eCommerce
Next Steps After Website Launch
Ready for the orders to roll in?
So you’ve built a new e-commerce website and you’re ready to see the orders rolling into your inbox. But have you thought about how you’re going to attract new customers and drive sales? Simply launching an e-commerce website is not enough; you need a strategy and a budget to start generating some momentum for your new online store.
An e-commerce website without any promotion behind it is like fishing without a baited hook. In this Insight, let’s take a look at some strategies to attract customers and generate sales for new online stores. We’ll offer some indications in terms of budget and dispel a few myths along the way.
Ultimately, we recommend designing a strategy that combines any number of the elements covered below.
Organic Google Rankings & SEO
A surprisingly common misconception is that a new website should instantly land on page 1 of Google search results, and naturally, the orders will start flooding in from Day 1. Sadly, that’s not how it works!
A well-built website will start to find its way into Google’s consciousness within a few days. Yet the site’s rankings are not set in stone right away. Typically what we see is that a new site can be picked up quickly by Google’s robots, however, the organic rankings will start low and filter upward over the following weeks – or even months. Googlebot will make repeated visits to your site, each time learning more about what your business offers. In time, Google will accumulate a deeper understanding of your website. This understanding will determine where Googlebot fits your site in amongst other competing sites for a particular search term. How long this process takes will vary depending on the quality of your site, that of your competition and your industry’s broader online landscape.
Any website from Hart Design will include SEO fundamentals built-in. Things like unique and descriptive title tags, meta descriptions, SEF URLs and H1 headers all play their role. In addition to these on-page SEO techniques, we seek to optimise the site speed. This is a combined effort between the website itself and the highly-tuned web hosting environment that we provide to our customers.
We have a great track record of producing good search engine rankings out of the box. For an additional SEO boost, we can apply some advanced SEO techniques to your website
Cost guideline: For advanced SEO support, our services start at $750 per month. You should be committed to a minimum of six months in order to reap the rewards of our efforts.
Content Creation
If you imagine that your e-commerce site is simply a catalogue of products that people will surely flock to buy, then you’re missing the bigger picture! It’s a well-worn trope but, yes, content is still king. And not just for search engine rankings. Here are three practical ways content can support your e-store endeavours:
- Case Studies: Showing your products in use by happy customers, in real-world situations is a powerful tool for any website
- Demonstrations: Create how-to videos complete with tips for best outcomes, general maintenance or lesser-known uses for your products
- Commentary: When you see something in the news that’s relevant to a product in your range – perhaps something within your industry circle or the wider media – add your two cents to your website. Detail the issue revealed in the media and offer a solution available from your store. If there’s a buzz around what you offer, why not springboard off that energy and leverage sales off the current hot topic
Content is the combination of words, photography, diagrams and video. And Hart Design can help you produce it all under one roof. The beauty of content is that it can be the foundation for all other marketing endeavours:
- Supports good search engine rankings
- Provides material for social media posts
- Promote case studies as part of your email marketing campaigns
- Link Google Ads to case studies and product demos
- Can be tracked and measured in your Hubspot CRM (see below)
Cost guideline: If you’re looking to add-on our content creation service, our monthly rate starts at $1200, depending on the volume and type of content required. Start with a manageable target: if you are to produce one new article a month you’d be surprised at how quickly this material will build up over time.
Google Ads
If you’re keen for a quick fix, Google Ads can rapidly place your website in front of a wide audience and give an instant boost in traffic to your e-commerce website.
Paid ads can be an excellent way to jump-start your online store. However, it is important to note that Google Ads are not a “set is and forget it” operation. For an ad campaign to be successful, it requires a practised eye and frequent attention.
Without the necessary experience and understanding of Google Ads, it’s all too easy to throw good money after bad. Hart Design can provide you with a managed and highly effective Google Ads campaign for your website.
There is an ever-evolving range of Google ads to choose from. Starting with those paid ads you see at the top and bottom of Google search pages, to the pictorial display ads you will have seen embedded into any number of websites as you surf.
See how we’ve leveraged Google Ads to great effect for local business, Mind Easy →
Cost guideline: With a managed Google Ads service from Hart Design, you will page Google directly for the cost of the ads, set to a budget of your choice. We’ll set up and maintain your campaigns for a set monthly fee, starting at $350 per month. As for the Google campaign, this can vary wildly depending on the level of competition for a particular search term. Typically we recommend you spend $1,000 per month on each campaign. We may suggest a little more or less, depending on what search terms you’re targeting.
