When Jeff Bezos tried to sell books over the Internet in 1994, he faced intense rejection from investors who could not envisage people buying things online. Three decades later, Amazon has emerged as ‘the everything store’, with a market cap of over USD 2 trillion and a billion customers worldwide. 

Australia is no exception to this consumer trend. The Australian e-commerce market will have revenue of  $37 billion in 2024 and a healthy CAGR of 9.4% until 2029. With great growth prospects comes great competition, and E-Commerce in Australia is no exception. There is a healthy mix of multinational conglomerates, direct-to-commerce (D2C) startups, local businesses and solopreneurs vying for a share of the consumer’s wallet.  Whatever category you fall into, a good marketing strategy is a must with a slick and intuitive web design. Investing in a local Melbourne ecommerce web design could give you a much-needed edge.  Here are some marketing strategies that can help you build a solid base to complement your professional web design:

1. Influencer Marketing

Influencers are the new marketing mavericks. Social Media has started to play an increasingly important role in marketing, in an era where attention spans are constantly getting cut down by dopamine-fueled algorithms. The impact is such that 63% of Australians have bought a product on the recommendation of an everyday social media influencer while only 6% have followed the endorsement of a celebrity influencer. The message is clear: authenticity sells.

In order to cash in on this trend, you could first determine the niche/genre in which your primary products are based. For a cosmetics seller, this would be beauty whereas for a person offering a custom diet, this would be health. Next, depending on your budget, you could use tools to find the right type of influencers. It is important to not just blindly look at the number of followers but also observe how engaged the followers are in the comments. High-impact influencers have a loyal base who all act as a single online community. 

2. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

The SEO strategy for e-commerce would be slightly different from a traditional website. Here, the focus would be on ranking up the product pages and trying to perfect their schema markup to appear in the suggested products for a Google Search. It is important to give due importance to details like the URL slug, meta description and title tags for the best chance of higher rankings.

Additionally, having a website with a strong hierarchical structure and fast page loading speed would be essential as Google gives high importance to both.  Another integral component would be in finding the right keywords or search queries to target. It is vital that you focus on the words that have a decent search volume and are not too difficult to rank high for. An easy way to find the right keywords would be to use Amazon’s autocomplete feature, wherein the feature suggests words after you type in something. Finally, ensure that the product descriptors are of decent quality and there are enough reviews on your website. Shoppers always prefer to buy products that have genuine customer reviews. 

3. Email Marketing 

Marketing emails still have a decent open rate of 35.63% in 2024. While email marketing may not be the most glamorous option it still has its perks. Crafting a compelling subject line is a make-or-break for most email campaigns. A good subject line would pique curiosity, target the consumer point and convey value. Segmenting your audiences and writing different emails for each would also be a good practice.  For instance, if you are a sports goods seller, writing an email around the favourite sport of your customers can boost open rates. You could ask this question when users sign up to your website. Having the right visual elements and design is also critical. No one likes reading a dull black-and-white email in this day and age. Finally, due importance should also be given to an enticing and actionable call to action (CTA) at the end or in the middle. The CTA should culminate in the user executing at least one action (like adding to cart, browsing or buying) on the website for maximum impact. 

4. PPC Advertising 

Digital advertising can have a great return on investment if executed well.  It has also become easy to track ad performance across platforms. There are multiple types of Pay Per Click adverts for an e-commerce business to explore:

1. Search Ads: Ads for specific keywords typed in the search engine.
2. Display Ads: Banner ads shown on websites, using visuals to attract users.
3. Shopping Ads: Product-based ads that show up in search results with images, pricing, and store information, are especially useful for e-commerce.
4. Social Media Ads: Paid ads on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or TikTok, which can be targeted based on demographics, interests, or behaviour.
5. Remarketing Ads: Ads targeting users who have previously visited your site, designed to re-engage them.
6. Video Ads: Ads on platforms like YouTube, are often used for brand awareness or product promotion.

For e-commerce businesses with a limited budget, remarketing ads and Shopping Ads could be the best bets as the intention to buy in both cases is the highest. Engaging in A/B testing and targeting different segments of the customer base to find the right combination would be a good way to start for beginners. 

5. Social Media Marketing

Social Media is turning out to be the new centre of attention these days. Social media usage stats for younger demographics are flying through the roof. E-com businesses can start by working on one or two platforms first and avoid spreading out too soon. Beauty and fashion products perform very well on Instagram and YouTube.  Tech and electronic gadgets rule the roost on YouTube. Food and Beverage could also target Insta and TikTok. Home Decor and DIY could gun for Pinterest and Facebook. All these platforms have very detailed user data points like age, location, interests and gender. Mixing it up till the ideal return is achieved should be the way forward.

The possibilities are endless and the potential for growth is limitless. Marketing has the potential to be the spark that propels your e-commerce business to the next level. With a good website and decent marketing, the sky is indeed the limit.