Skip to content

E-Commerce Marketing Tips for 2017

Ensure that you fulfill your yearly revenue goals with these e-commerce marketing tips and trends for the holiday season.


Famous for its in-store brawls and doorbuster bargains, the Black Friday experience has shoppers searching for online alternatives to save on purchases without stressful in-store competition. According to Adobe, which documents the seasonal shopping data from over 100 top online retailers, e-commerce shoppers spent $1.9 billion on Thanksgiving Day and an additional $3.3 billion on Black Friday in 2016. Keep reading to get the best e-commerce marketing tips for 2017 and beyond.

Such drastic numbers mean that e-commerce realtors are confronted with the difficulty of quickly scaling marketing efforts with the higher demands from increased sales. In order to pick up the promotional pace, we’ll highlight the most effective e-commerce marketing strategies to maximize your share of the online shopping revenue this holiday season. After all, your 2017 revenue goals depend on it.  

Optimize mobile-friendly checkout options

The classic 3 a.m. line outside Best Buy has inevitably gone digital. Not only were online sales significantly higher in 2016, mobile devices accounted for a greater percentage of that traffic than ever before. But historically, conversions on mobile devices have fallen short compared to their desktop counterparts (consider the average conversion rate of 1.65% on mobile versus nearly double that at 3.6% on desktop).
This means that focusing on high-quality responsive website design – adapting desktop-sized content to mobile-sized screens and features – is necessary for visitors to easily view and purchase content, as is the creation of a business app. Make use of mobile-specific technology such as app push notifications, text messages, click-to-call, and one-click checkout.
In lieu of a physical race to the front door, using an isolated customer email list can also produce virtual competition as only listed users will receive access as soon as the Black Friday Cyber Monday sale begins. The email may contain a single-click call to action that funnels customers to an email app on their phone.

Adapt messaging to users along your sales funnel

 
Black Friday Cyber Monday isn’t simply a one-off high-revenue weekend; it’s a chance to construct a sales funnel surrounding each product that will guide users into your established long-term marketing campaigns. And not only are customers going to engage at different levels throughout the next 12 months, but they will arrive as seasonal customers within their own levels of engagement.
Data from a 2016 Qubit study reveals that new users are apt to spend more by 50% per user compared with returning customers. They also convert less easily, however, with a 3% conversion rate versus an average rate of 7%, most likely due to the fickle draw of sale prices over brand loyalty.
Your challenge in 2017 is to strategically target both. For existing customers, offering personalized and exclusive “loyal customer” markdowns or retargeted product recommendations remarkets based on past purchases and loyalty. For new users, quick and assertive site messaging that educates new users to your value may appear as a welcome message or curated landing pages. You also have the opportunity to incentivize first-time purchasing via free shipping or free items.  
When the weekend rush is over, you’ll want a segmented email list of first-time purchasers and returning users in order to establish a customized email activation campaign that will potentially turn seasonal discount-focused shoppers into loyal customers.

Prevent and mitigate cart abandonment

While cart abandonment often stems from customer distraction and simple forgetfulness, there are equally tangible sources for the loss of a potential conversion. In the final moments of an ecommerce sale, 44% of consumers abandon their shopping cart if shipping is perceived to be too expensive, and 78% of carts in 2016 were abandoned by mobile browsers.
Your best chance to reach these wayward users is to send a cart abandonment email. It’s your opportunity to remind them what they’ve left behind, offer new and incentivized discounts to make a final purchase, reserve and guarantee the items for a limited time, and use compelling copy to re-engage the unengaged. These types of emails account for an average of 18% of total email revenue for brands.
If being proactive rather than reactive is more appealing, catering to the desire for instant gratification during checkout will increase your likelihood for conversion. Simplify the checkout process (as mentioned earlier via one-click checkouts), so that users aren’t tempted to reserve the purchase for a desktop display and never return.

Thinking you’ll be left with coal rather than profits?

Assessing the quality of your website design for mobile devices, navigating cart abandonment, and retargeting past purchasers and attracting new users through segmented messaging is best practice for seasonal e-commerce. To make the most of your messaging, e-commerce marketing, and to meet your revenue goals, contact our digital marketing team at RLC Media to consult with our experts on the most strategic approach for the holiday season. /http://www.rlcmedia.com

SHARE THIS POST