Every business needs an acquisition strategy, and for Shopify stores, an effective one provides the opportunity for wider-reaching results.
For example, you can compel them to sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to automatic replenishment, or join an event.
As a Shopify store owner, you have the advantage of building direct relationships with customers, as well as creating a more memorable shopping experience.
In this article, we’ll explore various tactics that can help you do just that. Learn how to promote your Shopify store and drive business growth.
#cta-visual-pb#
The following tactics excel at guiding customers through your funnel—especially those coming from outside your store—then directing them toward your landing or product pages.
Some of them are foundational, while others focus on acquisition. We’ve included examples to illustrate each one and solidify your understanding.
Before implementing any Shopify marketing strategy, you must have in-depth knowledge of your audience.
To start, ask yourself:
A deep understanding of your target consumers is imperative for your marketing efforts to resonate with and compel them to take action.
If you haven’t already, build out your buyer personas and share them with your team to ensure everyone has a clear understanding of what motivates your customers.
You can leverage this to better draw the right audience to your Shopify store.
Captivate your audience with a memorable brand narrative.
According to 68% of consumers, brand stories affect their decision to buy, indicating they’re a powerful means of establishing a connection.
Further, a unique narrative can attract more opportunities for organic press and coverage, especially if it’s “sticky.”
The outdoor brand Barebones Living proudly shares their history, based on philanthropic work.
Add in their mission of connecting people to food and nature, and you have a story that strongly resonates with consumers who value socially responsible living.
Your About Us page is one of the best places to establish your brand story, and serves as an easy page to link to if someone wants to write about your company.
Giveaways and contests are effective for creating excitement and incentivizing engagement, as the numbers prove:
Mission Meats’ contest landing page, for instance, offers participants the chance to win a 12-month supply of their free-range, grass-fed, antibiotic-free snacks.
And it’s easy—all they have to do is leave their name and email address to enter.
Loyalty programs incentivize not only repeat purchases but also word of mouth marketing from faithful customers.
In fact, those who’ve nurtured an emotional relationship with your brand are 71% more likely to recommend you to others.
With multiple types of loyalty programs to choose from, make sure to launch one that best fits your business. For instance, a referral program provides rewards and discounts for successful customer referrals.
Take mattress brand Casper’s Refer a Friend program: Through it, Casper offers customers the opportunity to earn a $75 Amazon gift card, while their referees can enjoy a 25% discount.
SMS marketing is a more direct and personal channel for reaching customers.
It’s a great way to keep your audience informed about exclusive offers, promotions, and new products.
Not only do texts have high open and response rates (98% and 45%, respectively), but 91% of customers also want to receive SMS messages from you as well—meaning it’s easier to incorporate into your marketing strategy.
Maev, a vet-formulated raw dog food brand, employs SMS to promote their daily vitamin bars.
Their messaging is both informative and personal, with a brand representative introducing themselves as well. Maev also links to a corresponding landing page, which smooths the customer’s shopping experience.
Email marketing is another powerful avenue to pursue.
A surveyed 59% of consumers stated these communications sway their purchase decisions, and 50% buy at least once a month because of them.
To build an effective campaign, segment your email list based on consumer preferences and purchase history.
This personalizes their experiences, which also leads people to your store.
Here’s a guide on Shopify email marketing apps to bolster your efforts. You can also check out various existing examples in the ecommerce space for inspiration.
Appealing to the followers of well-known personalities can significantly expand your brand’s reach.
Marketers strongly believe in it as well, with 89% of them planning to maintain or increase their influencer marketing investment in 2023.
However, finding the right influencer to partner with is an involved process in its own right.
If you’re after more specific market segments, micro-influencers will suffice. Meanwhile, broader demographics may require an agreement with someone more famous.
The social platform your audience uses also plays a role.
If they’re more active on Instagram, for instance, partner with an Instagram influencer in your niche to maximize engagement, then have them share a link that leads to your campaign’s landing or product page.
Beauty brand A.P. CHEM showcases this personal endorsement from Adam Livermore, a renowned figure in that space.
In his Instagram post, he demonstrates how three of A.P. CHEM’s products fit his daily skincare routine, promoting the brand in the process.
More consumers on social media say they find the perfect product thanks to seeing a targeted ad (49%) as opposed to an organic brand post (40%).
But since that difference isn’t massive, you can combine the two to maximize the returns from the various social platforms.
