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 How to professionally prepare an online store marketing plan

How to professionally prepare an online store marketing plan

E-commerce is characterized by its ability to achieve growth and expansion for different stores, and this is what makes stores shift from their presence on the ground, to establishing an online store to carry out their business. But in fact, in light of intense competition, the desired growth can only be achieved with a clear marketing vision of how to spread and reach potential customers. So how do you professionally prepare an online store marketing plan?

What is the importance of e-marketing for e-stores?

Online store marketing is the activities aimed at promoting your online store to customers online. Marketing for the online store is characterized by the presence of various marketing activities that contribute to attracting new customers to buy, as well as maintaining existing customers. The importance of e-marketing for e-stores is represented in the following points:

1. Reaching a larger base of potential customers

The main advantage of e-commerce is the increase in sales opportunities for customers in different places, as sales in physical stores are limited to a limited geographical range, according to the location of the store. But building an online store does not mean that you will actually reach all of these customers, but rather you have to make it easier for your customers to find and know your store.

The success of this is associated with relying on e-marketing, which helps you reach large numbers of potential customers for your store, and from different places as you wish. This can be done by using the different Media Paying strategies that allow you to target customers in detail, such as choosing the countries or cities in which you want your ads to appear, and specifying other data such as age, marital status, etc.

2. Manage the customer journey and influence customer decisions

Customer awareness has increased with regard to the purchase process, so there are different stages that the customer goes through until he makes the final decision to buy. One of the most important advantages of e-marketing for online stores is the opportunity to target the customer at various stages, by using marketing strategies that suit each stage.

For example, in the stage of awareness and recognition of your online store, your store blog can be relied upon to create content that is compatible with search engines SEO, so that customers reach you when they search for information in search engines. In the decision stage, a landing page can be created and special discounts and offers can be provided to the customer that influence the purchase decision.

3. Growth in sales

The role of e-marketing is not limited to increasing the number of potential customers, or managing the customer journey, but rather this translates into real growth in the sales of the online store. There are marketing strategies and ideas designed specifically for marketing the online store, such as alternative selling and cross selling strategies.

Cross selling is about proposing another group of products to the customer to buy, whether complementary or additional products related to the customers' needs. When the customer decides to buy the product, they are automatically shown suggestions for other products with the use of a phrase such as (customers buy these products together).

As for the alternative sale, it is suitable for most service stores, and it depends on proposing a better version of the current product that the customer wants to buy. For example, if you offer one of the software services as a SaaS service in your store, and you sell it through various packages, through alternative selling, you will convince the customer to buy a higher package than the one he currently owns.

10 steps that enable you to prepare a professional online store marketing plan

All stores seek to take advantage of the advantages of e-marketing for the e-shop, so the way will not be easy to take advantage of these features on your own, but you must learn how to prepare a professional e-shop marketing plan, which helps you defeat competitors and reach your customers.

The first step: developing the marketing mix

The marketing mix describes the basic elements that will help you choose the right marketing mechanism for your online store. The marketing mix is ​​used to build a professional online store marketing plan, whether you hire it yourself to write the plan, or share it with the marketing team to take over this responsibility. The marketing mix consists of four elements known as the 4 P’s:

Product: Describe the main products that your online store sells, the competitive advantage that makes you different from the rest of competitors, and clarify the target audience.

Pricing: The mechanism for pricing your store's products, and comparing it with the prices of competitors' products, to ensure that your customers are able to purchase.

Promotion: How to promote your product, and the marketing channels used to reach customers.

Place: Where you sell your products to customers, and in this case, the place in the marketing mix is ​​mainly online stores.

Step Two: Analyze everything about your store

The marketing plan is implemented within a certain time frame, so it is often time-bound, and the planning process is repeated periodically. So, when you start preparing an online store marketing plan for a new period of time, it is necessary to analyze everything related to your store at the present time, and this includes studying:

customer personality

Your online store targets selling to specific customers according to the nature of the products or services in your store. So, study the customer's personality well, identify their pain points and challenges, and understand exactly what they need. This information will help you later when choosing the right marketing strategies and ideas to promote.

products

This step is useful to know the products that you currently have in stock, the exact quantities of them available, as well as the products that will be available during the implementation period of the store's marketing plan. It will also help you analyze previous sales reports, to see which products are the best sellers, or which products bring you the highest revenue, and focus on them in your plan whenever the opportunity arises.

Previous marketing campaigns

Study carefully all the marketing campaigns that were implemented in the previous plans, and analyze the results of these campaigns, to find out which strategies suited your audience and achieved the best results, as well as which strategies did not achieve the desired, and may need to be modified. This step will help you when choosing marketing strategies in the new plan.

