Marketing strategies in the ecommerce industry are no different. Online businesses use pop-up ads to appear on top of the user’s screens and create content to promote their products. Digital marketers work tirelessly just to pique the attention of just a few of the billions of web users around the world.

However, digital marketing can sometimes be an expensive endeavor. Generally, online marketing strategies require significant resources, from the tools needed to analyze current market trends to the equipment needed to create marketing paraphernalia. 

In this case, it can be difficult for startups and small businesses to compete with larger brands and organizations online. With limited resources, they need to find the most cost-effective online marketing strategies available at their disposal.

To help with this, here is a list of the top cost-effective digital marketing strategies best suited for startups and small to medium online businesses.

 

Email Marketing

Email marketing is considered to be the oldest form of online marketing. In fact, this strategy dates as far back as 1978, right when the internet was only coming to life. Despite how much time has passed, email marketing continues to be one of the most widely used digital marketing strategies in the industry.

But why is this?

According to recent reports, there are more than 4.3 billion email users worldwide. Therefore, email or electronic mail is still one of the most used methods of digital communication. Considering this, one of the benefits of email marketing is that it provides access to a significantly large and diverse demographic.

There is a vast array of marketing tactics that digital marketers can use for their email marketing campaigns. One of which is using email to build and nurture relationships with customers. 

One perk of email marketing is that email communications are considered more personal since messages go directly to users’ personal inboxes. 

This, in a sense, makes it feel like brands are communicating directly with their customers. When accompanied by personalized content, it can make customers feel more connected to your brand and engage more with your email campaign efforts. This is especially crucial when it comes to generating and nurturing qualified leads. 

Aside from building relationships, email marketing is also a powerful tool for marketing products and promoting content. An eye-catching email subject line can be enough for customers to click on your message to learn more about what you have to offer. 

 

Search Engine Optimization

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When we talk about digital marketing, one of the first things that comes to mind is search engine optimization or SEO. Another widely used marketing strategy, SEO primarily focuses on generating and directing organic traffic. It leverages search engine analytics and algorithms to improve online visibility and increase brand awareness. 

Search engines, such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo, are some of the most popular websites online. In fact, Google is the most visited website globally, receiving more than 8 billion search queries per day. Reports further support that over 90% of web activities start with a search engine query.

Considering this, search engine optimization is a widely utilized marketing strategy for ecommerce websites to boost their online visibility. They do this by optimizing their content to rank at the top of search engine result pages (SERPs).

There are steps involved in optimizing websites for SEO. One of which is to create high-quality content that features relevant keywords. Producing blogs, research articles, case studies, and the like is one thing. The more important aspect of this is ensuring that these content are optimized with both primary and secondary keywords so that search engine algorithms can rank it as informative, valuable, and relevant to online queries. 

Aside from content, search engine optimization also emphasizes the importance of providing web users with quality experiences. Considering this, a critical part of SEO revolves around website optimization through UI and UX design. This aims to ensure that websites are user-friendly, easily accessible, and intuitive enough to navigate with ease. 

 

Social Media Markteing

Social media has become an integral part of people’s daily lives. Recent reports show that there are more than 4 billion social media users on different platforms across the globe. Furthermore, the average social media usage globally is more than 2 hours per day. Considering this, digital marketers leverage these platforms to engage and interact with a significantly large and diverse audience. 

In the industry, social media marketing is primarily used to connect with target audiences. Digital marketers utilize an array of strategies and techniques to effectively reach social media users to boost brand awareness, build their branding, generate leads, and nurture customer relationships. 

To do this, digital marketers use social media as a primary communication channel with their audiences. They produce highly engaging social media content that encourages interaction, whether it’s between social media users and the brand or among users themselves. 

Social media features such as likes, comments, shares, and reposts are highly effective in increasing online visibility and expanding reach to thousands and even millions of users. 

But aside from boosting online presence and visibility, social media marketing is also an effective starting point to generate leads and direct traffic to ecommerce websites. The act of adding links to your site on your social media posts can be enough to drive traffic from social media platforms to your website to possibly convert them into customers.

