How to grow an ecommerce brand: 07 proven strategies

Ecommerce has drastically transformed our buying experience. 

The world has become increasingly convenient with the advent of each ecommerce brand. 

It gives people convenience, accessibility, cost-effectiveness, flexibility, global reach, and direct access to their favorite brands. 

On the brand side, it gives brands worldwide access to customers, data analytics to adjust their business according to given data, and the most amazing “Marketing.” 

While talking about the list of benefits, today I will uncover 07 excellent strategies on “how to grow an ecommerce business” and what strategies will help you build a long-term sustainable brand. 

Why does your business need an ecommerce store?

According to ecommerce statistics, there are 12-24 million online commerce stores worldwide.

In every niche, ecommerce is thriving. One of the main reasons you should have your business online is because your company deserves to be seen by millions. You would have a global reach. You only have access to limited buyers if you have a physical store. Those who can walk into your store, but people have access globally when you have an e-commerce brand. They can virtually visit your store (It’s incredible and booming), where people can explore your products and make a purchase on the spot. Your business will be making 10x your initial sales. 

Now that you understand my point, let’s explore these strategies, which have doubled our client revenue from their initial investment as a completely new seller in just three months.

Strategy 1 – Optimize your website for the search engines

According to Google, 53% of consumers search online before purchasing. If your website is not optimized for what your target audience is looking for, you are missing out on potential revenue you could be generating. 

Building an exceptional storefront will pay you $0 if you fail to bring it in front of your target audience. You can do it via paid advertising or long-term, sustainable search engine optimization.

If I were you, I would choose paid advertising to reach my audience and SEO to nurture them and push them further down the sales funnel. 

Recent studies showed up to 40% of all online store visits come from SEO (organic reach).

Suppose an ad costs $10 per day or around $300 monthly. Without SEO, you are paying this much just to drive traffic to your website.

Let’s calculate this; 

• Daily Ad Spend: $10
• Timeframe: 1 month (assuming 30 days)

Total paid advertising cost:

• Monthly cost: $10/day * 30 days = $300

Let’s assume your:

• Organic Traffic: 100 visitors per day
• Conversion Rate: 2% (2 out of 100 visitors make a purchase)
• Average Order Value: $50

Total revenue from organic traffic:

• Daily Revenue: 100 visitors * 2% conversion rate * $50/order = $100
• Monthly Revenue: $100/day * 30 days = $3,000

Estimating savings:

Assuming that the organic traffic you’re attracting would only have converted with your paid advertising efforts, the savings would equal the revenue generated from organic traffic. 

Therefore, based on these assumptions, you could save $3,000 monthly from organic traffic.

This is how much you can save by optimizing your website for search engines. But now the question is how? 

• By on-page optimization (meta descriptions, header tags, and image alt text).
• Technical SEO (site speed, mobile-friendliness, and XML sitemaps).
• By optimizing your website for relevant keywords based on your audience search intent

• By building domain authority for your website by getting backlinks from authoritative websites

• By optimizing your blogs for the keywords you want your websites to rank for
• By optimizing your website for the phrases you want it to rank for
• By building an authority and establishing your website as a thought leader in your respective nice
• The list goes on; if you want to learn more about optimizing your website for search engines, this guide will be your alley. 

Strategy 2: Building a Strong brand identity

When it comes to building a solid brand identity, it will trickle down to three main factors: 

• Storytelling
• Visual Identity 
• Consistent brand voice 

Take any big brand and carefully identify its marketing approach. Soon, you will see the pattern. Look at big brands like Apple, Airbnb, Nike, Patagonia, etc., and how they implement storytelling to connect to your audience emotionally. Each of these brands starts from nowhere, but with type, they build a deeper connection, trust, customer loyalty, visual identity, consistent brand voice, and most importantly, “Promise to Quality.”

Airbnb – Storytelling

We can see how Airbnb has adopted the human-to-human approach in marketing. They market it in a way that doesn’t even feel like marketing. This page lists Airbnb hosts, and you will be hooked once you start listening. They are positioning themselves as connectors between hosts and travelers and utilizing the string storytelling approach to build this strong brand identity. 

Apple – Visual Identity

Apple’s “North Star” is very clear about what value its products will bring to its audience. Its whole strategy is consumer-centric.

“For me, it’s about products and people. Did we make the best product and enrich people’s lives? If you’re doing both of those- and obvious things are incredibly connected because one leads to the other – then you have a good year.”

(Interview with Tim Cook)

Nike – Consistent brand voice

Nike builds its brand by integrating its logo with the things, places and people its audience has attached sentiments with. And thus, they found their brand voice. 

We see the Nike logo in sports. Nike knows its audience very well, and that’s how it builds its brand identity and voice: by connecting with people who have a bigger impact on their lives.

Now you must be thinking it’s a big ecommerce brand. How am I going to reach that level? Then you must consider they also start from somewhere. You can always start small, and with time and the right strategies, you can build a loyal customer base. 

Strategy 3: Social media marketing

Adobe reports that 40% of customers buy and trust brands after seeing comments on social media.

According to research, 25% of online shoppers in the US scroll social media before buying a gift. 

However, 74% of shoppers worldwide rely on social networks for buying decisions. (Kinsta) 

The stats speak the language of your consumers. If you want to reach your customer base, then you must market your product on social media.

When it comes to social media marketing, you have to set a goal and certain KPIs that clearly shows the progress of your marketing efforts.

