One of the most vital qualities to succeed in the business is to evolve every day. In an era of the cut-throat competition, you need to mold your strategies, techniques, and matrics with time to catch up with the latest trends and scenarios. Sticking to a strategy that has helped you yesterday, might not be relevant today. Hence, it is essential to keep track of trends in the global world and amend your strategies accordingly.
The eCommerce industry has vast potential. New entrants are coming every day to get a taste of the success, and a very few of them reach to the winning point. One of the most important and beautiful aspects of the eCommerce industry is that there is not a clear-cut road to success. You need to identify the future trends and implement them to the marketing strategy to achieve your goals.
A one-fits-all strategy does not function here. There are many key aspects you need to watch upon to get a competitive edge over others. In this blog, we will discuss some of the trends and strategies in the eCommerce industry that are likely to rule in 2019.
Instagram Marketing:
Instagram is a photo-sharing social media platform that has more than 800 million active users. Digital marketers consider Instagram as one of the most potent marketing tools, especially for the eCommerce industry. Here is a list of some useful stats you need to know about Instagram.
Almost 80% of users follow business accounts on Instagram.
Approximately 30% of users have purchased products they have first seen on Instagram.
Posts with locations get 79% more engagement.
Out of all top-performing Instagram posts, 65% of them are product promotion posts.
It merely means that you need to have an important Instagram presence to reap these splendid benefits. In addition to that, if you are selling products or services that are visibly beautiful, Instagram is a must platform for your business.
Email Marketing:
You might ask a question- who reads emails nowadays?
Well, the answer is- almost everyone.
Don’t you believe? Here is a stat- as per the research, 91% of users check out their emails on a daily basis.
Not just that, as per the report, email marketing has an ROI of 38%.
Two things you need to work on when you opt for email marketing is:
- To build a list of contacts
- To decide what to mail them
People hate spam emails. Hence, it is of utmost importance that you give them something valuable. At the same time, make sure the emails are focused as chances are that your customers are skimming through their emails while drinking first coffee in the morning and are not ready to spend too much their time on this. If you are determined to embrace email marketing at once, think of hiring professional content creators from TopEssayWriting. Otherwise, it`ll take some practice to be brief and to-the-point in your emails. As for other options to get emails work. A reasonable discount offer might work when you communicate with them a very first time.
If we discuss the concept of email marketing in the eCommerce industry, you can send them welcome emails, product promotions and discount offers, new stock arrival emails and email receipts.
Creative Native Advertising:
If someone asks you what the one thing that you hate about the internet is, the answer would be take-it-on-face-buddy ads that are thrown to you every time you open any website or app. It turns users off and you, being a marketer, need to understand it.
Native Advertising is nothing but a form of paid advertising that is placed naturally without disturbing user experience and engagement. It is a smart way to advertise without losing a customer.
As per the report from eMarketer, the native advertising will occupy 60% of digital spending by the end of 2018.
The primary challenge that you might face is to make the ad more creative and relevant to the context of the page. You need to be a more creative while designing such ads to make it look like a real one.
Video Content will lead the traffic:
A human tendency depicts that people love to watch compared to reading. Game of Thrones is an example. As the expert marketers estimated it, video content has already marked its niche in 2018, but it will surely be going to lead in 2019.
As per the report by Cisco, online videos will contribute more than 80% internet traffic by the end of 2020.
Furthermore, when asked to choose, 59% of executives revealed that they would watch videos rather than reading the text.
Being a marketer, ensure that you offer relevant video content to the users. Hubspot states that putting a video on a landing page can increase the conversion rate by 80%.
Voice Search is getting bigger and better:
Convenience is the thing that consumers want from the technology, and with the introduction of voice-based searches, they have got it. Voice searches are increasing and likely to rule in the upcoming future. OK Google, Amazon Alexa, Apple Siri is gaining recognition across the globe.
As per Comscore, almost half of all the search queries will be through voice by 2020. As voice recognition accuracy is increasing with each passing year, people are speaking rather than typing.
Go for Omnichannel Presence:
eCommerce industry is growing rapidly; there is no doubt about it. However, if you check out some stats, you might find an altogether different picture. A survey revealed that 51% of consumers prefer online shopping while 49% of consumers prefer to shop from the stores.
You might find it satisfactory. However, it was revealed that they spent 64% of their budget to the stores and only 36% online.
Digital marketers came up with a Click & Collect concept where you can place an order online and then collect the item from the store. It is gaining popularity across the globe.
Personalization Experience:
Customers admire personalized experiences while shopping online. If you are a frequent online shopper, you must have witnessed efforts by giant players such as Amazon to give customized experiences to the users. It includes product personalization, online messenger, through chatbots and enabling product recommendations engine. Make them feel good, and they will surely appreciate it.
User-Generated Content:
Any content that is created by the fans, followers or customers for a brand is termed as User-generated content, and it can be a game-changer for you.
You can encourage users to create such content, and it will surely work as mouth-marketing for the brand. Mecca is one such example that has initiated this strategy and had amazing customer engagement.
More Product Filters, Better:
Customers have a specific set of expectations when they come to shop. You need to offer them the same. When it comes to filtering, you need to be very specific and advanced to narrow down the search criteria. It will surely give customers to combine different filters to find what they are looking for.
Deliver Fast and Win Customers:
When customers have ordered, they want products as fast it could be. They are impatient and emotional for the order. You need to understand it. Being a marketer, you need to ensure that you deliver products to the customers quick by developing a delivery mechanism accordingly.
Even same-day delivery options are outdated now as marketers are coming up with new delivery options such as 2-hour delivery and 6-hour delivery options.
Conclusion:
These are 10 strategies that you can start working on to stand out amongst others. Remember, eCommerce business is all about fetching opportunities and seizing them. Some of you might have already begun working on some of these strategies, and some of you can start now.
With the introduction of the Internet of Things and Machine Learning technologies, it has become more convenient for eCommerce players to offer more personalized experiences to the users by providing them exactly what they are looking for. It would be interesting to see how eCommerce players use insights, data, and opportunities to generate more revenues.
Ashish Parmar
Ashish Parmar is the CEO of Prismetric - one of the reliable Mobile App Development Companies. An enthusiastic entrepreneur, interested to discuss new app ideas, rich gadget tricks and trends, and admires signature tech business styles to readily embrace. He enjoys learning modern app crafting methods, exploring smart technologies and passionate about writing his thoughts too. Inventions related to mobile and software technology inspire Ashish and he likes to inspire the like-minded community through the finesse of his work.