How to Promote & Advertise Shopify Store (Free & Paid)
By Sam Nguyen
Drive 20-40% of your revenue with Avada
You’re going to have to bring some effort ahead to promote your Shopify shop. With the planning of anything, some tasks require a long period of preparation, while others may be carried out on the fly.
If you’ve recently started an eCommerce website or you’ve been around for a while now, everybody might use an extra boost to improve their eCommerce traffic and eventually get consumers to buy their items.
Yet every prospect is unique, and there are several specific ways you can meet each of them. From social media to SEO, partnering with influencers, and more, these tested strategies are sure to bring more visitors to your online shop.
In this article, I will introduce several ways (both free and paid) of how you can promote your new Shopify store to your customers. Let’s jump right into the details!
UPDATE
March 2023: Starting from the week of March 6th, the $1/month for 3 months deal was made available for the Shopify and Advanced plans. That means now you can try all Shopify plans for just $1 (except Shopify Plus).
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Free approaches to promote your Shopify store
SEO: The core of your free marketing efforts
Your target customer is already fast browsing Google for items like yours, and now you just need to find a way to be one of the first online shops they feature in the search results. Search Engine Optimization ( SEO) is a process to maximize the number of visitors to your website by trying to get your site high on the list of specific search results.
To make sure your SEO strategy is effective, begin by knowing some important SEO terminology, such as keywords. These are short phrases or individual terms that make it possible for people to find your online store through search engines. Some of them are more common than others, so it takes some searching to find the most suitable words.
Then the link between your keywords and users happens when you apply these short sentences to your SEO titles, explanations, headings, as well as to all pages on your website. Here’s our comprehensive guide for how to execute SEO to promote your online store.
To help you with your SEO journey, we have a dedicated free app for you: Shopify SEO Suite. SEO Suite app helps you to build your on-page SEO effortlessly. It is designed to optimize website images and structure to be most compatible with the Google Search algorithm. Here are the main benefits that you will get from our SEO suite at zero cost:
- Significantly improve the loading speed. Using high-quality images on your stores help attract shoppers, but if not being well optimized, they can slow down your website’s loading speed and lead to a higher bounce rate. Fortunately, SEO Suite can reduce your image size and keep the high quality for great shopping experiences.
- Make websites friendly to Google Search engine. The key to success in on-page SEO is creating a good website structure that meets Google’s requirements. SEO Suite strictly follows standard Google structured data (rich snippets) and automatically embeds them on your website.
- Just click and auto-run. No coding required. Are you a non-technical Shopify business owner? This app is built for you since it does not require any coding skills to use. All required configurations are readily set up, and your work is turning them on with a few clicks.
Instagram: Take advantage of its free features
First of all, if you don’t already have an Instagram account, it’s about time to sign up. Instagram is rising fast and on the road to seize the throne from Facebook as the # 1 social network. In addition, there are many ways to connect your Instagram account to your website (and vice versa):
- Instagram bio: If you sign up for Instagram, the first thing you need to do is build an Instagram bio that is optimized for your company, with everything from witty content to a connection to your online store – in reality, consumers expect to find that connection here. (Read more: 100+ Best Instagram Bio Ideas)
- Instagram Stories: It is perhaps the most common Instagram app you need to take advantage of. This is particularly true as a company owner, as one-third of the most viewed stories come from brands.
The best part of this is that you will use CTAs here to direct future buyers to your website. You’re going to want to create a narrative with your slides to do that. You will inspire your followers with meaningful and entertaining content designed by your brand, from videos to photos, hashtags, and more.
Instead, finish with a CTA to the online shop, such as “Shop now” or “Link in Bio.” Even business accounts with more than 10,000 followers or verified accounts should attach a link to their CTA even use the ‘Swipe Up’ function.
Email Marketing
Over 80 percent of professionals believe that email marketing fuels consumer growth and retention more than any other method of digital marketing. As one of the most popular and effective ways to guide your customers to your online shop, it’s worth a try. If you’re not tempted to get started, how about the fact that it’s completely free?