The competition

When it comes to building an online store marketing plan, studying the competition is not limited to knowing the products. Rather, it is necessary to analyze the marketing mechanisms used, and know which one achieves better performance with customers, in order to benefit from that in developing your marketing activities.

market

The market situation changes from time to time. Some industries have seasons in which sales flourish more than others, with the changing purchasing power of customers according to general economic conditions. Therefore, understanding the market correctly helps to build a marketing plan for your online store that suits the general situation, with the correct estimate of the budget and the marketing activities that must be focused on in the plan.

Rely on a SWOT analysis to conduct a comprehensive analysis of your store

The main objective of the SWOT analysis in preparing an online store marketing plan is to employ and organize the previous information that you have obtained to make the right marketing decisions. SWOT analysis includes 4 basic elements as follows:

Strengths: Your online store's internal strengths, such as having a strong product to sell to customers that has a strong competitive advantage, or having a highly popular marketing platform.

Weaknesses: Weaknesses internal to your store that negatively affect performance, such as not having an integrated marketing team.

Opportunities: Opportunities in the market around you, such as the demand of customers to buy from online stores in the current period.

Threats: External factors that affect you, such as the purchasing power of customers and their impact on economic conditions.

Distribute the information you have among the four elements of the analysis as appropriate for each piece of information. To know the strengths and opportunities to invest them well when starting marketing, and to control weaknesses and threats to ensure that their negative effects on your store are managed.

The third step: writing marketing objectives and performance indicators

After analyzing everything about your store, move on to writing the marketing goals you need to implement. These goals are determined according to the time period of the plan, so be sure to set logical goals that are consistent with the time of the plan and are actually achievable. For example, your goals from the monthly marketing plan will differ from the goals of the semi-annual marketing plan, as the latter will certainly include larger targets. Examples of marketing objectives:

Sales growth of 20% compared to the previous quarter.

Get 100 new subscribers to your newsletter.

Reaching 20,000 followers on your social media pages.

Improve ranking for 30 keywords per month in search engines.

Set clear indicators to measure performance KPIs, to be used in the evaluation of your plan later, and to ensure that the marketing objectives set are achieved. These pointers will help you manage your online store marketing plan, and ensure everything goes according to plan.

Step 4: Plan the customer journey

Proper planning of the customer's journey with your store helps you understand the steps customers go through, from gathering information to making purchasing decisions. Most importantly, knowing which platforms customers use on the journey. Study each step of the journey, understand the challenges customers face at each step, and the nature of the content they are looking for.

Don't try to assume which platforms customers use, or guess what challenges they face, but rather rely on data collected using customer relationship management systems. This will help you improve the effectiveness of the marketing process, and allow you to choose the marketing strategies and channels in which customers are already present, to ensure their interaction with your various activities.

Step Five: Choose the most appropriate marketing strategies for your online store

There are many marketing strategies that are suitable for online stores, so you need to choose the most appropriate one for your online store according to customer journey planning. These strategies can be developed every time you develop a new online store marketing plan, whether by adding more new strategies, or modifying and deleting existing strategies. Among the best marketing strategies for the online store:

1. SEO

Search engine optimization for online stores is not only a marketing strategy, but rather a necessary and irreplaceable matter, as it includes several practices that make a big difference in the numbers of visitors and potential customers who enter the online store. Among the most important things to focus on in your search engine optimization strategy:

Blogs: Writing useful articles for your online store customers, addressing the challenges and problems they face, and showing you as an expert in your field. Through these articles, you can market your products and services.

Product description pages: Product description pages must be written professionally, explaining the features and benefits of products, while using appropriate keywords.

Attention to local SEO: Paying attention to the search results to show customers who live in a geographical area close to you, and they are searching for the products or services offered by your store.

2. Social media marketing

Customers use social networking sites permanently as part of their daily use of the Internet, and therefore marketing through social media is one of the strategies that contribute to reaching large numbers of customers, and it can be relied upon as part of the marketing plan for the online store.

3. Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the powerful marketing strategies for online stores, as it can be used to communicate with customers and achieve many marketing goals. Examples of using email marketing are:

Welcome messages to customers on your store, and send any content that contributes to introducing them to what you offer after registering on the site.

Explanations of how to use the product or service, especially technological products that include many details.

A reminder of the products that the customer added to the shopping cart and did not complete the process. This may contribute to the completion of the purchase.

Offers and discounts in your store, and offers can be designed specifically for subscribers to your mailing list.

Post-purchase follow-up and evaluation messages, to maintain customer relations.

Your usual newsletter.

