How to advertise your online store with D2C marketing

Does this sound like you? You have your own dedicated ecommerce store you’ve set up to receive orders, lovingly designed to maximize utility and appeal, but even still, the vast majority of your orders are coming in from marketplaces such as noted industry juggernaut Amazon. Any sales are good sales, as I’m sure your accountant would agree, but still. It can be frustrating to put all that work into a website only for it to feel as if it’s not paying off, or for it to seem as if your success in the ecommerce industry is dependent on another company which may or may not continue to be a good fit for your unique business needs. What’s a merchant to do?

What you need is a direct to consumer marketing strategy so you can avoid sales fees on big marketplaces, divert your customers’ attention away from competitors, and build your own brand with its own individual brand recognition. Still not convinced? Read on to discover exactly what promoting your own online storefront can do for your business, and how to go about maximizing sales through channels you control and diverting them away from competing marketplaces.

What are the benefits of thedirect-to-consumer business model?

D2C brands reap a lot of benefits from the increased name recognition and sales under their own full control. Through grabbing email addresses and other points of contact, it’s easy to make connections down the road and inform potential customers of any promotions you might have going on. Having the ability and agency to create targeted marketing campaigns converts into more qualified leads, fewer incidences of cart abandonment, and an overall higher ROI. The avoidance of marketplace fees not only helps pad your bottom line, but also enables you to completely control the customer experience to make it as smooth, efficient, and positive as possible.

How can you create an effectivedirect-to-consumer strategy?

There’s six points you need to keep in mind when developing any sort of marketing strategy that will benefit your brand and your business in the long term. We’ll be listing them off as follows and providing a short explanation in case you’ve never seen it explained this way before.

First, you need to keep your goal in mind. What exactly are you trying to achieve? Do you want to reach new customers, or convince existing customers to buy more? Do you want to increase brand recognition? Tie yourself to a certain set of ideas? All of these can be accomplished through clever marketing.

Next you need to hammer down your message. Your unique selling proposition or what you’re most looking to promote online. Sit down and brainstorm, either alone or with trusted colleagues and mentors to see what really says what you need to say while also being punchy and to the point.

Your audience is worth heavy consideration as well. If you market towards a demographic that doesn’t buy from your brand, you’re almost worse off than before. Unlikely to make new sales from previous customers, and selling towards customers that are unlikely to be interested in your product leaves you having spent a lot of money on advertising for little gain.

Next you need to take a look at which channels you’re advertising through. Email? SMS? SEO blog posts? Social media? All of these avenues have pros and cons that balance against each other in interesting ways. Picking and choosing only one is seldom the way to go, but they each require their own unique touch to get just right.

Consider also which tools you’ll need to accomplish your goals. Email campaigns require an email platform and often a campaign management tool. Social media accounts, analytics programs, and ad management tools are also a major bonus for any would-be marketer to have in their arsenal.

Lastly, you need some way to test the success of your endeavors. Analytics numbers can help a bit, but it’s best to have solid evidence of how your sales are growing over time. This means dedicating yourself to long-term monitoring to make sure that the jump in sales isn’t just normal growth that you would be experiencing anyway.

By keeping these six points in mind, you’ll be able to draft up a marketing plan that keeps all the important parts of your business at the forefront of your consideration. But how do you put it all together?

D2C marketing examples

D2C digital marketing can take a lot of forms. First, there’s organic promotion. This includes tactics such as SEO optimization, which is the practice of making sure your site ranks high in Google search results by using certain relevant words, phrases, and keywords. There’s also content marketing, which means producing blog posts, buying guides, and guest articles centered around what your customers want to see. This builds your credibility and makes people more likely to purchase goods and services from you. Don’t discount the power of social proof, either. This is the simple act of just doing what you say you will, by promising and delivering on things like 2-day shipping and stocking high-quality products. Second, we’ll look at classic advertising. Google ads, social media ads, and things like email newsletters and promotions all fall under this category. Visuals, keywords, and the right wording for the customer you’re looking to attract are all important to think about. Lastly, referral and affiliate marketing can help more than you think. People love a discount code. Give it a try and see if it works for you.

In conclusion

Coming up with a cool, effective, and sustainable marketing plan doesn’t have to be rocket science. Neither does fulfilling the new influx of orders you’ll get with your awesome campaign. Whether you’re aiming to sell digitally or in store, P2Pseller is ecstatic to bring you along on the ecommerce revolution. Register a free account with us today to see everything we can do for you and your business.