As ecommerce continues to boom, millions of entrepreneurs have used their online stores to expand their reach and visibility so they can make more sales, but as a beginner, it can be very difficult to make an impact unless you evolve strategies to promote your ecommerce business online.
This is very crucial because the competition is growing increasingly high in some sectors. With a reported valuation at over 4 trillion USD in 2025 by Statista, the ecommerce industry is growing in leaps and bounds and entrepreneurs both big and small are hustling hard to get a piece of the pie.
To get a chunk out of this pie, you do not only have to hold your own, you have to be able to identify specific digital marketing strategies that will drive growth, master them and use these strategies to crush your marketing campaign without fail.
Having worked with different brands including a fast rising ecommerce to grow from scratch to multiple figures over the years, I’ll be sharing with you in this guide, the proven strategies to promote your online stores and crush your marketing without fail.
Get a Website
Table of Contents
One of the most powerful ways to promote an ecommerce business is to get a website, create and upload images of your product and then share it with the world.
Owning a website as your main online store is crucial because it gives you a platform you own. Outside giving your business a more professional set up, it also gives you the option where users can reach you by simply searching online, irrespective of their location.
Unlike a social media handle, the website can also serve as a platform where you leverage to strategically place your business and promote it across specific locations around the world.
Before getting a website for your ecommerce business, you need to get a domain name that aligns with your business name and then go ahead and obtain a hosting space that will conveniently take care of your expected product upload, audience bandwidth and other important variables.
As soon as your domain name and web hosting accounts has been procured, you can then go ahead to create an ecommerce website, using your preferred Content Management System like WordPress’s WooCommerce setup or building from scratch, depending on what works for you.
You can also hire our web developers to build and deliver your website from scratch if you need something very professional.
After your website is all set up, ensure that you have a captivating home page that displays your business details in a way that will attract the interest of potential buyers. Also, set up your website pages properly as expected. And finally, be sure that you have your product pages, set up and optimized individually.
Optimize for SEO
Search engine optimization is a powerful tool you can use to drive organic traffic to your website without having to spend on advertising for any reason. It is also one of the most result driven ways to promote an ecommerce business online.
For one of the ecommerce businesses we worked with, their business major priority was on using search engine optimization to deliver on sales over other marketing approaches. While they still used other marketing options as well, their main reason for using SEO was the idea that search engine optimization delivers on a more sustainable and long term results, compared to the others.
As an ecommerce entrepreneur, you do not merely need a website, you need a website that is well optimized to meet the needs of your human users while delivering the best outcomes for you in terms of visibility. That is why you have to optimize for SEO.
Starting from your home page, identify and use your major industry and product based keywords to optimize the website for higher visibility. Also, optimize individual pages on your website.
As part of your search engine optimization, ensure that your website loads very fast. Also, make it mobile friendly. And pay attention to using geographical based keywords and a well-targeted back linking system, to create a consistent result for your business.
Use Social Media Marketing
Social media marketing provides an option to promote an ecommerce business both directly and indirectly. It is one of the most popular strategies used by ecommerce businesses including the smaller and bigger ones like Amazon among many others.
To set up a social media marketing for your ecommerce business, start with sorting out and identifying the top platforms with the highest number of your target audience, among the top social media platforms. You can do this using a quick survey.
As soon as this is done, head over to set up a page for your brand on the top identified platforms using your branded items like your brand name, logo, cover images, brand description etc.
It is important that you create a brand only on the platforms you know you can manage effectively. You can always evolve or create more handles on other platforms, as your brand continues to grow.
After you’ve successfully created your branded handles on these platforms, it’s time to create and share content with your audience. You want to share engaging and user centred content that will resonate with your audience and inspire engagement.
Alongside sharing normal social media content, you can also share content from your platforms like blogs, websites etc. on your social media handles at intervals.
Engage in Paid Advertising
Paid advertising is also a great option for anyone opting to promote an ecommerce business online. It works really well in most cases especially for beginners however it can be very pricey, if you’re building your business on a shoes string budget.
It was one of the options we used for an ecommerce company, alongside SEO and it delivered massively in terms of new customers in the very early days.
There are a handful of options when it comes to paid advertising for online stores. For example we have Google Pay Per Click Advertising, Social Media Advertising (that also has a lot of options), Sponsored advertising and third party advertising.
For best results, you want to choose an advertising option that aligns with your goals. For instance, if you’re looking for faster actual sales, you’ll consider using PPC advertising for intent based outcomes although this will be likely more pricey than the other options.
