4 Best Shopify Marketing Strategies to Increase Your Sales

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Kudos to you if you’ve decided to create a Shopify online store!

The platform is well-known for being user-friendly and practical, hosting 4.80 million websites nowadays. However, just setting up a store doesn’t guarantee a stable income flow, no matter how good your website is. That’s where you need a successful, well-defined, and documented Shopify marketing plan.

Here, we’ll break down tried-and-true Shopify marketing strategies together with real-world examples. This guide will help you determine where to focus your efforts, whether you’re new to Shopify or trying to improve your strategy. We’ll examine four key elements of Shopify marketing:

• customer experience;
• audience engagement;
• digital marketing;
• advertising and promotions.

Let’s see how they can work in tandem to grow your client base.

Crafting the Customer Experience

Your product may be stunning, no one doubts that. But if it’s not visible enough or is hard to get through to on the website, you lose. That’s why you need to optimize the website UX as well as go beyond the transaction. That is, you also need to take care of the customer experience and support.

At this stage, a robust Shopify development service becomes indispensable. Start with high-quality product page creation. It should present the product in the best light possible but not deceive potential customers.

High-resolution images play a vital role in persuading them to buy. Maybe you can add a short video or a virtual try-on solution. They retain people longer on the page and boost conversion rates if prospects are on the fence.

AI-Enabled Personalization and Chatbots

Do you struggle with numerous support inquiries, especially when they pile up on weekends? Incorporate a chatbot, a digital assistant that automatically answers common questions.

Modern solutions rely on artificial intelligence to sustain human-like conversations. By conversations, we mean not only the common-

• “What are your business hours?”, or 
• “What is my order status?” questions. 

Chatbots can adjust their tone and style according to the context, provide personalized recommendations, and collect valuable feedback.

Speaking of personalization, you shouldn’t overlook this strategy. It’s about adapting to each shopper’s needs, be it a busy mother of two, or an office worker, who needs to comply with the dress code. Search for patterns in the buying behavior. What does this or that shopper typically click and add to the cart? Remember this information to curate lists of relevant products for “You May Also Like” sections.

Deepening Relationships

Once you’ve established the connection, provide reasons for people to stay with you. Loyalty programs and customer success stories are effective for this task. The key to a successful program is simplicity and value, such as:

• points-per-purchase;
• exclusive discounts;
• members-only perks.

Customers should find it easy to join and earn genuinely appealing rewards.

Feedback or other forms of user-generated content help boost your credibility in the eyes of the broad audience. Encourage existing customers to recommend your company to new ones. A marketing tactic known as “word-of-mouth” is effective, as 92% of consumers trust recommendations from friends more than typical branded advertisements.

The Shopify App Store has many referral apps to help you start a referral program. All you need to do is download the app, choose your rewards, set up the campaign, and publicize your brand-new initiative.

In the screenshot below, you can see Blume’s loyalty and referral programs presented as a chat pop-up.

Engaging the Audience

Your website should be interactive to retain people. From pop-ups to quizzes, integrate solutions to turn passive browsers into active participants.

Pop-ups are generally considered annoying, which can be true if triggered at the wrong time. Timing is everything when it comes to obstructing people’s views. The pop-up should also be valuable.

Have you noticed a website visitor has looked at the product for over 30 seconds? Trigger a pop-up with an email subscription offer in exchange for a 10% discount on the first purchase. This way, you don’t jump on too soon and add a pleasing reward for sharing personal information. 

For instance, the screenshot below shows a pop-up on “The Honey Pot” website that promises 15% off for answering the question “What is most important to you regarding your self-care?”

Similar rules apply to on-site notifications. Your Shopify store gains an additional layer of engagement with this function, which may look like a social media notification. Customers will find your menu more attractive and likely click on an icon with a red dot (like a Facebook notice).

What can you notify visitors about? It can be everything from alerting them to a flash sale or notifying them when an out-of-stock item is back. Advantages:

• quickly captures visitors’ interest;
• ensures a more engaging and dynamic experience;
• only requires a few clicks to add to a store and is compatible with all websites;
• a subtle method of showcasing special offers or products.

These alerts can increase Shopify conversions and page views. Plus, this kind of notification doesn’t interfere with the user’s browsing experience because visitors have to click on the bell (or any other symbol) to view the feed. As such, they make a deliberate effort to open it.

Pro Tip: Don’t forget about offsite engagement, such as social media and influencer marketing. Social media are a multi-purpose tool that lets you share content, launch paid ads, and communicate with potential buyers in DMs and comments.

Influencers can use their profiles to direct their followers to your brand. Don’t chase mere numbers like followers, likes, and comments. It’s crucial to target the right audience rather than merely a larger one. Micro-influencers, with their niche followings, can often offer higher engagement rates and more authentic connections.

Amplifying Reach with Digital Marketing

Communication with customers doesn’t end when they close the website. For example, paid ads, video marketing, and podcasts can help keep the conversation going.

