The 9 Biggest E-Commerce Marketing Mistakes You Can Easily Avoid
Marketing isn’t for everyone. This is a known fact — remember how many times you’ve seen a commercial that simply doesn’t make any sense. The amount of uninteresting and completely wrong marketing campaigns is staggering. If you haven’t seen this type of advertising, you’re one of the lucky ones. You might be thinking that marketing is easy and that it doesn’t take too much planning or thinking. Sadly, this is wrong. Marketing mistakes are common in the e-commerce world, but this shouldn’t scare you. Making mistakes is human, and it helps us learn. However, since there’s no need to go through the experience of making a marketing mistake, we’ll help you skip the entire process so you can start being successful regarding marketing and your e-commerce business.
Here are the nine biggest e-commerce marketing mistakes that you can easily avoid!
Choosing the wrong platform
When starting an e-commerce business, the platform you choose is extremely important. I’ve encountered a couple of e-commerce businesses that have chosen the wrong platform, and they can’t reach their full potential. Think about this before you start your business. You’ll need a plan, and this is a vital part of that plan. Go through all possible options and single out one or two platforms. Once you’ve done this, weigh the pros and cons and then make a choice. This should be on the top of your priority list because once you make a choice, there’s no going back without making massive sacrifices.
Running without strategy
Sometimes, business owners think that an initial plan is enough and once the business is up and running, their involvement ceases. This is not true! You are not only a business owner but a leader as well. You can’t lead your company by avoiding to work and plan. The strategy is everything because your customers won’t be very happy with a business that isn’t organized. Always have plans that you’ll execute as time goes by. This is the only way to success!
Not adding trust factors
Trust factors are clients that have full trust in your skills and your entire business. If you’ve visited a website that lists certain companies and clients on the bottom of their page, then you’ve come across trust factors. For example, an IT business might list “Norton Antivirus” and “Microsoft” on the bottom of their page, listing that those clients trust them. You will improve your reputation by adding such information, and your customers will trust you a lot more.
Underestimating mobile
A website that doesn’t have a mobile version of it is bound to fail. Thanks to the advancements in mobile phone technology, your customers are much more likely to visit your e-commerce website through their mobile phones rather than computers. If you don’t have a mobile version of your website, you’re blocking all those mobile users. Never underestimate the number of people visiting your website with their mobile phones!
No contact information
How else are your customers going to contact you if not through an E-mail or phone? Always list your full contact addresses because you’ll open up the possibility of your customers contacting you and telling you if they have issues so you can help them out, or if they simply want to speak their mind. Sometimes, something isn’t going to work as planned and you’ll have to deal with that. There’s no way you can deal with these issues if your customers can’t reach you. Add contact information! This is especially useful and necessary for a high-risk payment gateway!
Overusing popups
Popups, in general, aren’t very welcome in the online world. They take the customer’s focus away, and they can be quite annoying. It’s best if you have only one popup that can be anything but our best recommendation is that the popup is related to a newsletter. The newsletter popup allows the visitor to type in their E-mail address to which you can send news about your e-commerce business. This also allows you to use marketing to your advantage.
Depriving your customers of free shipping
Of course, shipping is sometimes necessary, especially if you’re having monetary issues. But don’t let this become the norm! Make your customers happy by offering them free shipping. A customer that doesn’t have to spend too much money is a happy customer that will always come back to you. However, keep in mind that this entire process needs to be cost effective for you!
Not exhibiting product review
Not exhibiting product reviews is considered a shady business practice. No one likes purchasing products that don’t have a proper description or reviews from other people. One personal example is that I’ve recently purchased a gaming wheel, but there were no product reviews I could use. I ended up purchasing a terribly designed wheel which I haven’t used since the purchase.
Help your customers feel better by providing adequate product reviews.
Overseeing the power of social media
Older generations of people are more wary of social media than younger ones. However, social media marketing has never been as popular and effective as it is now. Don’t underestimate the power of social media marketing! Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter combined have an immense power that you can use to reach a huge number of people. A simple Facebook post will have more reach than a well thought of ad somewhere else!
Not measuring performance
Always keep an eye on your performance and success. You’ll be able to notice unwanted fluctuations in sales which means you’ll be much more able to fix any issues that might have occurred. Unpredictable problems are known to happen with this type of business and not keeping an eye on everything will definitely put you at a disadvantage. If it’s too difficult for yourself to do, hire an employee that will do it for you! Just don’t forget to check your progress.
