When you run an online business, it’s easy to get caught up in essential day-to-day tasks like inventory management, fulfilment, and returns processing. Consequently, a lot of retailers overlook the marketing aspect of their business, especially if they only employ a small number of people.
But this approach, which is often borne out of necessity, can be catastrophic from an ecommerce perspective. Without an effective, consistent marketing strategy, comprising ads, email nurturing, on-site optimization, and so on, retailers will quickly find themselves losing revenue and being overtaken by the competition.
So what’s the solution? In a nutshell: online software. Ecommerce apps and tools will enable you to streamline your marketing processes and drive serious results without the need for large amounts of money or employee time. In this post, we’re going to look at five must-have additions to your tech stack.
Ubersuggest is a search engine optimization and keyword discovery platform. It’s one of the best-priced and intuitive solutions on the market – we think it’s the best – and it’s ideal for both seasoned marketers and those with little technical experience.
Retailers can use it to track their site rankings, research new product keywords (and check competition and volume), spy on competitors, analyze their own site’s backlink data, and more.
Even better, it has a forever free plan that allows users to track up to twenty keywords and analyze one-hundred-and-fifty pages on their sites. And if you do need more options, you’ll find that the paid packages are extremely reasonable.
Top features: Rank tracking, keyword research, and competitor analysis.
New users can take advantage of a seven-day free trial on all plans, a “forever free” plan, and discounts for annual subscriptions.
SkuVault is an inventory management solution. It provides retailers with a comprehensive feature-set for organizing and updating their inventory, processing orders, organizing shipping, and handling returns. And while some of this functionality might be available directly through your ecommerce platform, it likely doesn’t provide the features you require to manage all aspects of your catalogue, supply chain, and delivery network.
Where SkuVault really shines, however, is on the integrations front. Because of its large library of connectors with third-party marketplaces, retailers can use it to manage their inventory across a range of sites, including Etsy, Amazon, eBay, Walmart, and more. SkuVault is also compatible with most ecommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, 3dcart, and WooCommerce.
Top features: Inventory management, integrations, advanced analytics.
It’s possible to schedule a free demo and discounts are available for annual subscriptions.
As an online retailer, you likely already recognize the importance of your mailing list. An effective email strategy is essential for building a loyal and engaged customer base. Apps like MailChimp provide retailers with the tools they need to automate a range of time-consuming tasks, along with access to in-depth analytics and segmentation features.
What’s more, the personalization and graphics tools provided by MailChimp enable marketers to send highly-targeted offers and test different campaign iterations before rolling them out fully.
Like Ubersuggest, MailChimp also has a free plan, which is suitable for up to two thousand subscribers. And while this is unlikely to be sufficient for most retailers, it provides a great opportunity to test out the app, and begin the process of migrating subscribers, without having to hand over any money.
Top features: Segmentation, analytics, and marketing automation.
A free plan is available along with a pay-as-you-go option.
Kissmetrics is one of the most widely-known analytics platforms on the web, along with Google Analytics. It was founded by Neil Patel, the current owner of Ubersuggest. If you’re already using GA, then Kissmetrics can provide an additional layer of ecommerce-dedicated functionality.
Kissmetrics tools have been designed to help retailers optimize important areas of their sites, like checkout, boost customer loyalty, and increase customer lifetime value. Users have access to a comprehensive metrics dashboard, which covers data about total sales, total revenue, average revenue per person, and more, segment analysis, customer activity reports, and sales funnel visualization.
It’s suitable for retailers with between $500K and $5M per month in sales volume.
Top features: Dedicated ecommerce analytics, automated insights, sales funnel visualization.
All plans include a free demo and discounts are available for monthly subscriptions.
On its website, Yotpo is described as an “ecommerce marketing platform”. This might come as a surprise to many who associate Yotpo exclusively with reviews. And while Yotpo does provide a suite of tools which enable retailers to collect and showcase reviews, users can also leverage other powerful features. These include a platform for creating loyalty and referral programs, SMS marketing, and widgets for displaying user-generated content.
Top features: Reviews management, loyalty program platform, SMS marketing.
Yotpo, which has a limited free plan, works on a custom pricing model, so it can prove more cost-effective over the long-term than other similar solutions and is suitable for retailers of all sizes.
A robust tech stack will enable you to run effective, results-based marketing campaigns for your ecommerce store without having to sacrifice unnecessary resources and employee time. Test the solutions above and see which ones work for your company. A little investment now will pay huge dividends in the long-term.
By John Pearson
John is a serial entrepreneur and writer who is passionate about helping small businesses launch and grow. His work has been featured in Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, and Forbes.
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