What should I do in terms of webshop marketing?
A big advantage of a webshop is that you can reach a huge number of people. Anyone in the world can - in theory - place an order with you. Whether you deliver worldwide in practice, we will leave that aside for the moment.
Online, there is one big disadvantage: there is a lot of competition. What should you do to make your webshop visible? How do you attract new customers and stay top of mind with existing ones? The answer: omnichannel marketing.
You use various channels to push your webshop to attract new customers and keep existing customers coming back. But what does that push look like? Think of SEO web texts that get you high rankings in Google and/or paid advertisements (SEA). To really stand out, set up omnichannel campaigns that capture the entire customer journey.
Don't set up marketing campaigns haphazardly. Start by writing a marketing plan: the basis of your webshop marketing.
Would you rather outsource the writing of a marketing plan? Take a look at our partner network.
Writing a marketing plan for webshop
The first step of webshop marketing is to write a marketing plan. One of the most important steps. Why? With this plan, you lay the foundation for marketing your webshop. Among other things, you determine the successes of your marketing activities, the target group you want to focus your communications on and how you are going to reach this group. The resources you need, and the total budget, are also laid down in the plan. In short: a marketing plan for your webshop provides direction and is therefore indispensable.
How do you write a marketing plan for a web shop? A webshop marketing plan consists of the following parts:
- An objective, possibly split into several sub-objectives
- A target group analysis (including buyer personas)
- A competition analysis
- The positioning and USPs of your webshop
- Marketing strategies (divided over various channels)
- The budget and corresponding resources
- Strategic plan
Step 1: Setting an objective for webshop marketing
With an objective, you give direction to your webshop marketing. What exactly do you want to achieve? In which time? A marketing objective for a webshop is, for example:
- Increase turnover
- More traffic on the website
- Increase brand awareness
An example of a marketing objective:
📈 Within one year, annual sales should increase from €125,000 to €225,000
The above objective is difficult to achieve all at once. Therefore, the advice is to divide such an objective into sub-objectives. For example:
- Within one year, increase the total number of customers from 15,000 to 20,000
- Increase the average number of orders per customer from 2 to 4 within one year
Step 2: Performing a target group analysis for webshop
The second step of the marketing plan for your webshop is to carry out a target group analysis. Who is your ideal customer? Through whom will you achieve your objective?
Tip: create a buyer persona. With a persona, you make your target group tangible. It is easier to create a marketing strategy for a tangible persona than for a theoretical group of people. You then place these personas in the corresponding phase of the customer journey.
Example buyer persona
Step 3: A competition analysis for web shop
The third part of the marketing plan is competition analysis. Whatever is your industry: there is a lot of competition online. It pays to know what keeps them busy. What they do. So that you can set your webshop apart.
Example competitive analysis
Step 4: Positioning your webshop
The fourth step is the final preliminary step in the marketing strategy. Namely: the positioning of your webshop. What do you stand for? What do you have to offer? Why exactly should the customer choose your webshop?
With the positioning, you give your webshop an identity. This identity will soon be reflected everywhere. In every statement on social media, in every e-mail and of course on the website. In other words: omnichannel. Without your own identity, you are just one of many webshops on the internet. So think carefully about how you want to be known.
Part of positioning is drawing up USPs (Unique Selling Points). What distinguishes you from your competition? A few examples of USPs:
- Having your own stock
- Available 7 days a week
- New products every month
- Own transport for delivery
Step 5: Setting up a marketing strategy for your webshop
The first four steps have given you a reasonable basis for marketing your webshop. Now you get down to the actual strategy. How are you going to promote your webshop?
The marketing of every webshop consists of several channels. For each channel, you set up a matching strategy. You decide how to use each channel and what you want to achieve with it. Think about:
A strategy provides a handle. Without a strategy, you only shoot with hail and often change course. That is detrimental to your webshop's reach, and it costs you money. Your marketing is simply not effective. So set up a strategy per channel. Here is how to do this.
SEO strategy for a web shop
With an SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy, you get your webshop to score as high as possible in Google. You focus on important keywords from potential customers. You use these keywords on the pages of your webshop to attract visitors.
The SEO strategy includes the following points:
- On page optimization
- Link building
- Content strategy
Setting up a suitable SEO strategy for a webshop is different from that for a website. The customer should not be distracted from what the customer came for: a purchase. Therefore, set up a good SEO strategy and go for a top position in Google.
SEA strategy for a webshop
Besides SEO, you have the option of setting up paid promotions within Google (SEA: Search Engine Advertising). There are again two options in this:
- Ads
- Shopping
If you choose ads, your page will appear at the top of the search results. With Shopping, you place the product at the top of the search results. The visitor can then directly view and order the product. So these are important choices within the SEA strategy, with corresponding price tags.
Social strategy for a web shop
Social media allow you to approach customers directly. You also give your webshop a face. An indispensable factor in attracting new and retaining existing customers.
In a social strategy for your webshop, you deal with the following points:
- What goals do you want to achieve with social media?
- Who do you want to reach?
- How will you measure your success?
- What will you share on social media?
- Will this include paid collaborations?
- Will you advertise on social media?
E-mail marketing for a webshop
The core of e-mail marketing is to focus on retention. Emails are used to reach existing customers and persuade them to make new purchases. You can do this via newsletters, but also via automated e-mails.
When drawing up a strategy around e-mail marketing, you fill in the following points:
- What goals do you want to achieve with e-mail marketing?
- Who do you want to reach?
- How will you measure your success?
- How will you achieve this success?
Content marketing
Content marketing is much more than writing (SEO) blogs. It's about your customer's information needs. What do they want, and how do you meet it? Important questions that you answer in your content marketing strategy.
Retention marketing
With retention marketing, you focus on retaining existing customers. Your goal is to have visitors return to your webshop. You can do this, for instance, by setting up promotions:
- Loyalty programs
- Discount on a second order
- Tell-a-friend actions
Example loyalty discount offer
Marketing automation
Marketing automation goes beyond all individual marketing channels. It is about the total customer journey with interactions a person has with your webshop. You look for the right contact moments to approach the customer at the right time, via the appropriate channel. You tailor the message to the unique customer. This form of marketing is fully automatic.
Marketing automation for a web shop can include the following activities:
- Personalization on the webshop (such as product recommendations)
- Automated e-mails
- SMS
- Advertisements
Example of a marketing automation e-mail
Step 6: The budget and associated resources
To implement the strategies from step five, you need marketing resources and a budget. That's why you lay down both in step six.
For each marketing channel, consider the following issues:
- Which medium am I going to use?
- What do I need for it?
- How much budget do I need for the channel? Also consider the man-hours and any subscription price!
Based on the above points, draw up a budget for your overall marketing strategy.
Step 7: Plan of campaign approach
The final step of the marketing plan is all about execution. For this, you make a plan of action, including the following components:
- How will you implement all the strategies in the plan?
- When will you implement which steps?
- What deadlines do you want to meet?
- Which KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) will you use to measure success per channel?
- If you work in a team: who is responsible per channel and the corresponding strategy?
Perfecting marketing for your webshop
After writing the marketing plan, there is only one thing left to do. Implementing the complete plan. Remember that the plan is not set in stone. Do you discover after a few months that the plan no longer suits your goals? Don't be afraid to adjust (parts of) the marketing plan.