By creating engaging content for both organic and paid marketing across your social accounts, you’ll build brand awareness and push traffic to your site.
Check out these examples from Facebook and Instagram to give you some fresh ideas.
Video marketing is an extremely effective channel, with 89% of people stating a video convinced them to buy a product or service at some point.
A further 91% of consumers said that, in 2023, they want to see more online videos from brands.
These figures underscore the importance of capturing your audience’s attention with video content on your website, social platforms, YouTube, and other channels to attract visitors to your Shopify store.
You can start with ecommerce video ads like these, which introduce your product or appeal to your audience’s emotions.
Feature testimonial advertising as well to capitalize on the influential power of social proof.
#cta-visual-pb#
Make good use of online advertising platforms like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and LinkedIn Ads. These portals let you run paid advertisements at scale while handling their distribution as well.
They also accommodate broad or precise targeting, allowing you to go after wide or specific consumer demographics, segments, and behaviors.
If you need inspiration, take a look at these Facebook ads from notable brands.
Content marketing is an effective and cost-efficient way to build your brand’s authority and promote your Shopify store.
It’s 62% cheaper than traditional marketing and generates three times more leads for every dollar spent.
You can employ various content marketing strategies, with key ones revolving around:
Copper Cow Coffee, a producer of sustainable coffee, exemplifies this strategy by sharing delicious recipes on their blog.
These guide shoppers along their journey and link to core ingredients as well (most of which are Copper Cow products).
Take advantage of search engine optimization (SEO) to maximize the number of visitors to your website.
SEO drives over 1,000% more traffic than social media and can net you around $2.75 for every dollar you spend. For effective product page SEO:
These and other practices will improve your organic search visibility and attract more leads from relevant search queries.
Nurture personal connections with your customers to foster a sense of community.
Identify social media groups, online communities, and forums for your specific niche or industry and develop a presence there.
Contribute valuable insights, offer assistance, and engage with members to establish your brand as an authority.
Once you’ve solidified your credibility, you can direct them to relevant pages that provide solutions to their problems.
Plum, a vegan beauty brand based in India, nearly doubled their presence in skincare conversations by engaging with 78 communities—possessing a combined membership of 3.9 million people—built around beauty, women, and lifestyle.
Industry events, conferences, trade shows, and other professional meetups provide rich opportunities to interact with potential customers personally.
They’re your chance to showcase your products and expertise, as well as connect with other leaders in your industry.
Kylie Cosmetics, a beauty brand by celebrity Kylie Jenner, worked with Shopify to execute a pop-up store in Los Angeles, which garnered 25,000 visitors.
Customers were able to view a replica of Kylie’s bedroom and buy event-exclusive products.
Radio and television are traditional mediums that can expose you to either geographically targeted or varied audiences.
You can be featured in live interviews, home shopping programs, product placements in shows, or simply use them as advertising platforms.
The prepaid mobile service provider Cricket Wireless, for instance, created a TV advertisement showcasing testimonials from loyal customers, going so far as to show where they were based.
This established a connection with potential buyers who were near that location.
Paid search ads like Google Ads help you appear at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs) for queries relevant to your target customers.
They land your offering in front of more search users and push visitors to your store.
To maximize your Shopify advertising efforts, send your paid traffic to tailored landing pages as well, which provide visitors a smoother conversion path.
Take a look at these PPC landing pages from other companies and see how they’re used effectively.
Guest blogging is typically a tactic for building backlinks (thus boosting SEO efforts), but it’s also a great method for spreading awareness about your Shopify brand.
Write informative and valuable guest content for the industry websites or blogs you contribute to.
At the end of each piece, include your bio with a link to a relevant landing or product page that’ll guide readers toward your site.
Jean Thompson, owner and CEO of Seattle Chocolate Company, wrote a blog post for Entrepreneurs’ Organization talking about how her company’s legacy is built on sustainability.
At the end, her post links to her bio and Seattle Chocolate’s website, maximizing her publicity.
Affiliate programs use commissions to incentivize people or organizations who refer customers to your store.
You can make these opportunities available to notable and influential individuals as well.
Simply provide them unique, shareable, and trackable links to your landing or product pages, which they then share with their audiences, and reward them for driving traffic and sales.
For instance, Amazon’s Associates program lets affiliates sign up, offer product recommendations, and earn commissions.
