In the past, virtually all businesses had a physical location that customers could visit. These days, ecommerce businesses allow entrepreneurs to provide goods to the public without the need for a physical location. Along with a more convenient experience for consumers, ecommerce businesses can also alleviate the costs and stress associated with maintaining a physical store.

The ecommerce sector has experienced steady growth over the years, with no signs of stopping any time soon. Here’s what business owners can expect during the latter part of 2024 and beyond.

Retail Customers Are Flocking to Ecommerce Businesses

Retail establishments used to be the norm, but things are changing in 2024. Estimates show that about 20% of retail purchases will occur online, as opposed to in-store, this year. Additionally, it’s projected that this number will jump to 23% in just three short years.

Sales Are Booming in the Ecommerce Sector

When it comes to a global perspective, the worldwide ecommerce market is projected to earn a whopping $6.3 trillion this year. Online shopping is not only more convenient, but it can also introduce shoppers to more goods than they might find in stores where they live.

Ecommerce Businesses Also Face Obstacles

Cart abandonment, which occurs when a shopper places items in their digital shopping cart but never completes the transaction, is a major issue for ecommerce businesses. Consider that 47% of consumers abandon their carts for one of the following reasons:

• High taxes
• Too many fees
• Exorbitant shipping costs

While it’s hard to completely avoid taxes and other fees, ecommerce businesses can entice customers to complete purchases by offering monetary incentives. BOGO deals, discounts, and loyalty programs can all help avoid cart abandonment.

Social Media Commerce Is Also Quite Lucrative

While social media is often thought of as an effective marketing strategy for businesses, it can also serve as a marketplace. It’s estimated that the social media commerce market will total $8.5 trillion by 2030. This offers an unbelievable opportunity to businesses, who can use their existing social media pages to market and sell merchandise.

Create a Winning Ecommerce Strategy With SonicSEO.com

If you need assistance creating an impactful ecommerce strategy, SonicSEO.com is here to help. Our skilled web designers utilize proven principles and techniques when creating sites for our clients. Contact us today to discuss your ecommerce needs.

Your website is the digital representation of your business, so it must offer the right look and function to ensure users remain satisfied. When a website becomes outdated, the experience will suffer, and you may lose customers as a result. Here are some signs that it’s time to revamp your site.

Basic Information Is No Longer Relevant

Has your business recently changed locations? Are your hours of operation different? Perhaps you’ve added new products to your inventory. When the wrong information is presented on your website, users will be unable to make informed decisions about your business. In this case, a customer may be frustrated by the experience and turn to a competitor if they’re constantly dealing with inaccurate information.

Your Website’s “Personality” Is Lacking

Much like people, brands with bold, vibrant personalities tend to get the most attention. When website branding blends into the background, or doesn’t stand out much against the competition, chances are good that consumers will overlook it. In this case, consider the core mission of your business. You can also consider what kind of values you’d like to communicate. These aspects can inform your brand’s personality and make it more impactful.

You Have Lots of Broken Links

Users will also be frustrated if every link on your website leads to a deleted page. This highlights the importance of redirecting links to new pages or deleting links when necessary. While interlinking is beneficial, broken and dead links can cause irritation as a person is trying to navigate your website. In this case, a redesign is definitely in order.

Your Website Has an Outdated Look

Along with unmemorable branding, the visual style of a website can also work against it. Consider that web design trends vary quite a bit over the years, and outdated graphics, color schemes, and animations will create a poor impression in users. Your visual style should match your business’s brand, but it must also present a modern look.

When the time comes for an updated website, SonicSEO.com is happy to lend a hand. Our web design team ensures that the websites they create are mobile optimized, SEO supportive, and fully secured, which can provide your business with immense peace of mind. Contact us today to learn more or call (505) 821-2000 to schedule a consultation.

Paid social media offers quite a few benefits. It puts your brand in front of a new audience who is likely to be interested in what you have to offer. It also helps you increase awareness of your business while your organic marketing gains traction. Some businesses even use paid social media to promote a new product, service, or event.

This marketing method has something to offer for all types of businesses. While marketing needs vary based on the audience you’re appealing to, paid social media has proven effective for B2C and B2B companies.

How Does Paid Social Media Work for B2C Companies?

