Creating an E-Commerce Marketing Plan

Companies can’t risk neglecting to plan in today’s business landscape. Every single e-commerce business needs to plan out its promotional strategies so it can attract and retain customers in the digital space. Without a plan regarding an e-commerce marketing strategy, companies are not able to grow.

On the other hand, companies that have an eCommerce marketing plan with quantifiable key performance indicators (KPIs) can be directly linked to a company’s overall goals, which ends up considering the overall marketing landscape in the e-commerce industry.

Unfortunately, about half of all companies don’t really have a defined marketing plan.

Any eCommerce marketing plan is all about detailing how a business intends to drive website traffic and convert that traffic from leads into customers to improve its bottom line. This plan should specify precisely how a company plans to use its marketing channels to attract leads, convert them into customers, and retain those customers over a long period of time.

Having an integrated digital marketing plan that’s aligned with the company’s business vision can help businesses generate good results. Digital marketing plans should also be consistent with the traditional Omnichannel marketing approach.

E-commerce Marketing Plan

There’s no need for businesses to create hundreds of pages of written documents to develop their e-commerce marketing plans. In fact, the plan can be summarized in just a couple of pages if a business is using the SMART goal-setting strategy.

At its core, a company’s e-commerce marketing plan should include five key areas that the business can expand on, and by documenting its progress in those areas it will learn that its digital marketing efforts can become the core of a company’s success. Those five areas need to cover a company’s digital marketing plan, as well as its mission and business objectives.

A digital marketing plan needs to include the way that the company is planning to increase its digital audience, the budget to do that, and the goals it wants to achieve. It also needs to cover how the company will encourage branded interactions to generate more leads and across which channels it’s going to do that.

The digital marketing plan should also lay out how a company will increase both its digital and in-person sales. Lastly, the plan should include a strategy on how the business can build up customer loyalty and Brent advocacy.

Creating a Plan

The first step in creating a digital marketing plan is to assess the company’s current marketing situation. This helps businesses learn which channels have worked best in the past, which can be improved on, and which channels represent missed opportunities.

To create an effective digital marketing plan companies first need to have a good idea of what has previously worked for the business, and what hasn’t. Businesses should also research and analyze the activities of market competitors with regards to their own marketing campaigns and strategies, in order to learn which areas of marketing plans are helpful.

Growing an Audience

An effective digital marketing plan for e-commerce businesses will increase a company’s reach and build more awareness for the brand and its products or services.

After all, consumers will be curious about a brand if they are not familiar with it. Companies can expand their audience through paid, earned, and owned media, as well as through being present on the right channels.

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Ronn Torossian is the founder of 5W Public Relations, a native New Yorker and an advocate for many non-profit organizations.

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