6 simple steps to creating a Shopify Marketing Guide
The benefits of having a Shopify site can be greatly amplified if you also have a Shopify Marketing Guide. It’s like a to-do list, for positioning and promoting your online profile. Here is a step by step guide to Shopify DIY marketing.
Marketing is simply the process of finding the best ways to sell your products, then promoting them effectively to your target audience.
If you have an existing or new Shopify site, this platform provides you with an excellent springboard thanks to its built-in marketing tools and promotional campaigns. That can still leave some people uncertain about how to develop a marketing plan. To help you, here are six steps for Shopify marketing.
1.Know your brand and customers
Understanding your audience is the first step to starting your marketing campaign
This is where all successful marketing begins, for any enterprise of any size. What do you want to say, and who is likely to respond?
Be clear in your own mind what your ‘brand’ is. This is the special features of your products, that differentiate them from your competitors. The benefits or Unique Selling Propositions (USPs) that can attract sales.
Then, you need to know exactly ‘who’ is likely to respond to those USPs. What are the preferences and behaviours of your target customers?
For example, your Shopify store sells handmade wooden toys, that are sustainable, safe and nostalgic. Your ideal customer profile is stay at home mums, with pre-school children, who are concerned about the environment. As well as Grandparents who care about tradition, and who want robust gifts for birthdays and Christmas.
What words can you use to get their attention and how best can you connect your sales messages, to the product benefits they look for?
2. Choosing Marketing Tactics
Each target audience will react best to different marketing tactics e.g monthly subscriptions may suit busy mums whilst a one off discount may suit the young millenials
If you are unclear about step 1, then market research needs to be on your Shopify marketing guide to-do list!
Understanding how to ‘push the buttons’ on your target customers helps you to decide what other activities are likely to bring your products to their attention.
This could include, for example, regular product promotions and discounts, top-up advertising in quieter months, and email campaigns when Christmas shopping starts to happen. Is social media going to be your primary sales and marketing tactic?
Not all your marketing tactics need to be digital. Physical displays and networking can grow some businesses. Using the toy example above, this can include sending product samples and sales literature to mother and toddler groups.
3. Set Your Goals
In order to reach targets you must first set them
One of the most important things about creating s shopify marketing guide is that it needs to be structured and sustained. In other words, spending lots of time and money on creating a rush of customers you can’t really handle, makes no sense. A steady drip-feed of promotions and outbound activities is better, bringing in a constant flow of business.
So, you need a set of practical and achievable goals. For example, to focus on one particular product category each week, or to attract a certain number of new customers each month.
4. Choosing your Marketing Channels
The choice of marketing channels are getting greater as the years go by. Choosing the right channel for the right audience can be the make or break fo your marketing strategy
This drills down on the methods you will use to communicate with your potential customers, so you can achieve your goals and support your marketing tactics.
It should include regular email campaigns, well planned social media posts, blogs and ‘how to’ articles, and content that you submit to external websites and other media. If budget allows, you might also want to consider online advertising, to get your message across to potential customers.
5. Analyse results
Without analysing your results, you cannot improve. This is an integral part of your strategy
This part of a Shopify Marketing Guide sometimes gets overlooked, especially as you happily fulfil a steady flow of new sales orders.
It’s vital to review what is working best, and what activities have yielded less than satisfactory results. Carrying on with a particular marketing activity that’s not bringing in enough new sales is a waste of time and probably money!
6. Refresh your plan regularly
Based on your analysis it’s time to amend and refresh your strategy for the upcoming weeks/months
Measuring marketing success in Shopify enables you to make adjustments to your plan and daily marketing activities. You can even create a whole new marketing strategy and timetable, if your business starts to grow, you change your products or you find am eCommerce marketing activity that proves highly effective.
Where to get help with creating a Shopify marketing guide
It can seem daunting to create a successful marketing strategy to boost online sales, especially if you are new to Shopify. It’s something we can help with. We can create a plan for you to confidently action over the coming months, to grow your Shopify sales steadily.
Take a read to explore more about why digital marketing for small businesses is so crucial.