by Tom Shackleton
eCommerce marketing moves fast, so it’s always important to be aware of changing focuses in how the most successful stores market to their customers.
Every year brings with it changes in eCommerce marketing, and this year is no different.
From the growth in voice search to the importance of personalised email marketing, here are the five key eCommerce marketing focuses you should be aware of in 2018.
1. More Intelligent CRO
Conversion Rate Optimisation has always been an important part of our eCommerce strategy, but in 2018 your CRO should become more intelligent, and even more vital.
You should have a regular schedule of CRO updates, be constantly developing your store and be making even more intelligent recommendations for improving conversions.
This means gathering more data, using more heat maps and collecting more user recordings. While there are always going to be best practices when it comes to CRO, what works for your store is personal to you and your customers.
CRO in 2018 should be about getting into the minds of your customers and developing your site to address their specific concerns and sticking points.
2. Hyper-Personalised Email Marketing
Personalised email has become a central part of eCommerce marketing over the past few years, and in 2018, your store should be placing even more focus on email.
It’s time to take your personalisation up a gear with hyper-personalised email marketing that tailors each and every email to each and every customer.
Use intelligent tools like Campaign Monitor’s marketing automation features to pull in product feeds and offer personalised recommendations to customers.
Serving up tailored suggestions, content and messaging in each and every communication is becoming a must, and your customers will be expecting more than just a personalised name field in their inbox this year.
3. Smarter Paid Advertising with Remarketing
Gone are the days of setting up a remarketing campaign targeted at website visitors and letting it run. In 2018, your remarketing should be smarter, more reactive, and again more personalised.
Remarketing should be based on customer behaviour, with different ads displayed depending on a potential customer’s actions.
Your ads should differ depending on where a customer is in the purchasing funnel, and should play to their needs and intentions at every stage.
Remarketing campaigns are often some of the most successful when it comes to digital ads, and in 2018 they should become even more important.
4. Complementing Digital with Offline Marketing
Having an offline eCommerce strategy has been a big part of the success of some of the fastest growing online brands (such as GymShark for example), and in 2018, complementing digital with offline marketing is something you can’t avoid.
This year, you should be running popup shops, attending events and holding product launches.
An offline presence is a fantastic way of meeting your customers in person, cementing your brand position and building an experience around your store.
Your digital marketing strategy should do everything possible to take advantage of this; promoting events, creating content and flooding social with your offline experience.
5. Experimenting with Voice Search
By 2020, 50% off all search traffic will come through voice search, and 2018 may be the year in which voice starts to creep into your eCommerce marketing strategy.
eCommerce giants like Amazon are already encouraging purchasing through Amazon Echo devices, and the rest of eCommerce will have to find a way of rising to match this advance in consumer behavior.
You should be thinking about voice search when structuring content this year. It’s also a good idea to start using and experimenting with voice search in your business.
Pick up a digital assistant speaker like an Amazon Echo or Google Home, install it in the office and start ordering office supplies through voice.
Understanding how the technology works in practice will help you cater to voice searchers in 2018.
Your Next Steps…
While we can never predict exactly what will happen in eCommerce this year, you can be sure that these five focuses will have an impact on how you plan, strategize and grow your eCommerce store in 2018.
Embracing personalisation in every aspect of your marketing strategy, and beginning to experiment with new technologies should be top of your to do list.
Want to find out more about how Statement can help you with an eCommerce marketing strategy for your store? Feel free to get in touch and our friendly team would be happy to help...
