Last Updated on October 16, 2022
Marketing mistakes can often happen to those who overlook or don’t have the time or knowledge needed to dedicate to the small details within their marketing strategy. Since eCommerce businesses are digital, it provides a lot of positives as there are tons of consumers surfing the web. However, because of the volume of consumers, you need to have the right strategy in place to stand out from the competition and attract consumers in the most efficient way through marketing. Marketing is technical and complex in general, especially with ever-changing digital platform updates, and trends. To help you avoid these common pitfalls we’re going to take a look at three of the most common mistakes that eCommerce businesses make with marketing.
ESTABLISHING A MARKETING BUDGET
We’re starting off with establishing a marketing budget for the first tip. This may seem like a small detail, but it could either be disastrous or cannibalistic to your marketing campaigns and business in general. Before creating a marketing strategy, it’s important to lock in your budget. Your budget is like the engine of a car. This allows you to then know how much money you have to allocate to different options, as different digital platforms or initiatives could demand different types of budgets to maximize the potential.
Aside from the paid platforms to take into account, you may also have to consider how much of the marketing budget you need to use for additional marketing resources. For example, if you would like to start a digital campaign on any of the digital platforms – you’re going to need marketing assets. If you do not have an in-house creative team, this would be something that you’d need to take into consideration before you even start your marketing campaign. This could also go for influencer and sponsorship costs as well. So think of your marketing budget as the foundation of everything you do in marketing.
UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE
Since we just went over some reasons why solidifying your marketing budget is important – the next biggest mistake to not consider or know is who your consumer audience is. Without knowing this, you will not know where the best places to market to grab the attention of your audience, or even how to position your product or service messaging. This is one of the biggest eCommerce marketing mistakes that marketers or businesses will make on sites.
Often businesses will blindly spend their marketing dollars on platforms that can’t reach their audience, which is a waste when it could be spent elsewhere to yield better results at a lower CPA (cost per acquisition). For example, if you are marketing sports memorabilia – you wouldn’t spend money on ads targeted to consumers in the market for women’s jewelry because the cost to convert would be more than double compared to targeting consumers who frequent sporting events. Knowing where to spend the most of your marketing dollars to attract the highest converting type of consumer is key.
IGNORING THE COMPETITION
One of the most common eCommerce marketing mistakes that businesses make is not truly paying attention to what their competitors are doing successfully. It is important to always audit the different marketing campaigns, offerings, and strategies that you’re deploying, and compare them to your competitors. Whether it’s the type of creative they’re using, the platforms they’re marketing on, or even the way they’re positioning their messaging – if you can get in front of consumers that typically buy from your competitors, you have a great shot at converting a few. This could also help establish your brand to users who may have not known about you otherwise.
Understanding that running and managing an eCommerce business is not easy, especially when you’re handling the daily operations. Time is valuable, so putting extra time into the details is key for efficient success. Now that we went over establishing your marketing budget, understanding your target audience, and not ignoring the competition – we hope that this will help you when it comes time to create your marketing strategy and plan for your eCommerce business.
HAVOKConsulting has an experienced team that would be happy to help. Schedule your FREE consultation and let us assists your eCommerce business today.