Activating a Paid Advertising Campaign

Paid ads, or pay-per-click advertising (PPC), are the way to buy traffic to the store. It’s one of the most effective marketing tactics for smaller businesses that can’t compete with bigger competitors in organic search results but want to appear in front of their potential customers with precision and speed. Google Ads and Facebook Ads are two venues for doing that.

The beauty of Google Ads lies in its versatility—search, display, and shopping ads allow you to capture interest at different stages of the buying journey. Facebook supports various forms like carousels and videos to maximize engagement.

However, PPC can be costly and depends on the competition for popular keywords. You need to identify the right keywords for your product niche and modify your bidding budget to receive an optimal return on investment (ROI).

Retargeting is another way to advertise your brand outside the website. The most popular types of ads here are cart abandonment ones or those that show recently viewed and similar items, but the person hasn’t bought them yet. To gather insights into visitor behavior, you need to install a tracking pixel, like the Meta pixel. This enables you to demonstrate ads that remind prospects of their unfinished journey.

Crafting Content That Captivates

Content that is valuable to your audience will increase engagement and entice visitors to stay on the website longer. By consistently delivering top-notch materials, you can establish your company as an authority in your field and win over the trust of the audience. You can also draw in organic traffic from search engines and social media and boost conversion rates.

Heyday Canning has an amazing blog featuring recipes for their product, canned beans. Apart from its thriving TikTok profile, consumers will find value in the blog, which saves time and effort thinking about how to integrate the product into their daily lives. And yes, pay attention to its bold shopping “cart” pictogram. It’s remarkable.

If you already publish textual content, try videos and podcasts. They’re among the latest marketing strategies that can inform and entertain like nothing else. Videos can be explainers,  behind-the-scenes glimpses, live-stream Q&A sessions, product demonstrations, etc. With tools like VideoWise, you can incorporate user-generated video reviews into your Shopify store. 

Podcasts are great for storytelling and discussions. Whether you want to share the latest news, reviews of tech gadgets, or health tips from invited specialists, podcasts can provide value that transcends mere product promotion.

Boosting Sales Through Strategic Promotions

Once you’ve attracted traffic to the store, you need to persuade these people to buy. That’s where the following strategies come into play:

• Discounts;
• Gift cards;
• Seasonal promotions;
• Upselling and cross-selling;
• Giveaways.

The first item on the list revolves around the promise of savings. You can offer a straightforward percentage off, a more complex buy-one-get-one (BOGO) deal, or time-sensitive discounts.

While gift cards usually do not mean lower prices for customers, they do ensure shoppers will come to your store to redeem the value of the card. They may spend even more than what was paid for the card.

Add a “free” product sample to the gift card purchase. The Shopify admin panel simplifies the creation of discount codes and gift cards, allowing store owners to implement these strategies effortlessly.

Don’t know how to spark customer interest? Align your promotions with the calendar. Seasonal promotions address consumers’ demands, whether they’re pursuing Black Friday sales or anticipate back-to-school shopping.

Increasing Basket Size with Upselling and Cross-Selling

Upselling revolves around offering an upgrade to the purchase. Whether it’s a more expensive alternative or an add-on to power up the current product, the goal is to increase the cost of the basket. Cross-selling is another technique to boost the average order value, but here, you suggest that a person buys a matching product, like an accessory for the chosen dress.

Where can you suggest complementary or premium products? The shopping journey has some critical points, such as right before checkout. Why there? When customers reach the checkout, they’ve already shown a high intent to purchase. This makes them more receptive to adding extra items to their cart, as they are in a decision-making mindset.

Luckily, in eCommerce, you don’t have to ask direct questions; you can employ technology for this task. Shopify has several apps that facilitate cross-selling and upselling, such as Candy Rack, Cross Sell & Upsell by SSC, Dialogue AI Personalization, and others.

Engagement Through Incentives

At last, integrate giveaways into your Shopify marketing strategies to give people freebies in exchange for meeting certain criteria. Here are some benefits of giveaways:

• increasing your store’s visibility;
• engaging with a wider audience;
• growing the number of social media followers and email subscriptions;
• driving more website visitors to the store;
• getting an opportunity to conduct market research.

When planning a giveaway, select prizes worth entering for, set clear, transparent rules, and host a live prize drawing. That’s where collaborations with influencers or brands can come in handy for promoting the event. Apart from that, remind users of the giveaway on the website. For example, trigger a pop-up promoting it.

FAQs on Shopify Marketing 

Final Thoughts

Shopify marketing strategies aim to boost sales. However, no sales are possible without trusting relationships with your target audience. That’s why most of the tips mentioned above may not directly impact the number and value of orders but bring you closer to potential customers.

Whether you simplify the store navigation or collaborate with influencers, keep your focus on delivering value, and the sales will follow. We hope that you’ll find these pieces of advice useful. As we wrap up, let’s mention the importance of staying adaptable, informed, and connected to your consumers. Here’s to your success, growth, and the exciting journey ahead.