17 Ecommerce Marketing Strategies (For Stores On A Shoestring Budget)

Bonus Material: Ecommerce Marketing Strategies Swipe File

Sales.

You want more of them, right?

Well, I’ve got some good news. In this article, I reveal 17 ecommerce marketing strategies some of Sumo’s top ecommerce customers are using.

We’re talking a mix of “set it and forget it” type strategies, strategies for the long game, community building strategies, social media strategies, and more.

Sounds sweet, right? It is. Let’s dive in.

1. Pinterest Marketing Strategy (Result: $1,338.97 Monthly Revenue)

I LOVE Pinterest.

I’m a guy who never uses it personally, but for business, it’s amazing.

Why? Because Pinterest brings one of my blogs over 17,000 unique pageviews per month — completely on autopilot.

Screenshot showing google analytics data

My guide to RV upgrades and mods, in particular, brings almost 7,000 unique visitors per month from Pinterest. This translated to $1,338.97 in Amazon revenue just last month alone.[*]

Graph showing a report for an ecommerce store

And that’s not even including the other 11,000 visitors Pinterest brought!

Ready to get started? Click here to learn my exact set it and forget it ecommerce Pinterest marketing strategy.

2.  Best Seller Strategy (Result: More Sales)

Growth hacks are great, right? Unique “guerrilla marketing” tactics that get you more word-of-mouth and increase the bottom line.

Well, have I got a treat for you!

In a recent Sumo article, we revealed five incredibly effective ecommerce growth hacks. One of those is our “Best Seller” growth hack.

The idea is simple:

  1. Identify your best seller

  2. Build a landing page for your product

  3. Advertise that landing page

Screenshot showing the breakdown of a page

Want the specifics? Click here to learn how to use the Best Seller strategy.

3. Content Marketing Strategy (Result: $1,000,000 Revenue)

Since people caught on to using content to rank in the search engines, drive traffic, and sell products, the internet has been dominated by SaaS and blog-only sites using content to grow their business. But content marketing works wonders for ecommerce, too!

Don’t believe me? We did a study on 6,868 ecommerce content marketing articles, and we found that online stores who publish more content make more money.

Graph showing mean number of articles per year based on revenue

Ready to get started? Click here to learn how Huckberry used content marketing to reach $1,000,000 in revenue in one year.

4. Ecommerce Email Marketing Strategy (Result: $4,425 Sales With $100 Spend)

Email marketing is probably THE most obvious ecommerce marketing strategy to drive revenue. You undoubtedly are already using it in some way.

But are you earning $4,425 or more every time you spend $100 on it?

If not, you better up your email game.

Screenshot showing a discount popup

Ready to get started? Click here to learn the 12 ecommerce list building strategies responsible for 44x ROI.

5. Ecommerce Penny Product Upgrade Strategy (Result: $45,156 Monthly Revenue)

Have you ever heard of the “penny product upgrade”?

It’s just like it sounds — you offer your visitors a product for a penny with their first order.

Our friends at Dry Farm Wines used this strategy to make an extra $45,156 in monthly recurring subscription orders! Here’s the popup they used:

Screenshot showing a lead magnet popup

274,590 visitors have seen this popup. It’s generated 126,405 high-quality leads who are showing an interest in wine by entering their name and email. That’s a 46.03% conversion rate!

Screenshot showing Sumo stats

Ready to get started? Click here to learn exactly how Dry Farm Wines used the “penny product upgrade” strategy, and how you can too.

6. Product Referrals Strategy (Result: $4,950 Sales With $500 Spend)

In the early 2000s, PayPal spent US$60 million on its referral incentives.

New customers got $20 for signing up, and existing ones got $20 for referrals. This referral program helped PayPal acquire 1 million users by March 2000 and 5 million by summer 2000. It was so successful that they had to shut it down by 2003 — they reached critical mass and no longer needed the extra referrals to grow.

Referral marketing is powerful, and it works for ecommerce as well! The ecommerce company ErgoDriven spent $500 on this strategy to generate $4,950 in return revenue, using this simple order success page.

Screenshot showing a share popup

Want to learn how they did it (and how you can too)? Click here to read the full step-by-step case study.

7. Affiliate Marketing Strategy (Result: $8,000 From One Campaign)

Referrals are great, but people will only go so far to save $10. What if, instead, you offer them recurring revenue — potentially even enough to run a business on?

Well, then people may go above and beyond to ensure you sell lots and lots of products. After all, the more they make you, the more they earn themselves.

Kettle & Fire, a company that sells grass-fed beef and bone broth, used affiliate marketing to generate $8,000 from a single campaign.

Screenshot showing kettle&fire

Ready to try it for yourself? Click here to read the full step-by-step case study, complete with an affiliate campaign template.

8. Chatbot Marketing Strategy (Result: 23x ROI)

Have you bought something from a chatbot yet?

If not, you’re missing the trend. Over 8 billion messages are exchanged between people and businesses on Messenger each month.[*]

But who cares about that? You want real, tangible results, not just how many people are messaging. So here you go.

Sephora saw an 11% jump in booking rates through the Sephora Reservation Assistant bot and SnapTravel noted more than $1 million in hotel bookings in less than a year using their bot.[*]

Another company — Argomall — used automated chatbots to generate a 23x increase in ROI (versus the cost of running the bot).

Screenshot showing a messenger conversation

Ready to get started? Click here to learn how to build your own chatbot in 15 minutes or less.

9. Product Page Best Practices Strategy (Result: Higher Search Rankings)

Not all ecommerce marketing strategies revolve around using other platforms. In fact, some of the best involve making tweaks directly to your website.

Except for your checkout page, your product pages are possibly the most important pages on your site. They’re prime real estate to increase sales and find new customers.

