How To Grow Your D2C E-Commerce Business By Leveraging AI & Marketing Automation Solutions
As mentioned before, with the explosion of technology today, there are many ways to fulfil your want or need. With the growing popularity of online shopping, creating an eCommerce site has become very accessible.
Not only can you run your business from anywhere in the world, but you do not have to rely on expensive shipping services to get your items delivered. This is especially important if you are running a business that requires dedicated equipment or resources for operation. By doing most of the work for yourself, you lower overhead costs and remain within budget!
There are several types of businesses that arise out of selling products via the internet. Some are totally free, while others require a small monthly fee per account. No matter what type of business model you choose, it is crucial to know how to grow your company.
Growth does not come easily though. It takes time, effort, and constant communication. In this article, we will go over some tips on how to grow your direct sales (or drag sale) business. These tips will focus more on using artificial intelligence (AI) and marketing automation tools to succeed.
Create marketing automation programs
The best way to start growing your eCommerce business is by creating an initial marketing automation program that will help you take care of the most tedious, repetitive tasks so that you have time to focus on more profitable things like offering new services or products or developing relationships with other companies or vendors to find quality suppliers for your company.
The first step in this process is to determine what types of functions and features you want your automated system to perform. These functions can include sending emails, posting online advertisements, setting up autoresponders, and even adding people to your mailing list or customer service team.
There are many free or low-cost software solutions available online that can be used to test out these functions to see if they work effectively before investing in them.
Personalize marketing messages
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A growing number of companies use intelligent software to personalize advertisements for you. These tools analyze your past online activity to determine what products and services appeal to you and then create ads with content designed to draw in new customers.
By using these personalized advertising solutions, you give yourself a leg up over competitors that are not utilizing technology like this.
There are many ways vendors can utilize data analytics to inform their marketing strategies. For example, they could tailor advertisements for fashion sites or eCommerce stores that do business with them. Or, they could promote similar brands or products within an Amazon advertisement, or add links to those items within an Instagram ad.
This article will talk about some easy ways to implement personalization into your advertising strategies.
Distribute marketing messages
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After you have built your eCommerce business, the next step is to start distributing all of those products to other people or companies to sell online.
The easiest way to do this is through drop shipping. This is when someone else sells your product and handles customer service while you sit back and make money.
All you need to know about dropshipping comes down to three things: where to buy the goods, how much stock to order, and what types of materials you should include.
After that, you will want to pick your sales channel. These are different ways to market your merchandise (for example, social media, YouTube, etc.).
And lastly, you must establish strong seller accounts on these platforms so people can reach out to you.
Measure results
The first step in growing your eCommerce business is knowing what works and how to measure it! This article will go into detail about some key metrics for online sales, and why you should be keeping an eye on them.
The most basic metric that many sellers fail to look at is conversion rate. Conversion rate is simply the percentage of people or products that you’ve sent website traffic to (from a landing page, mobile app, etc.) who took action and made a purchase or pick up of a product.
This can easily be done through analytics tools such as Google Analytics, which tracks all this information automatically. When doing so, make sure to add additional tags and variables that match what actions you have performed on your site, and what types of purchases you have made.
Another crucial piece of data to gather our numbers! More specific than that, however, is numerical data relating to conversions and transactions. For example, if you sell cell phones, then you would want to know how much money each phone costed, how many days it spent outside of the box before being purchased, and whether or not there were any issues with the item while using it.
Learn to use AI properly
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The term artificial intelligence (AI) has become very popular in recent years, with people jumping onto every new bandwagon that seems to claim it will change your life or make you rich.
However, before getting too excited about all of the flashy advertisements for these so-called AI systems, there is something important we must address – what IS AI?
Simply put, AI is computer software or programs that are designed to perform specific tasks automatically. For example, if you have ever watched a show where computers compete against each other, then you have seen automatic marketing automation!
Businesses use AI technology to create automated tools or apps that carry out certain functions for them. These functions may be mundane (such as sending an email), or they can be more complex (finding the best price on products online).
The key difference between traditional manual labour and AI technology is that instead of requiring constant attention and intervention from someone else, AI carries out its tasks independently without any input or interference from humans.
Create engaging videos
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A well-designed video can be an excellent way to draw in new customers. Creating a YouTube channel is free, but you will need to pay for some of the more advanced features like custom domain names and professional-looking accounts.
You can also use a third-party tool such as Storyboards or Filmbazaar to help you create your first video. Both are affordable, and there are many great ways to customize the length and content of your video even if you don’t have much experience creating them.
There are several free alternatives to these paid services that may work better for you depending on what type of product you are selling and how experienced you are with filming videos.
Offer a reward
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A growing number of companies are leveraging automation technology to offer rewards or incentives to consumers for shopping for their products or services. This is typically done through what’s called “crowdfunding,” where online users are incentivized to purchase a product or service from a company by receiving discounts or free items as return gifts.
Some examples of this type of business model include BestBuyoffering VISA cards for people who spend money at Walmart and Amazon offering discount coupons or cash back for purchases at their sites.
By adding an element of incentive via crowdfunding, you can increase exposure for your business while also strengthening relationships with others in the community.
At the same time, automated marketing solutions like Marketo, Infusionsoft, and/or Hubba help you grow your eCommerce business by allowing you to create campaigns that send out messages, reminders and offers to potential customers.