Its impact is massive as well, with 53% of the ecommerce giant’s sales coming from affiliate marketing.
Partner with businesses whose offerings complement yours. Cross-promote each other’s products or services and direct their audiences toward your pages as well.
This lets you expand your reach by tapping into two different target segments.
Copper Cow Coffee makes good use of collaborations as well in their crossover with GoNanas. The two brands created a limited-edition Pumpkin Spice Latte Banana Bread, which combined their signature products.
They sprinkled links to their pages throughout their blog posts as well.
“Credit card referral programs are great for encouraging active credit card members to refer their family and friends. For example, Capital One Venture members get free travel points for successful referrals. When we have a great experience with a credit card company, we talk about it, and having a referral program that benefits all parties is a great way to sign new members.”
— Joshua Host, Thrivelab Founder
If your brand is in a position to, consider partnering with a credit card company to offer a special discount or other benefit to their card holders.
Often, credit card companies will promote their program benefits to encourage consumers to sign up for a card.
That could include free promotion for your brand and online store.
As effective as your various promotional strategies are, they may not be enough for your campaign, however.
Creating dedicated ecommerce landing pages for your acquisition efforts is a must as well, whether they’re on Shopify, Facebook, or some other channel.
These landing pages help tie your customer journey together and make landing on your Shopify website more cohesive.
To create a Shopify landing page with Shogun Page Builder, go to your dashboard, hover over Create new and click Page in the drop-down.
There, you can choose from various Shogun templates or any tried-and-tested templates you’ve saved in your account.
Once you select a template, enter your page name and path. If you plan to construct several landing pages, create your URLs strategically.
For example, you might use “2023-fall-sale” as your page path.
To limit distractions on your landing page, you can choose to remove your theme’s header and footer, reducing visitors’ exit opportunities to your central CTA.
Once you click the Create standard page button, you can build your landing page to your desired specifications with the convenient drag-and-drop editor.
Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when creating your landing pages:
With all bases covered, we’ll answer some common questions people ask about promoting a Shopify business.
That answer depends on your target audience and budget. Consider what marketing channels they respond to most and how much it costs to use those channels.
For best results, you’ll need to combine careful planning with a bit of experimentation.
Try various platforms like social media and search engine advertising, as well as influencer collaboration and email marketing.
Some channels you can use to advertise your Shopify store for free are:
1. Organic social media marketing
2. SEO
3. Email marketing
4. Online communities
These channels can push your existing customer base to take action, as well as expand your online visibility.
Realize the full potential of the free channels discussed earlier to maximize your spread of awareness at the lowest price point.
Running pay-per-click (PPC) ads can also be cost-effective, since you can dictate your ad spend. Just remember to monitor your budget strictly.
The time for results to manifest varies based on multiple factors, including your marketing strategy, target audience, competition, and products.
For example, measurable SEO outcomes typically take three to six months across platforms.
What’s important, however, is to track and analyze your campaigns consistently, identify areas of improvement, and make the necessary adjustments.
You can leverage content marketing for budget-friendly advertising. Referral programs are great as well since you incentivize loyal customers and their referees with a discount, which keeps your profit margins healthy.
That decision depends on your business needs, but it isn’t always necessary.
If you can afford it, a professional marketer can bring invaluable expertise and save you lots of time.
But, if you’re trying to save money, all you need is thorough research, planning, and experimentation to figure out and implement the strategies we’ve discussed.
The following are some typical mistakes that can hurt your marketing efforts on Shopify:
1. Having a poorly defined audience: It’s essential to learn about your target customers inside and out since that knowledge dictates whether your promotional efforts hit or miss.
2. Neglecting customer engagement: To nurture deep relationships with shoppers, you must interact with them regularly on various platforms.
3. Relying on a single marketing channel: Multiple complementary channels help maximize your reach. For instance, you can promote your loyalty programs on social platforms and online communities for widespread visibility.
4. Not tracking and analyzing data: Monitor the performance of your efforts to identify any marketing gaps and make strategic adjustments. Using a tool like Google Analytics will help you track key ecommerce metrics easily.
Effectively promoting your Shopify store requires a well-rounded approach that incorporates various strategies.
But, before you implement the tactics outlined in this article, remember these key points:
With a little experimentation and persistence, you can help your Shopify business flourish in the competitive ecommerce landscape.
#cta-visual-pb#