 

Content Marketing

Content plays an important role in the role of digital marketing. It is the primary source of information online and, thus, the medium to which online businesses, brands, and ecommerce websites engage and interact with their target audience. 

Unfortunately, content marketing can also require a significant investment, depending on the type of content you produce. Primarily, videos and podcasts require the most resources.

But, there are other forms of content that digital marketers can use without having to break the bank. One of which is written content, such as blogs, articles, case studies, guides, and the like. This type of content doesn’t require much, but producing these can be tedious. In order to produce high-quality written content, it is essential that digital marketers take their time and conduct extensive research. 

However, a perk of producing blogs and the like is that digital marketers can also repurpose their content into another form, such as infographics. With this strategy, digital marketers can hit two birds with one stone and create more opportunities for engagement with minimal investment and resources needed. 

 

Mobile Video Marketing

Source: Pexels

 

Video content has been the star of digital media over the past couple of years. From the exponential growth YouTube experiences to the sudden boom of TikTok, videos have dominated the online world.

However, video marketing campaigns are generally expensive. It requires a ton of resources, from the equipment needed to film to the software and programs used during post-production. Therefore, video marketing is not an easy marketing strategy to get into. 

Not until the growing popularity of mobile videos. With the advent of technology, people are now able to capture and record good quality and high-resolution videos with just their mobile phones. Now, content creators and digital marketers are leveraging this trend to keep up with the rising demand for video content. 

In fact, mobile video has grown so much that it has developed its own niche or demographic. Considering that most people access the web using their phones, there has been a significant demand for mobile-optimized video content, which are videos produced specifically for mobile consumption. 

Mobile videos are typically set in a vertical orientation for easier consumption. But aside from that, a key characteristic of mobile videos is that they are generally shorter. Platforms such as Instagram and TikTok cater specifically for short-form mobile videos that are roughly only around 30 seconds to a minute long. 

Considering all this, mobile video has been the cheaper and more accessible alternative to a grand-scale video marketing campaign. With mobile video marketing, digital marketers can produce content with just their phones from start to finish.

 

Influencer Marketing

When it comes to cost-effective digital marketing strategies, one often overlooked and underappreciated tactic is influencer marketing. 

Influencer marketing is a strategy that leverages the clout of an already existing and established online personality. While this strategy involves a bit more investment than the others mentioned above, influencer marketing still holds a reputation for being cost-effective because of its benefits and advantages.

Startups and small to medium online businesses can leverage influencers to reach a significantly large audience. Depending on the agreement made with the online influencer, brands can invest as little as sending them their package for free or paying them at minimal costs to have them promote a product, brand, or service to their audience base.

Collaborating with minor influencers is still an effective way to increase brand awareness and exposure to a couple hundreds or thousands of users. 

 

PPC Marketing

Another cost-effective paid marketing strategy is pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. This strategy is considerably a foolproof way to put your advertisements at the top of search engine results pages with minimal costs.

A notable benefit of PPC is that businesses are only charged for every click or engagement that their ad receives, which ensures some sort of interaction and engagement with consumers one way or the other. 

Therefore, PPC advertising is a powerful and cost-effective strategy online businesses can use not only to increase online visibility but also to identify qualified leads that they can nurture and convert to customers to increase sales. 

 

Bottomline 

Marketing is a critical part of the ecommerce industry. It is the primary way for online businesses to find potential customers and generate sales. But despite this, digital marketing strategies don’t necessarily need to cost a fortune. 

There is a wide range of marketing strategies that online businesses can leverage that can effectively reach their target audience and encourage them to engage with their brands with little to no cost. 

 

Want to know more about the most effective and powerful digital marketing strategies? Sidekicks is an on-demand virtual company, and we’re eager to help visionaries and entrepreneurs like you. Get a free ebook and learn more about how we can help you by signing up for our newsletter. We also offer a free 30-minute consultation if you prefer something more personal.

 

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