If you’re running on a smaller budget, consider Facebook advertising as a cornerstone of your marketing. Although this might not deliver a large ROI in terms of direct sales in some industries, the reach advantage can make for a great impact. And your set up strategy might also up your overall results.
Finally, third party advertising that’s either a sponsored post, banner ads, links or mentions can also be very useful although this will depend on the platform, their audience and their overall relevance to your brand or the products you’re selling on your stores.
In a nutshell, if you’re running an online store with a decent budget, you want to consider ecommerce advertising as one of your options to drive early growth and overall visibility.
Create & Post Content
Content marketing provides an avenue for creators to share their ideas, attract visibility and gain new visitors to their website. This is a well-known option to promote an ecommerce business, used by platforms like Shopify among many others.
As an ecommerce entrepreneur, you can create and share content on your website, blogs and social media handles and in turn use this content to gain new users, followers and customers.
To get started with content marketing, you have to identify your target audience, find out their needs, the things they are searching for and how your product or services can be positioned to solve these problems or provide the solutions they need.
When this is done, you can then use tools like Wordstream, Ubersuggest, Google Keyword Tool etc. to further your research, identify the keywords that matter to this audience and then find ways to use it as part of your content creation process.
After getting this all sorted out, you can then go ahead and create valuable content that is also entertaining, educational or informational, aimed at providing solutions to the needs of your audience while positioning your brand as what they need.
To create consistent outcomes, you want to evolve a content calendar that will allow you to create and share these content on a regular basis. This is very crucial as it will lead you to create a widespread digital imprint, gain improved visibility and ultimately, attract new clients.
In addition to your own platforms, you can also create and share content on other third party platforms to create backlinks, promote your brand and also leverage their own visibility to sell your brand.
Leverage Influencer Marketing
Over the years, influencer marketing has grown to become one of the biggest channels to push sales and visibility online. A lot of entrepreneurs have leveraged this digital marketing option to push their own sales thus making it automatically one of the top channels to promote an ecommerce business.
You can also leverage influencer marketing to promote your online store or specific products or services.
To get started, you want to identify influencers relevant to your industry or the ones with a decent audience base that can actually pull the numbers for your product. These are some of the things you’ll want to consider, alongside your budget.
Now, there are nano, micro, macro and mega influencers, each categorized based on their reach, number of followers etc. these categorization in most cases also will affect their charges and rates for brand promotion.
Once again before getting started, head over to the platform with the largest number of your target audience, identify the major influencers on those platforms and then use other factors like audience, niche, relevance to your brand and budget to further streamline influencers that meets your needs and then go ahead and work with them.
There are a number of options to work with these influencers. For example, you can also set up an affiliate system that allows your influencers or promoters to earn a certain fixed rates over products sold via their channels. A number of online stores use this approach and it’s worked for them.
Ecommerce brands have also used the options which include providing influencers with their products to use and mention the brand as an avenue for brand promotion.
There are a handful of these options you can choose from, depending on your goals and budget.
Sell on Third Party Platforms
As an online store, you can sell your products on third party stores, other than your own store. A number of ecommerce businesses including Amazon KDP, Lulu etc. are currently cross selling their own products on other platforms as well.
The goal is to get your products as much visibility as possible. And putting them on third party platforms that can deliver on sales is one of the proven strategies to promote an ecommerce business, always.
This strategy has not merely worked for other bigger brands, we’ve used it for smaller brands and it’s delivered on sales, especially in the formative days.
You want to put this strategy to use to get the words out there for your business. And to do that, you must identify the top third party platforms and online stores, depending on what you’re selling.
These platforms could be either of Jumia, Jiji, Konga, ebay, etc. choose one that works for you, depending on your location and your prospective audience.
PS: Note that some of these platforms may require you pay for some of their services. You want to choose a platform whose model aligns with your own budget and expected outcomes.
Final Words
It’s not enough to own an online store. To attract new customers and make actual sales, you have to find a way to promote your ecommerce business from time to time.
While there are a number of other strategies you could add to this, including those ones you’ll discover as your business continues to grow, when it’s been put in good use, you’ll find that the ideas you’ve learned in this guide will get you to reposition your online stores for explosive growth and business sales.
Where you’re having difficulty navigating the promotion of your online stores for improved visibility, our team can work with you to create a structure that will deliver on your expected outcomes, just like we have done to others. Reach out to us here.
Now it’s your turn. What are your biggest challenges when it comes to promoting an online store from scratch? Drop your comments below.
No responses yet