4. Media Paying

Media Paying refers to paid advertising strategies, which are necessary to improve the reach of your content to your target audience. There are several paid advertising platforms, the most prominent of which are:

Search engine advertising, which is the ads that appear at the top of the search page results.

Paid ads on different social networking sites, and each platform has its own control panel, of course, and a way to implement ads.

5. Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is commonly used in online stores, as it is possible to cooperate with influencers in various fields, to promote the products sold by your store. Important tips for influencer marketing:

Don't limit your influencer selection to follower numbers, but evaluate your content and target audience.

Choose between influencers and choose who targets the same persona as your customer.

Make sure to cooperate with influencers who have credibility with customers, as this increases the chance that customers will be convinced and buy products because they trust the influencer’s credibility.

6. Affiliate marketing

The commission marketing strategy is one of the inexpensive marketing strategies to implement, and at the same time good sales may be achieved through it. The strategy is implemented by starting an affiliate marketing program, and providing an opportunity for marketers wishing to participate in the program to promote and sell your products, in return for obtaining a commission from each sale.

Step Six: Determine the marketing channels

There are several suitable platforms to implement your marketing strategies. For example, you may choose a social media marketing strategy, but will you use all communication platforms? It can be a waste of marketing effort and budget when your audience isn't using all of these platforms.

So, after completing the selection of strategies, select the most appropriate marketing channels to implement. The choice depends on the nature of the target customers in your store, and on the customer journey plan, to ensure that you communicate with customers on the various platforms they use, to create a truly effective online store marketing plan.

The seventh step: developing marketing ideas

Marketing ideas are simply the good use of marketing strategies and channels to achieve maximum effectiveness, and increase sales as much as possible, as in the ideas of alternative selling and cross selling. Therefore, it is important to ensure that you develop marketing ideas that suit your online store, with permanent renewal in each new plan. Examples of marketing ideas you can use on your store include:

Marketing campaigns

A marketing campaign is a campaign organized to achieve a specific marketing objective over a specified period of time. For example, you will find many online stores organizing marketing campaigns during the White Friday period, to offer discounts and offers to customers. Whenever you have the opportunity, build a new marketing campaign, and add it as a basic idea to build a successful online store marketing plan.

Loyalty programmes

Loyalty programs are organized to encourage customers to return to your online store again, and to conduct more transactions, such as buying permanently from your store, or renewing the subscription periodically. Loyalty programs depend on giving your customers points for every action carried out in your store, and the customer can benefit from these points in different ways, such as obtaining gifts or free delivery service, and other ideas.

Customer testimonials

Most customers are looking for previous reviews of your products, as they influence their purchasing decisions. These customers believe that your previous customers have no interest in sharing their reviews of your products, and consider them evidence of the quality or poorness of your products. So, invest in previous customer testimonials to display on your product pages, to attract new customers.

The past three steps overlap together in their implementation, and you need marketing expertise to implement them with the required qualityTherefore, you can purchase e-marketing services from Souq.com, the largest Arab market for microservices, to obtain a professional e-store marketing plan, which includes choosing the best marketing strategies, channels and ideas suitable for your store.

Step eight: invest in tools

Developing a professional online store marketing plan requires having appropriate marketing tools to use. These tools give you efficient and effective performance, while helping you save some costs in marketing. Among the most important tools that you will benefit from are:

Marketing automation: Marketing automation tools make it easy to automate actions without human intervention, such as content scheduling tools, email marketing tools like new subscriber welcome messages, and automated chatbots that pop up to message customers when they enter a store.

Customer Relationship Management Systems: These systems make it easy to manage your entire customer service, as they collect all the data about your customers in one place.

Step 9: Determine the schedule and allocate the appropriate budget for the plan

Your marketing plan is linked to the specified time period, with various and interrelated tasks in its implementation. Therefore, it is necessary to divide the tasks well over this period, by setting the implementation schedule, while identifying the people responsible for each task.

After that, you can monitor the appropriate budget to implement your plan and all its axes, whether the costs of marketing tools, paid advertising, or the services of Fiverr sellers. Be sure to calculate all the costs that you will incur during the implementation of the online store marketing plan, so that you will not be surprised later on by any additional costs that were not taken into account.

Step Ten: Study the results after implementing the marketing plan for the online store

In the final step, analyze the results of your marketing plan well, and study the effectiveness of the implemented marketing strategies and ideas, to develop and improve them sufficiently in the next plan. Compare previously set marketing goals with what has already been done, to evaluate your success rate in implementing the plan.

Thus, you have prepared a successful business plan for the work and development of a website for work, marketing and profit on the Internet with ease and professionalism.