Ecommerce is a steadily growing market. As much as 20% of total retail sales in the United States were made online in 2021 and that number is only going up. Many businesses today have reasons to sell online – whether it’s an extension of their existing retail store, a new uniquely online venture, or even a manufacturer or distributor innovating in the supply chain by selling direct to their consumer. Keep reading to learn a bit more about some of the best platforms for marketing products online.
Social Media
Everyone knows what social media is. Your business probably already uses it. However, running social media like it’s a product catalog is not very conducive to community-building and customer loyalty, which both lead to more sales. But refraining from posting products at all is like leaving money on the table.
The best way to market products on social media is by incorporating them into other content. For example, a video of a skincare routine which features your company’s skincare products would be more effective than an image of the product with a caption that says, “Try our face cream today!” People enjoy seeing other people using the products and hearing about their experiences.
To do this most effectively, you should work with influencers, who can be paid to post about a product on social media. Influencers bring their trustworthiness to the product, which could encourage their followers to try out your products.
Regular social posting doesn’t have strict regulations as far as what you can say (beyond common sense), so you can use these posts to say whatever you want about your products, as long as it’s true of course.
Facebook / Instagram Ads
Paid advertising is the most effective way to get people from your social media account to your website, as it allows you to show your products to many more potential customers.
Facebook and Instagram (under the Meta umbrella) are the best platforms for paid product marketing and advertising, as they have the largest user bases and the best tools for promoting your products. The built in “shops” on these platforms allow you to take actual product listings and turn them into ads. We won’t go into a full “how-to” on Facebook and Instagram ads, since that could be its own article altogether.
The only thing you need to look out for are Meta’s advertising policies. These policies require you to carefully word ad copy, especially when advertising certain products. Facebook has “prohibited content”, which cannot be used in advertising at all, and “restricted content”, which requires you to follow more strict guidelines. Check out the link at the top of this paragraph for more specifics on these advertising policies.
Google Shopping
Google Shopping allows you to show your products to customers that aren’t on your website or social media channels. Google takes product listings from your website and populates product listings on their platform so that, when users search for related products, yours will show up alongside them. This is practically necessary if you’re selling products online.
Google Shopping is a powerful tool that can supplement your website’s ecommerce functionality, but you need to be sure to follow Google’s policies as they apply to your products. The categories of “restricted content” on Google shopping include alcoholic beverages, gambling-related content, political content, and more. If your products don’t fall in any of these categories, then it’ll be a bit easier for you!
Google Ads
Google Ads lead users on Google straight to your website, making it a great platform for product marketing. You select the keywords and phrases you want to show up for and your webpage will show up above the organic search results when users search for them on Google. These ads work great for people searching the internet for exactly what your business offers.
Google uses a “pay per click” model, so you are only charged when users actually click your ads. The price of a click varies depending on the keywords and phrases used, so it’s important to balance projected search volume with cost. Typically, keywords with higher search volumes also cost more per click and vice versa. If you have a hyper-specific product that is unlike others on the market, you may be able to leverage this into some cheap clicks.
Much like with Google Shopping, Google Ads has a list of ads policies, which you should be familiar with. It’s a very similar set of policies, so if you’re already familiar with one platform’s policies, these will be nearly identical.
Marketing products online, while easy to set up, can be tricky to get right. If you don’t have much experience, you may end up wasting money on tactics that don’t work. Here at RevenFlo, we work with these platforms daily, ensuring clients are moving customers closer to the point of purchase as economically as possible. If you do online retail and want some advice or assistance, feel free to contact us today!