Ecommerce Tactics 101
One day, sitting in our office nestled under the Space Needle in Seattle, a conversation unraveled:
Client: "Bloom! We're about to launch a new product. We've been discussing some fun ideas for a campaign involving a Photoshoot, Social Media & Email Marketing with Influencer Collaborations. Are you able to help us with the execution?"
Bloom: "Sure. We'd love to help. Before we dive into that, can you tell us more about your overall strategy?"
Client: "Our target audience is young adults aged 21-35 interested in healthy living. Our unique selling proposition is that we use natural processes and sustainable packaging. Our goal is to increase brand awareness while at the same time ramping up sales."
Bloom: "That's great you understand your audience and have some clear business objectives, but you’re still missing an important step. Investing in tactics without a strategy could lead to wasted resources and lackluster results. We commonly see creative executions not performing as expected, money wasted on inaccurate ad targeting, and KPIs that don’t tell the full story of how the campaign has met your objectives."
Client: "We've decided to move forward as-is. We don't have much time to waste and are eager to launch this."
Results: The campaign did not perform as well as the client had hoped. The social media ads didn't resonate with their target audience, the email marketing efforts went unnoticed, and the influencer partnerships failed to generate meaningful engagement.
Why: Tactics were executed without a strategy in place first.
What’s the moral of the story? We all have great ideas on how we want to engage our customers with marketing. Creating, producing, and executing campaigns is the fun part. What needs to come first is a solid strategy that defines who your campaign will target, and plan that outlines how you will engage that audience. Before you read any further with this article, start by reviewing our previous article to determine your marketing strategy. Once you know you are 100% ready to move on to tactical marketing, check back with this article.
2023 Tactics - Amplified by Shopify
Recovery & Retargeting
Take an omnipresent approach when encouraging potential customers to complete the checkout of an abandoned cart by using targeted social media campaigns furthered by email and SMS marketing.
Shopify Apps to look for: Apart from utilizing Shopify's internal abandoned cart recovery options, AdRoll turns your multi-channel headaches into unified omnichannel marketing campaigns. Klavyio offers a suite of proven email and SMS templates to automate personalized communications like price drop alerts, friendly cart reminders, and just-in-time recommendations.
Affiliate marketing & incentives
The affiliate promotes the company's products or services to their audience through a unique affiliate link and earns a commission on any resulting sales. Likewise, customers can rack up rewards or bonuses for making purchases or referring friends, which helps brands widen their audience through their existing customers.
Shopify Apps to look for: Yotpo and Referral Candy feature automated reward systems, referral tracking, and customizable loyalty programs, making it easier for merchants to create and manage customer incentives.
Customer Reviews
It's no secret that these can be incredibly powerful in increasing prospective customers' trust and confidence in a brand or product. The real success of Vivino - with 50 million users - is based on its customer review feature. Reviews provide social proof, help with Search Engine Optimization, provide the business with valuable feedback, and encourage repeat purchases.
Shopify apps to look for: Junip allows users to gather more reviews & display them everywhere that matters. Simple and easy to set up with mobile first review forms that lead to 4x more photo & videos alongside customer questions & attributes.
Targeted SMS Campaigns
Promote products, offer discounts, build relationships and make sales based on customer behavior and purchase history. We like to reserve this tactic for special occasions (like when you need to move the remainder of last year's Rosé). Remember to keep it hyper-personalized. Its times like these when customer data is your best friend.
Shopify Apps to look for: Klaviyo offers users SMS templates to automate targeted personalized communications to current and potential customers.
The power of Google
Google Analytics G4 has enhanced features such as cross-platform/cross-device tracking, is now privacy-centric and contains more innovative measurements and insights. It also integrates with Google Ads for conversion tracking. Use this new data to build a data-driven ecommerce engine.
Shopify Apps to look out for: Analyzely lets you take advantage of all the benefits of using Google Analytics 4 with seamless integration. Fueled Google Analytics (G4) helps you make better decisions and increase ROAS with accurate Google Analytics 4 data.
Instant Messaging
This underrated communication tool provides businesses with a fast and efficient way to connect with their customers in real-time, improving customer satisfaction, increasing brand loyalty, and streamlining customer service processes.
Shopify Apps to look out for: Shopify Inbox is easy to set up and natively integrates with customer orders, memberships, and discounts.
Loyalty Points
Helping to build customer loyalty and encouraging repeat purchases. Fast-growing DTC brands employ this tactic to increase customer lifetime value. Naked Wines is an Australian DTC wine brand with a loyalty program called an “Angel Membership.” Customers become "Angels" by subscribing to monthly wine deliveries and receiving perks.
Shopify Apps to look out for: Smile powers loyalty, referrals, and VIP rewards programs that help increase sales and repeat purchases, save on acquisition costs, and boost brand loyalty.
Checkout Utilization
Upselling and cross-selling are effective ways to increase revenue and customer loyalty at alcohol DTC checkouts. You can do this by offering package deals, recommending products that pair with wine, selling wine accessories, highlighting limited releases, or providing personalized recommendations by leveraging customer data.
Shopify Apps to look out for: Nosto empowers retailers to build, launch, and optimize personalized ecommerce experiences. This app showcases product discovery, a personalize customer experience, and event shopper insights.
User-Generated Content
A time-saving tactic for ecommerce alcohol brands is leveraging the content created by consumers. Corona has a solid social media presence and encourages fans to share photos of themselves enjoying their products using the hashtag #ThisIsLiving. UGC is a powerful way to increase engagement, build brand awareness, and drive sales with minimal effort.
Shopify apps to look out for: Cevoid UGC and UGC Video Testimonials let you effortlessly collect user-generated content (like photos and videos) and showcase it on your website, product pages, social media, emails, or other marketing channels in a matter of clicks.
It takes strategies and tactics working together for brands to grow their businesses over time with effective results. With the DTC landscape changing rapidly, employing tactics that satisfy consumers' expectations is where we, as an industry, need to focus. Shopify is paving the way for ecommerce growth. Bloom extends the power of Shopify - reach out to us to learn how we are leading brands toward sustainable growth - well into the future.