B2C companies have long relied on social media marketing as part of their overall strategy. When it comes to paid social media, businesses often use ads to tap into new audiences quickly. They may advertise across social media channels depending on where their target audiences can be found. Most businesses use a mix of promotional and light content. The overall goal is maximizing engagement, which makes it more likely that a customer will do business with you.

What About B2B Companies?

Social marketing strategies, both paid and organic, tend to be more challenging for B2B companies. In the past, these companies have relied on offline methods of increasing leads, such as cold calling or in-office visits. These tactics are obviously far less effective today, so most B2B companies have taken to the digital landscape when in search of leads.

The first step is to choose the platform for your target audience “lives”. For B2B companies, that usually means prioritizing platforms like Twitter or LinkedIn. It’s also beneficial to personalize content to your specific industry. You must speak directly to those people who would be interested in what your business offers, and that entails using the right terminology.

Personalizing ad messages is also crucial to make the most of paid social media. Some platforms even allow you to develop custom audiences for your ads, which ensures they are precisely targeted to the people most likely to respond. Finally, all ad campaigns should be in-tune with overall goals of your company. If your strategy is not helping you achieve these goals, it’s time for an update.

How Can You Develop a Winning Strategy?

Personalization is the key to any successful paid social media strategy. That’s why SonicSEO.com tailors our services to your specific needs. If you’re looking for methods to enhance engagement for a B2C or B2B business, let’s review your current strategy.

How to do Social Listening

Social listening is the process by which you monitor what other users are saying about you. It only takes about five seconds of watching a popular Twitter feed to see that social listening can’t be done “manually”—in other words, you simply cannot conduct all the searches, read all the tweets, posts and blogs or view the pics, snaps and pins that might be relevant to your online presence. To social listen effectively, you need a tool.

Just as there are multiple social media platforms, there are multiple social listening tools, each with different features, various integration capabilities, etc. Finding the right one depends on the networks you want to monitor, the level of control you need over monitoring and your budget. (Because the purpose of this blog is not to review or recommend any social listening tool, we aren’t going to name any names. Google “social listening tools”—you’ll find what you’re looking for.)

What to Listen For

No matter what social listening tool you prefer, there are a number of conversations you will want to listen in on:

• Convos about your brand

You need to know what users and reviewers are saying about your brand. You find these by using your global brand name (e.g. Nike) and/or specific branded products (e.g. Air Jordan) as your keywords. Monitoring brand conversations will give you raw, unadulterated feedback about your reputation, products and services because the feedback is unsolicited—it’s coming from real people talking to their real friends, family and followers.

• Convos about your competitors

You can find out how you stack up against your competitors by finding out what common gripes you can capitalize on and/or strategies to improve your products/services or marketing campaigns by first listening to what online users are saying about your main competitors. Monitoring is done by using one or more competitors’ names as your social listening keyword.

• Convos about your faces

How the public views your brand may be heavily impacted by their views on your leadership. If your CEO or other member of management is active on social media, then you need to tap into the conversations about/around them so you can be proactive about reputation management in case any message coming from them personally presents potential blow-back to the brand.

• Convos about your campaigns

You can find out in real-time how your (brand awareness or sales) campaigns are being received by tuning into social media. Your campaign should have built-in keywords, like the campaign slogan or planned hashtag. Whatever it is, search it. See if others are taking a liking to it or if your campaign needs tweaking ASAP to get desired results.

• Convos about your industry

If you use industry-relevant terms for your social listening, you will likely identify who the influencers are in your industry. This is important information. You need to know who has influence so that you can proactively make them aware of your brand. You want them to recommend your products/services, and social listening will help you take the first step toward forging that connection.

What Not to Listen For

Social listening will only provide valuable information if you set parameters to eliminate “noise”. A lot of “noise” is going to come from your own online content. You already know what your messaging is and what platforms its published on. Alter your social listening settings to ignore anything from/with your URLs so that results are not cluttered with your own stuff.

When to Listen

Conversations on social media never stop, so arguably, social listening shouldn’t either. Branded and face conversation monitoring are likely to be an ongoing, daily exercise. The frequency with which you monitor other types of conversations, though, are likely to depend on actual triggers—e.g., a campaign launch, new industry legislation, etc.

If you need assistance developing a plan to integrate social listening into your social media marketing efforts, contact SonicSEO.com.