The Future of Shopping is Digital: 7 Online Retail Marketing Strategies for Success

Ecommerce is experiencing explosive growth. The market is projected to reach $57.22 trillion in global sales by 2032, according to eMarketer. Mind you, brick-and-mortar still accounts for most retail sales in the U.S.

Yet online channels are growing five times faster than offline purchases.

That's a big opportunity for retailers to tap into surging digital demand. They can do so by optimizing their online marketing strategies. 

This article will provide research-backed online marketing tactics for retailers. The goals are to acquire new customers, drive sales, and build market share digitally.

The Need for an Online Retail Marketing Strategy

As mentioned above, the tides of retail are shifting. Ecommerce may still be the minority, but its fast growth shows where retail is headed.

Forward-thinking retailers know an effective online marketing strategy is now a must, not a luxury. This strategy lets them engage tech-oriented consumers anytime and anywhere they shop. No longer limited by location or hours, they can connect with modern customers on their schedule.

Retailers without a digital strategy will miss out on this growing segment. By using targeted online campaigns, retailers can enjoy surging ecommerce growth.

7 High-Impact Digital Marketing Strategies for Retailers

So, how does one go about creating an online retail marketing strategy? It's not as simple as throwing up a website and waiting for customers to come. It requires a well-thought-out plan of action.

The following digital marketing strategies for retailers have proven effective. Follow them to find and retain digital-focused customers:

1. Optimize the Online Shopping Experience

A retailer's website is the heart of its digital presence. It serves as a 24/7 destination for consumers to browse, research, and buy products. As such, you need a smooth user experience to convert visitors into paying customers. The more savvy the average customer becomes, the less you can get away with.

Your website must be on par, if not better, than any of your competitors. Of course, it must look good. That can easily be achieved with a premade theme and quality design. However, there is much more to the User Experience (UX) of online shoppers.

Here are some common elements shoppers expect to find on an optimized shopping website:

• Intuitive site navigation with menus, filters, and site search to easily find products.
• Engaging product detail pages with high-quality images, videos, reviews, ratings, and descriptions.
• Streamlined checkout with auto-fill forms, guest checkout, and clear calls-to-action to complete orders.
• Fully responsive design, adapting seamlessly across desktop, tablet, and mobile. Most shopping now occurs on mobile.
• Fast page load speeds through caching, image compression, and other performance best practices. Faster sites have higher conversion rates.

The aim is to remove friction in finding and buying products. Try to eliminate any barriers between customers and checkout.

2. Use Segmented Email Marketing Campaigns

Before you can get to show off that amazing website, you must first lure visitors to it. There are plenty of valid lead-generation tactics to achieve this, including email. You might be thinking that email is outdated or that people don't use it as much anymore, but you would be wrong. Email retains one of the highest ROIs ($36 for every dollar spent) across marketing channels, even all these years later.

Email marketing effectively engages both existing and prospective customers. A good practice is segmenting email lists. Separate recipients based on behaviors and attributes. You can then send highly relevant communications tailored to each subscriber's needs.

Effective retail market segmentation and strategies include:

• Welcome series to nurture leads and guide them to purchase.
• Abandoned cart messages to recover lost sales from users who left items unpurchased.
• Win-back campaigns with special offers to bring back lapsed customers.
• Lifecycle emails like birthday rewards or status upgrades.
• Promotional and seasonal emails to increase customer spend.

You can also take a page out of Amazon's playbook and offer personalized recommendations based on history and behaviors. Personalized emails matched to the customer journey produce much higher open and click rates, driving more sales.

3. Leverage Paid Social Advertising

With over 4.89 billion active social media users worldwide, this avenue allows unmatched targeting. Naturally, it becomes much harder to stand out in all that noise. But retailers can tailor paid social campaigns to reach users likely to convert. Note that organic social media marketing can also be a very effective channel for building a brand.

Still, paid advertising, like boosted posts and display ads, will provide the quickest results. For instance, a retailer might serve ads to lookalike audiences. These are simply people similar to their best customers. It expands its reach to high-value segments.

Retargeting is another proven tactic. It entails reaching out to past visitors or buyers as they browse around the web to get follow-on sales.

As for analytics, split testing creatives are crucial for optimization. Use A/B testing to see which version of ads performs best. Then, optimize visuals, captions, and calls to action, ultimately improving cost per conversion.

Used strategically, paid social provides phenomenal returns on ad spend through hyper-targeted exposure to hot prospects.

4. Prioritize Organic Reach Through SEO

The best leads are those that cost next to nothing. Capturing organic search visibility does just that for retailers. Ranking highly for relevant queries earns significant traffic and conversions. 

SEO means optimizing content and websites for search engines. By focusing on SEO, retailers can connect with consumers, researching and evaluating products.