To make sure that the emails bring value to your customer (rather than serving like another spam email) you will need to take some important steps in the planning process.
Here’re some tips on how to make your email marketing effect:
- Subject lines: The gateway to traffic on your website, and the success of your email marketing plan in general, starts with your subject line. One recommendation is to follow the following formula: [Number or Question + Adjective + Keyword + Promise]. For eg, “The 5 Classiest Pairs of Shoes You Will Love.”
- Calls-to-Action (CTAs): The entire reason you ‘re sending an email is to get prospective clients to land on your website. Therefore, you can not only connect any picture and a significant piece of text to your website but also have a simple and distinct CTA that allows readers to leave this email and go where you really want it to be: your online shop.
- Written content: All the written content in your email should be directed to get visitors to click on your CTA. You should use terms that are memorable, enticing or cause other emotions to accomplish this goal. In fact, subscribers don’t expect to waste more than a few seconds reading your post, so keep this segment short and simple.
- Visuals: People want to see what you’re selling to them as clearly and quickly as possible, so visuals should be an essential part of your marketing emails. And once you announce a new product, a picture is a perfect way to shed a spotlight on it.
You can check out our email marketing guide here for more useful tips. Blogging: Attract organic traffic
Open a word document out and start writing. In case you’re still curious if a blog has anything to do with your online store, well, whether you’re starting your own blog or blogging guest, writing content is a sure-fire way to drive organic traffic to your website and establish yourself as an expert in your industry.
Yet that’s not the only thing. We ‘re going to break through why each of these blogging approaches will be of great value to the website traffic.
- Start a blog post: It’s no secret that blogging is great for SEO when done correctly. The more content you produce, the more links you link to your online store. Blogging is also a way to give your audience a reason to keep coming back to your website for something else, rather than whether they’re trying to purchase some items from your store. You will use your blog to show your name and sell your products. It’s pretty easy to get going, as you can see in this authoritative blogging guide.
- Guest Blog: Submitting guest posts is one excellent way to reach a larger audience than you are currently doing by tapping into popular websites and new industries. This idea is the practice of writing blog posts and sending them to different websites in the expectation that they will be distributed online.
Nevertheless, in addition to these, I recommend that you do some work unique to your business by looking for media that have a similar audience to yours. Next, make a spreadsheet listing all the firms and contact points to get going. This typically results in exposure in the form of backlinks (links that lead back to your online store) or a chance to leave a brief bio at the end of your post to introduce you and your business.
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Paid approaches to advertise your Shopify store
Sales campaigns: Attract new customers
When shopping online, do you automatically click on the sales tab of the store to find the best deals, or is it just me? Everyone likes a good bargain, that’s a matter of fact, pure and simple. One is that once you build an outstanding promotional plan, more people can come to your website.
If this initiative is organized only in time for the next holiday or for no apparent reason, people will respond. Only make sure that whatever you plan to do, it shows on the entire website. This could be a banner, lightbox, or ribbon that leads to discounted products. Here are some campaign ideas you can put in place to get you started:
- Offer a competition or giveaway: People want to be rewarded. When you sign up for your mailing list, you can have an invitation for consumers to earn free delivery or a voucher on their first order. This step motivates them to go to your web, and then to buy.
- Create a sense of urgency: Whether it’s free shipping until the end of the month or announcing a massive upcoming sale, urgency is a tactic that’s sure to take visitors to your site.
If you enter a countdown clock on your website for an especially thrilling event or sale, visitors will be prompted to re-enter your website again and again in excitement. Encourage the most impulsive shoppers to make buying decisions.
- BOGO (buy one, get one) deals: Scarves, coats, shoes, you name it. Some of us are more likely to shop because we think we’re going to get it for free. At the very least, we’re going to scope out the webpage and see what this deal is all about.
- Create a coupon available on your website only: Who doesn’t like to get a good deal? Coupons are a sure-fire way to attract customers, whether they’re 15% off or 50% off.