Beware: many agencies collect all monies directly from you and spend only a fraction of it on the ad campaign itself. Under this condition, your paid advertising campaign can be quite under-geared and lack any real impact.
As with SEO, you should be prepared to allow your Google Ad campaign time to settle in and bear fruit for your e-commerce site. We recommend committing to a minimum of six months when running a Google Ad campaign.
Social Media
Through regular posts of a certain quality and value to your target audience, social media can play a role in drawing traffic to your website. The social media platform best suited to your business will depend on your industry. For example, LinkedIn can be a great fit for professionals selling goods and services B2B, while Facebook and Instagram are better suited to those selling consumer products.
There are certainly businesses that can gain a lot of traction using social media, but it’s not for everyone. It is important to understand your target market and where they’re spending their time when connected. And let’s not forget WHY people are connected to a particular space. In understanding this dynamic, we can adjust our recommended input and expectations of social media for your business.
Cost guideline: At Hart Design, we view social media as just one component of your overall marketing puzzle. While we don’t offer a specific social media management service, we can contribute to your social pages as part of a wider marketing retainer. This can include pay-per-click advertising. In contrast to Google Ads, paid social media ads are usually much less expensive. You can get value out of a $250 budget with Facebook advertising. But again, we urge you to temper your expectations with these types of campaigns.
Special Offers & Networking
Are there complementary businesses or organisations where your target audience spends their time? Can you foster a relationship that will open doors to new prospects for your company? Consider these examples of business symbiosis:
- A tool shop sponsoring the local pub quiz or Friday happy hour
- A dog food business connecting with boarding kennels, doggy daycare centres, dog walkers and groomers
- A car care product with a poster and free samples in the local tyre shop or mechanics
- A physiotherapist making a connection with the local football club
Unless well-known, promoting your product alone is often not enough to encourage a sale. The trick is to identify a suitable connection, ensure the relationship is beneficial to the host organisation and then craft an enticing offer for their customers. This could be a free demo, free sample, a prize draw or discounted price only for those in the know. In promoting to a select group using an established, relevant host organisation, you can generate a keen following for your own business.
In terms of e-commerce, this is where you can use coupons to offer special deals. Coupons allow you to list an item at its regular retail price, yet offer a discount to targeted customers. It could be a free gift with purchase or simply offer free shipping.
Information is power. The impact of these promotions can be tracked and measured so you know the impact of your marketing efforts. This knowledge should inform your business decisions moving forward.
What Happens After the Sale is Made?
You’ve mastered the art of attraction using a combination of the above strategies, and orders are rolling in. The question now becomes, how do you encourage repeat business from the customers you’ve worked so hard to draw in?
The good news is that your e-commerce website can help encourage repeat sales. And with the following tools bolted on, many of these processes can be automated!
Anyone who has used e-commerce more than a few times would have seen these common e-commerce sales techniques in action. Consider how you can implement these tips for your own e-commerce operation…
Email & Automation
As soon as someone buys something online, your site can start learning about their buying history. At suitable intervals, leverage email to remind customers to stock up on replacement products, refills, accessories, consumables or servicing.
Reward a customer for their first purchase with a discount code to be used on their next order.
Encourage product reviews on your store, Google reviews or Facebook reviews. It all helps build up your SEO puzzle over time.
Launching a new product or special offer? Notify your customers with an email.
Referral & Reward Systems
Encourage loyalty by rewarding customers for every dollar they spend, or for spreading the word amongst their friends. The better the rewards on offer, the more likely you are to engender repeat sales.
Subscriptions
Do your products need to be regularly replaced or refilled? From buying coffee to pet food to fresh produce… If you make it easy and enticing for your customers to subscribe to regular orders, then each new order is one gained for you and one order lost for your competition!
CRM
As budget allows, consider using Hubspot as your customer relationship manager (CRM), a central hub for nurturing your customer relationships. You can manage support tickets, run email campaigns, automation and more. The insights you’ll gain from this powerful software can be enormous.
e-Commerce Case Studies
Summary
Hart Design can guide you in each of the ideas above and can implement the e-commerce marketing tools you favour. And if Rome wasn’t built in a day, then your e-commerce website doesn’t have to be either. Our final piece of advice for life after your e-commerce website launch is to keep the momentum going. A website is never “finished”. This is especially true for an e-commerce website. There are almost endless ways to improve the value of your website for your customers. And the more valuable your site is, the more the orders will snowball over time.