How To Market Your Ecommerce Website For Free When You’re Just Starting Out
by Sharon Sinclair-Williams
Project Lead
When I say ‘free’ in this article I mean ‘free’ in terms of cold hard cash. Just for clarity. Nothing in life is free.
So my online journey started way back in 2005 when I started selling these beauties.
At that time I knew diddly about shopping online never mind selling online. Heck, I had hardly used a computer for anything apart from my kid’s homework. I’ve definitely come a long way since those days.
Creating a product and getting enough product to be able to sell was always at the forefront of my mind. Then I had to get to grips with how my website worked and how you actually get it in front of customers and the right customers. The one thing I did get to grips with pretty quick was that just having a website didn’t equal customers. Although, it was much easier to attract them back then and the competition was nowhere near it is now.
I lived and breathed that business. I worked tirelessly growing it to a level where it was shortlisted as one of the Best Small Ecommerce Businesses in the UK in 2012 at the Ecommerce Awards originally founded by the UK’s online retail association, IMRG. Their hall of fame sadly only goes back to 2015 but I was there back in 2012. Getting to that category shortlist and just rubbing shoulders with ecommerce founders and the likes of Asos and John Lewis felt amazing.
I had very little money to spend on marketing to begin with like lots of ecommerce entrepreneurs just starting out. I invested everything I made back into the business improving my website with a fabulous developer who just happens to now be our technical director. Talk about a journey.
Of the many things I learned on this early part of my ecommerce journey, the most important thing was to get the basics right. Most of those basics are still relevant today. The basics never really change. Sometimes they just go by a different name.
The best way to get started always is to have some budget for PPC ads {Pay-Per-Click} with Google and some for social ads on Facebook and Instagram. I’d advise you seek the help of a specialist as when you don’t know what you’re doing your money can quickly run away with itself with little to no return on investment. You’ll need a spend budget and a management budget. You can of course learn the skill yourself but then how do you run your store successfully? Something has to give. I worked 16-hour days back in the day. Really hard graft.
1. Do everything you can on rinse and repeat to make sure your website isn’t slow. I know this isn’t strictly a ‘growing traffic tip’ but honestly if your website is slow and your customers can’t perform the most basic of tasks like checking out quickly and easily then what traffic you have been able to attract will be off like a shot to your competitors and most likely never return. Yes, we are all that fickle in the 21st century. We have the attention span of a goldfish.
Imagine the scenario in a real-life shop and then you’ll get it. Speed is so important that Google even has it’s own algorithm called Core Web Vitals for it which incidentally is set to be a ranking signal as of May 2021 when it updates it.
2. Housekeeping is another one that isn’t strictly growing traffic. More again like ‘keeping’ what you’ve worked tirelessly to attract. Sometimes things break or no longer work even temporarily. I created a checklist just as I would if I was completing a physical walk around a bricks store. Here’s what my daily walkaround list looked like:
This is just the beginning of the day. Please don’t think that having an online store is any different to the hard work you’d have to put in if you opened a store on your local high street. It’s damned hard work if you want it to pay off and keep your customers loyal and coming back to repeat purchase. Speak to anyone whose grown an online presence like I did and they’ll tell you how hard it is but oh so rewarding when it all starts ‘clicking’ into place and those orders start rolling in.
3. Get on social media but don’t try to be all things to everybody. Facebook and Instagram are where it’s at if you’re an ecommerce business. If you’ve got a Shopify store you can even ramp up your Facebook and Instagram activity with shoppable posts. Oh how my 2012 self would’ve loved those! Be authentic with your target audience. Use Instagram Stories to have conversations with them. People love behind the scenes. Tease them as you open your new deliveries – ‘who wants to be first to see these that have just arrived?’
4. Give discounts. Think about timing discounts around bank holidays. Nothing beats knowing something is only available for so long – bank holiday bargains, bank holiday outfit planning, prepping early for Christmas in late October, first come, first gets the discount.
5. Grow your list. Nothing beats an engaged list of email subscribers. Many people hate newsletters these days but the ones who do subscribe are usually pretty bought into you. Reward them with things that others won’t get to see or do. A birthday discount is such a warm, fuzzy email to open. Sneak peek at something new before anyone else. VIP status can create a nice vibe especially if you create your list in such a way so that you can really personalise your offer to them. This really makes your customer feel part of the brand and your journey. It’s as if you know them. Work hard to keep customers and they’ll reward you with loyalty.
6. I always offered free shipping. Especially for products that are available elsewhere. There are some savvy shoppers out there. I’m one of them having been doing what I do for so long. I’ll often do my research and then narrow it down on things like price, ease of ordering, and whether I trust them to deliver.
7. Get your developer to add an abandoned cart functionality to your website if you don’t already have it. We add these as standard to our builds. Abandonment happens for so many reasons including life behind the other side of the screen but if it’s happening frequently then it pays to understand why. This is called CRO – Conversion Rate Optimisation. Sometimes offering a discount in an abandoned cart email can really improve conversion rates.
8. Exit pop ups or intent overlays are another way to capture someone as they are leaving the site if they haven’t purchased. We offer this on our ecommerce builds but there are some great tools that can be integrated into ecommerce stores that do so much more than pops up now. We can create a series of timed intent pop ups as part of our ecommerce builds but there’s usually an entry level charge for third party tools.
9. I mentioned reviews earlier. It pays to ask. Often those who’ve had a great shopping experience won’t always write a review. Whereas anyone who’s had a poor experience will be swift to it. Of course, bad reviews can happen. It’s important to deal with all types of reviews. Speedy resolution of complaints does wonders for trust. Please don’t manually input reviews or testimonials to your website. There are many review tools available now that can be integrated into your ecommerce store. You can’t beat user generated content as your customer base is now skilled at understanding how these reviews work. Manual reviews most people know would think you’d just made up and can damage your reputation much more than enhance it. Some third-party review tools come with free basic accounts. You can always ask for a Google review. All you need for this is a Google My Business account and ask away. Link to your Google reviews on your store. We’ve done this before on builds, too where there has been no review integration. Reviews make fabulous shareable content that give social proof to your buyer's experience.
10. Engage with some influencers. Again, something that didn’t exist for me like it does now. Not everyone has a million followers and wants mega bucks to talk about your products. Micro influencers with 1,000-15,000 followers will probably have a much more engaged audience. If you’re in the health and well-being space for example it pays to send some products to an influencer or blogger who has similar interests. Not everyone will only work for product but lots do. The really good ones are ones that say no to some things rather than yes to everything. Their audience trusts them for a reason. I would always opt for an influencer who has their own blog as well as produces social media content. Their blog article will be around much longer than a social media post. Even with no follow content Google still recognises this as a brand mention. Above all, their audience is reading the blog posts as well as consuming their social. Win, win. Managed properly a relationship with a steady stream of well-respected micro influencers can really help drive traffic and sales. Many businesses have blossomed through social commerce.
I hope these tips help. I haven’t even touched on content marketing because that needs to be an article all of it’s own. I could’ve added more but I think these would be a good start for any ecommerce newbie. Like I said, nothing is free. They are only budget friendly in the sense that no money is exchanged. They still require your time and commitment.
I loved growing my own ecommerce business and now enjoy designing and building ecommerce websites for our clients along with offering ecommerce consultancy and support once they are live.
For ecommerce projects you can speak to us about bespoke builds, Aero and now we've also added Shopify to the list.