While building a marketing strategy on social media you must take which goals you are going to take into consideration:

• Increase Brand Awareness
• Boost Engagement
• Drive Website Traffic
• Generate Leads and Sales
• Improve Community Building
• Enhance Customer Support
• Establish Thought Leadership
• Increase Customer Engagement and Loyalty
• Monitor Brand Reputation
• Market Research

Based on your respective goal, you can build a strategy and funnel to scale your ecommerce brand on social media. You can put your potential customers further down the funnel at each passing stage until they buy from you. 

Strategy 4: Implementing effective “Email Marketing”

For an ecommerce brand, email marketing is its last reservoir. Why? Because it’s the only way you can land into the inbox of your new, regular, or leaving customers and retain them by nurturing them at each stage of the email marketing funnel. What is an email marketing funnel, then?

You need an email at every stage of your sales pipeline to retain your customers. Below, you can see how email plays its role in an overall customer journey and how you can personalize your customer experience by nurturing them at each stage of your sales pipeline. 

If you want to learn how to make an email marketing funnel, then this resource will be a holy grail. 

Strategy 5: Offer smooth customer service

You have a converting customer base, a great product, and a high MRR. But if you fail to satisfy your customer after his first purchase, you will never be able to retain a long-term relationship and customer loyalty.

Soon, they will turn to your competitors, focusing more on providing a positive customer experience and great products.

In order to boost the overall customer experience you must optimize three communication channels:

• Live chat

• Email
• Social media

All these channels offer 2-way communication. Your customer gets urgent feedback on their query, and it’s the least you can do to make the customer experience as smooth as possible.

Remember, these are some of the multiple aspects of satisfying your customers. It can be a hassle-free browsing experience, personalization, simple checkouts, and easy product finding. Anything that adds to customer retention falls under this stage.

Strategy 6: Partner with “Niche Influencers”

For a few years, we have seen a boom in influencer marketing. It has multiple reasons.

• Influencers have a loyal customer base, and around 60% buy and trust their favourite influencers when purchasing. 
• Around 57.6% of ecommerce brands prefer working with influencers because it’s easy to reach their niche audience because of the influencer’s popularity. 
• Influencer marketing has a 4.2% higher engagement rate than any other marketing approach. 
• With every $1 spent on influencer marketing, a brand can earn an average of $5.20 in media value.
• With the highest engagement rate of 2.19%, ecommerce brands invest highly in nano influencers. 

These stats answer why you should partner with influencers to get in front of your audience’s eyes. 

But now there are few questions that we should address.

• Who is the right influencer for me?
• Can I select anyone with a loaded follower base?
• Should I go for influencers that charge low or do it for an exchange offer?

These questions are crucial. Remember to select an influencer from your niche. 

You can go for lifestyle influencers if you are a home decor brand. 

If you are a fashion store with a large customer base, you can either hire a fashion model, lifestyle influencer, makeup artist, or motivational speaker. You never know where your customers are investing their time. 

But if you are a high-end fashion brand that only captures a specific segment of society, you must be very specific while parenting.

Like Ralph Lauren is featuring Nara Smith in its new TikTok campaign #RalphLaurenSP25 is another example of how you can do influencer marketing RIGHT. With her popularity and relevant audience base, they knew what they were doing. 

So, if you are a budding brand looking to invest in one marketing channel, I suggest you do so. 

For the campaign planning, go for a strategy to choose the right influencer to achieve your business goals.

Here is the short guide by Engaio

Strategy 7: Implementing a content marketing strategy

Last but not least, content marketing is what we need today, tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow. It’s a strategy that builds you an organic customer base. 

Almost every other brand does content marketing, but the question is, “Are they doing it right”? 

Most brands confuse content marketing with posting stuff on social media and getting likes. But it’s more than that.

Its primary purpose is building a customer base that is nurtured and ready to buy when it’s time. 

There are different types of content that you can opt for while designing your content marketing strategy like;

• Blog posts
• Product descriptions
• How-to-guides
• Video content
• Infographics
• Customer testimonials 

Content Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses: E-commerce Edition

Next, we have a “Content Calendar.” To properly plan and schedule your content, you must have a system of organizing things in one place to keep everyone on the same page. 

Then comes “Content Promotion.” There are multiple channels and strategies for distributing and promoting your content across your website, email, or social media to capture the attention of your target audience. 

It’s just a promo, if you want to dive deep into content marketing strategies as a growing ecommerce business then I recommend you reading this blog.

Conclusion

If you are launching your ecommerce brand or have an established one, these strategies will help you get started and penetrate the competitive market. Consumers love shopping online, especially when offered something in return, like a discount, free delivery, or a coupon.

Establishing a brand is good, but growing is hard. With the right approach, you can do anything.

If you want to discuss more custom strategies that can help you grow your business, then it’s a good time to contact an expert or sign up for a weekly digest that comprises proven tips on how to grow your ecommerce store without spending extra $$. 

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FAQs

1. What strategy would help an ecommerce business grow?
   

   There are multiple strategies, but based on your business goals, niche, and budget, you must choose which suits your interests best. You can go with your SEO, content, influencer, or email marketing based on your end goal. 

2. How can ecommerce business grow?
   

   By implementing marketing strategies and getting organic traffic, you can establish a loyal audience that can ultimately help you grow your business. 

3. Which strategy would most help an e-commerce business?
   

   If you are a new ecommerce business, then social media marketing or influencer marketing will be most suitable for you. But with time, you will have to build a solid organic audience through content marketing and SEO. 

4. How does an ecommerce store build a strong brand identity?
   

   When it comes to building a solid brand identity, it will trickle down to three main factors: 
   – Storytelling
   – Visual Identity 
   – Consistent brand voice