Organic search marketing strategies for retail stores include:

• Publishing optimized blog posts, guides, and other content. Create them around keywords so users searching related products and services can find you. Incorporating semantic keywords throughout copy and metadata improves findability.
• Link-building through guest posts on industry websites to increase domain authority. Backlinks signal search engines that a site provides value.
• Local SEO tactics. Think about optimizing Google My Business listings to rank for searches near physical locations.
• Technical enhancements. Google ranks SEO automatically. Facilitate indexing, speed, mobile friendliness, markup, and other SEO best practices.

5. Incorporate Paid Search Ads

While SEO focuses on elevating organic rankings, paid search ads let you cut to the front of SERPs. Retailers only pay when users click their ads. This allows immediate visibility alongside organic results.

Very similar to paid social ads, a tactical approach is required to get optimal ROAS. Tactical applications of paid search include:

• Google Shopping ads to showcase products for relevant commercial queries.
• Search retargeting ads for existing site visitors and customers. This can accelerate decisions and repeat purchases.
• Keyword research to identify high-converting queries matching intent and offerings.
• Split testing ad elements like headlines and display URLs to continuously optimize click-through rates.

As a complement to SEO, paid search amplifies visibility for bottom-funnel commercial searches. Intent may directly align with conversion.

6. Develop Customer Loyalty Programs

People love getting rewarded for spending money. It justifies their purchases. Loyalty programs incentivize repeat purchases by providing members with exclusive perks and personalized value. As a result, you may increase the Customer Lifetime Value (CLV) of your customer base.

The most popular loyalty program is the points-based system. It rewards engagement, motivating customers to stick around and spend more over time. There are also tiered rewards based on lifetime value, with big spenders getting VIP treatment and perks.

Other programs revolve around early access to sales or special discounts. Members-only promotions are sure to make members feel valued. Another common practice is free shipping. Less common, yet still effective, are birthday gifts and surprise rewards to delight loyal customers.

7. Encourage Organic Sharing Through Referrals

Studies show that referrals convert much better than traditional marketing. That's because they are powered by the built-in trust of a friend’s recommendation, which is often stronger than corporate messages. Smart retailers actively encourage referrals. You should make it simple for satisfied customers to share their brand within their networks.

For instance, refer-a-friend promotions give discounts or credits as incentives for both parties. Simply provide customers with special referral codes or unique links to easily share deals.

Partnerships with relevant content creators and micro-influencers are also on the rise. Entice them to integrate products naturally on their channels. In exchange, they get a commission on all the sales they generate.

Referral marketing harnesses word-of-mouth at scale to acquire new customers and increase ROI. Plenty of solutions exist to help you track and pay these affiliates and referrers.

Adopting an Omnichannel Retail Digital Marketing Strategy

As you can see, extending beyond the storefront can have tremendous benefits. While the preceding focuses on digital tactics, today’s customer journey blends online and offline touchpoints. Retailers must connect experiences across channels to meet consumers however they engage.

The true omnichannel retail strategy emphasizes consistency across channels regarding:

• Brand messaging, visual identity, and tone to maintain a unified experience regardless of channel.
• Stock availability by syncing inventory across ecommerce and brick-and-mortar stores.
• Pricing so customers aren’t incentivized to channel-hop for better deals.
• Data sharing to enable personalized recommendations and consistent experiences online and in-store.
• Flexible fulfillment options like buy online pickup in-store and curbside pickup for convenience.

Staying Ahead of the Competition with Varos

At the heart of your strategy lies data. Once online marketing campaigns launch, using analytics is crucial to understand what's working. You must closely track key performance indicators (KPIs). Skilled marketers can identify the highest converting platforms and campaigns to double down on while refining underperforming areas.

Important ecommerce KPIs to track include:

• Overall online and offline sales trends and revenue growth
• Website traffic volume, conversions, cart abandonment
• Email click-through, open, and conversion rates
• Social ad and post engagement, impressions, reach, and conversions
• Organic traffic and rankings from SEO efforts
• Cost per lead and customer acquisition for paid channels
• Customer churn and retention rates

Unfortunately, even with all that data, it can be hard to know where you stand. You might see improvements internally, but that doesn't mean the rest of the market is keeping pace. That's where benchmarking comes in.

Benchmarking allows you to compare your performance to industry standards and competitors. With a platform like Varos, you can clearly view how industry peers are fairing and see where you fall short or excel.

The Path to Online Retail Success

The retail landscape is transforming quickly. Consumers are flocking online to discover and buy products, and retailers must capitalize on this trend. The best way to keep up is by implementing data-driven digital marketing strategies for retail stores that engage customers throughout their journey.

The omni-channel strategies outlined above provide a blueprint for reaching the modern digital shopper. Combined with a comprehensive benchmarking framework, they can help you to identify growing trends and stay ahead of the curve.

Don't fall behind in the digital age. Embrace the power of data with Varos today.

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About the Author

Sarah Clowes-Walker 

Head of Marketing at Varos

LinkedIn