You

Customers are your biggest asset and they can do more than just buy your products. Rather than marketing with your company's resources, use your customer base alongside this. For a lot of small businesses, word of mouth can make or break a business. Your business benefits from customer’s money, but their words and impression on your business matter just as much.

This not only brings more money to your pocket but also allows your business to acquire new customers, without having to do any specific marketing. Some ways to directly engage with your customers could be to do surveys, ask for reviews, inquire about further assistance, etc.

With surveys, you're able to find out how customers really feel about a product and assess if it is positive, or if it's negative. Either one of these responses will lead you to ask for more information. For example, if the experience was positive, you can ask them to leave a review on what they thought, while if it was negative, you can ask them how you could solve this problem and improve their shopping experience.

Although they may not seem like much, this could help you as a business owner ensure that fewer customers have negative feedback on your products, and reach new customers with the positive reviews that some customers will leave.

This will also promote word of mouth, for instance, if a customer had an exceptional experience, they are likely to recommend products or services from your business to friends and family, which grows your business even more, simply based on good customer service and putting the customer first.

These strategies are fundamentals, although are often neglected in the online marketing world. Following these practices and reviewing more ways to enhance these techniques will prove to be beneficial to your business and allow you to stand out.