However, it is just one step to make a sales campaign. Without a good marketing campaign to back up this move, you might end up wandering down unprofitable roads. That is particularly true if you don’t have a brick and mortar store with a massive front sign shouting “SALE NOW”.
That’s where the promotion of ads comes in. Whether you’re performing your promotional campaigns through social media, email marketing, or some other initiative, this campaign is the key component of your sales success.
So, are you ready to get more traffic on the website? Combine the innovative marketing activities with the following sales ideas, and you’ll have the recipe for success.
Facebook Advertising: Target your ideal audience
Do you know that 75% of customers check out the brand they are going to buy from on Facebook before making a purchase? That’s a fair enough excuse to be involved in today’s most famous social network. Plus, this is one more place for consumers to hear from you and keep up-to-date with the news of your business. The following two strategies will allow you to make the most of this social network.
Create a Facebook page: When all of us can recall the days of phone books, then Facebook is like a company’s Yellow Pages. Most users can search your store’s Facebook page for details such as your website address, phone number, and customer service.
This is also a great place to publish and encourage any material that connects back to your websites, such as a promotional promotion (as described above), a blog post (providing a direct connection to your site), or a new item available in your shop.
Run Facebook ads: One perfect way to meet your target market on the web is through pay-per-click advertising, A.K.A. Facebook Advertising. Here you can set the budget of your choosing, pay for it, and run advertisements. The distinction between endorsing advertising and merely posting on your Facebook profile is that you have the potential to reach a wider target market.
The benefit of Facebook is that it helps you to target more precisely than any other site depending on the large amount of data it carries. And, when these future buyers are on Facebook for leisurely surfing, it’s the ideal spot for them to subconsciously start shopping.
Partner with Influencers: Earn trust and exposure for your brand
Moving out of your network onto someone else’s is a perfect way to attract access to your platform by extending your coverage to a whole new market. Like guest blogging, partnering with social media influencers is a brand outreach technique that does exactly that to your taste.
Influencers are those that have gained a high degree of reputation in their industry as trendsetters, with a wide following of users (usually on Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube). Consumers continue to take their advice seriously – particularly when it comes to their shopping experiences – because it is generally honest, relatable, and impartial.
In fact, 70% of millennials prefer product endorsements to their peers rather than celebrities. So, how are you starting? Start by analyzing social media and looking for famous accounts relevant to your industry.
Once you’ve built a list, you’ll want to continue talks with them, let them know that they’re going to find the company useful and worthwhile, as well as discuss how you can collaborate together.
Popular ways to get them to talk about your brand is to send them samples of items, give them exclusive offers so they can sell only to their fans, or make a bonus on any new customer they choose to buy from your shop.
It is also possible to create an affiliate network to simplify the process, enabling you to collaborate with a wide range of influencers in the most effective way. These activities typically lead to them mentioning your company in their Instagram Posts or including you in a tweet, all of which are great ways to attract people to your online store.
Google advertising: Convert customers who are ready to buy
Similar to your objective with SEO, you will also want to reach a potential audience shopping for products like what you’re selling on your website via a method known as search engine marketing. While many SEO measures can be free, PPC (paid-per-click) advertising will cost you a little bit of money, yey it’s completely up to you how much you’re willing to spend.
This advertising method can be used via Google Ads, an online advertising platform where users pay to share their content across a wide range of potential site visitors across the Google Ad Network. (And on a large scale, we say that over 90% of Internet users worldwide. Mind. Blown.)
It’s not just about being able to reach almost anyone online, it’s about being able to target as precise parameters as you want (location, demographics, keywords, etc.). To get started, check out our step-by-step Google advertising guide.
Further readings
Final Words
When your Shopify store is new, it will take a lot of time and effort to advertise it to your target audience. I hope all the free and paid marketing approaches mentioned in this article have provided you with a useful guide for promoting and driving traffic to your Shopify store. Please feel free to leave comments for further discussion on this topic. :-)
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