Screenshot showing a product page for a shoe

How do you increase sales on your product page?

By implementing these product-page best practices.

(Spoiler alert: In this one article, you’ll learn how to rank your products on Google, use social proof to increase your conversion rate, and more!)

10. Store Credit Strategy (Result: 87% Email List Growth)

Get this: Ecommerce store Rhone grew their email list by 87% using a ridiculously simple (but effective) popup.

Screenshot showing a sweepstakes popup

Don’t believe me? Here’s proof.

Graph showing emails collected and date

Want to steal their strategy? Click here to learn how to create an effective store credit popup (and increase your subscribers by 100-200 per day).

11. Instagram Marketing Strategy (Result: Earning $5,000+ In One Day)

Social media is great for ecommerce. Plenty of stores are making loads of money on Facebook and Snapchat and all the other platforms.

But spreading your attention between too many platforms is confusing, aggravating, and time-consuming.

The alternative?

Screenshot showing an instagram post

Use these Instagram marketing strategies to drive revenue to your online store (in addition to the simple Pinterest strategy, of course). You can thank me later.

12. Influencer Marketing Strategy (Result: 2.2 Million People Reached)

Alright, no points for creativity here; everyone knows about influencer marketing at this point. But for good reason — it works!

Screenshot showing an Instagram profile

What if you could leverage an audience of 2.2 million people without spending years building it for yourself? What if you could do that without spending a fortune on advertising or selling your soul?

Well, you can. Click here to find out how.

13. Facebook Ads Strategy (Result: $4 Million Revenue)

Facebook ads work. They always have and probably always will. (Unless we the people finally get sick of the big FB’s manipulation — unlikely, but possible.)

How well do they work?

Well enough to bring $4,000,000 in revenue on a $1,000,000 ad spend.

The ad that did this is hilariously simple, too. Check it out.

Screenshot showing a Facebook post

Of course, very few of us have a million dollars to dump into Facebook ads. But with that kind of ad spend, you learn a lot of lessons on what makes a good ad.

Want to learn those lessons? Click here to read our six-step guide to sensational Facebook ads.

14. Email Resend Strategy (Result: 6% Additional Opens)

I have some shocking news for you.

Just because someone doesn’t open one of your emails, doesn’t mean you can never send them that email again.

In fact, I recommend you send them the same email a second time — just change the subject line. I was able to get 9 and 15 extra clicks on two campaigns I sent out to just a few hundred people. That’s 3-6% extra clicks I otherwise would have missed.

Screenshot showing open stats for emails

Revolutionary? No. But over the course of emails to thousands of people, this could mean several thousand dollars in extra revenue for your store. All from a simple subject line change and the click of a button.

15. Video Marketing Strategy (Result: 92 Facebook Shares)

Video has been BLOWING UP over the last few years. But how do you use it?

Try behind-the-scenes shots of your product production process, day-to-day vlog videos, or how-to videos showing your visitors how to do something related to your products or niche.

Here's one example of this: Innovative Journaling creates beautifully crafted handmade leather journals. Each one takes an hour or more to make.[*]

To sell you on this, the owner created this video showing the full process in just 60 seconds:

What I love about this video is that it’s almost like a “How It’s Made” type video you’d see on the Discovery Channel. So cool!

Ready to start using video to get more customers? Click here to learn how to create “product commercials” that go viral!

16. Convert Window Shoppers Strategy (Result: Fewer Abandoned Shoppers)

Have you ever been browsing a site whose email list you’re a part of. You then leave and a few hours later you get an email with your most-viewed product?

Maybe you have, maybe not. But it’s a great way to convert window shoppers into customers.

For example, check out this email from Shopify store Sebastien Cruz:

Screenshot showing a popup

I signed up for their email list to try to win a free item, then browsed around their store. Three hours later, they sent that email with the product I viewed the most times (without buying anything).

Wanna do this for your store? Use Sumo’s Convert Window Shoppers Shortcut

Sebastien Cruz has it set up so if you’re on their email list and don't purchase what you were viewing within three hours, you get an email with your most viewed product.

They set it up inside Sumo, following these two steps:

Step 1: Build the email you want to send (Sumo will automatically insert your visitors most viewed product inside the email).

Screenshot showing Sumo settings

Step 2: Set how much time you want to wait before the email is triggered to your visitor (you can set it to trigger after 3, 24, or 48 hours; or a custom delay you set). 

Screenshot showing Sumo settings

To try it for yourself, click the button below.

17. Power Words Strategy (Result: More Email Opens)

I have one final marketing trick for you…It’s so ridiculously incredible and swoon-worthy, it might just dazzle you with excitement and astonish you with jaw-dropping badassery.

OK, maybe not. But it’s my favorite ecommerce marketing strategy, and I saved it for last: Using power words.

Screenshot showing list of power words

Words have the power to evoke emotion and trigger curiosity. They can cause you to click, share, or buy. They can piss you off or make you laugh.

So if you’re looking for a way to increase sales and engagement, try adding some of these 401+ power words to your website, your emails, and your marketing.

Want To See 20 More Ecommerce Marketing Strategies That Sumo’s Top Ecommerce Customers Use?

Phew! That brings us to the end of our quick list of ecommerce marketing strategies.

There are always out-of-the-box ways to increase your sales and find new customers. From the classic social media and email to the lesser-known growth hacks, I hope you’ve found at least one thing that will help your business grow today.

Want a list of 20 more marketing strategies to grow your online store? Click the button below.

I made sure to include all different kinds of ecommerce businesses getting proven results so everyone can benefit. Every month we update this list with the latest ecommerce marketing strategies working right now for Sumo’s top customers.

Get The List Of Sumo Customers’ Top Ecommerce Marketing Strategies

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