If your product marketing efforts are not holistic, you may find it harder to position your online store for genuine growth. Holistic, integrated marketing offers a way to not only reach more customers, but also to establish your authority and provide your customers with a seamless experience from the very first moment they discover your brand.
Online stores have a number of unique channels. In the era of digital marketing, one of the biggest challenges is being seen amidst a sea of other ecommerce stores. One way to stand out is to ensure that your product marketing is geared to be holistic.
Top Reasons to Develop an Integrated Product Marketing Strategy
Some of the top reasons to use an integrated strategy for product marketing include the following:
- Reach more customers. Taking a holistic approach to ecommerce marketing is an effective way to reach more customers. This gives you the benefit of an expanded reach, using a multichannel strategy that incorporates mobile, email, SEO, social and advertising. As each channel has its own audience, you also have the chance to reach customers you may not have been targeting. At the same time, a multichannel strategy is a good way to create a cohesive brand, which in turn helps you establish your reputation more effectively. And that takes us to our next point…
- Establish authority. Authority comes with trust. Trust is gained through consistency, which in turn is gained through cohesive branding. When your shop, social channels, emails, mobile apps and campaigns and PPC ads are all carefully planned, customers will soon know exactly what to expect from your brand. On the other hand, when you have a strong SEO focus that is not backed up by a well designed ecommerce website, social presence, email campaign or mobile campaign, you may find it harder to establish trust and authority.
- Seamless customer experience. Ultimately, effective ecommerce development and marketing should always come down to customer experience. What does your customer journey look like? Are you offering many ways for customers to reach you and connect? How easily can your customers become brand loyalists? What experience have they come to expect from your store? When you are able to provide a seamless experience on any channel, you will be able to take customers from one time shoppers to loyal customers. This is essential for customer retention, but it is also good for customer acquisition if you are able to provide a consistent experience from the very start.
Whatever the size and nature of your store, one thing is for sure. Product marketing needs to be designed in a way that makes it easier to reach more customers, more easily and more effectively.