A famous adage states, “Rome wasn’t built in a day,” and a great ecommerce website isn’t built overnight – no matter what the large web hosting and marketing companies may promise in television commercials. At Blue Zenith, we take the time to consult with each of our clients and ensure that we’re building the best possible ecommerce website to meet their present and future needs, and the best way you can ensure your ecommerce site experiences a successful launch is by preparing useful content marketing.
When It Comes To Marketing, You’re Now On Your Own
There are many advantages to leaving a large online marketplace like eBay, Amazon or Etsy and creating your own ecommerce website, but there is one disadvantage that many small ecommerce business owners don’t adequately plan for or address – the lack of brand awareness and marketing support for your new website. Many large online marketplaces have invested millions of dollars in advertising and marketing over many years to build brand awareness, and it’s no accident that when we think to purchase an item online, the first websites that pop into our heads are Amazon and eBay. Now that you’re out on your own, you’ve immediately lost that brand awareness. However, even though you don’t have a multimillion dollar advertising and marketing budget, you can take advantage of the tools that you either have or will soon have at your disposal and begin developing content for your new ecommerce website.
The Early Bird Catches New Customers!
Before your website is built, it is important to begin planning and developing the resources and marketing content you will use to attract new and existing customers and build brand awareness. If you have already chosen a name for your new website and a good domain, it is time to begin registering social media accounts and setting up an email newsletter. You can register social media accounts at the major sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, and you can setup a free email account at MailChimp, an email marketing service provider. If you haven’t decided on a new logo or color scheme for your business, you can choose from an existing design template or leave social media avatars and cover images empty for now.
Prepare Your Announcement
Once these accounts are setup and established, it’s time to begin planning a preliminary content marketing strategy. Feel free to begin by announcing on social media that you’re new website is “Coming Soon!”, even if you don’t have a website to share. If you have an existing website with a blog, feel free to compose a blog post announcing your new and improved website, but don’t advertise specific features or sections at this point, as the final design and content of your website may change. If you don’t have an existing website or blog, compose a new blog post announcing your new website in the present-tense and forward it to your web designer to include in your new blog once the website is complete.
Compose Your Email Newsletters
Composing content and preparing an email newsletter and marketing emails is not dependent on the launch of your new website, but your first email newsletters may not include the final logo or color scheme that will be included in your site. If you have a set of customer email addresses and those customers have consented to receiving your marketing emails, begin composing a new newsletter or marketing email announcing the launch of your new website. Be careful not to bombard your customers with emails, especially if your website hasn’t actually launched, as you can run the risk of exhausting your customer’s interest and patience.
Plan Your Content Marketing Future
The final step to successfully launching a new ecommerce website is developing a content marketing strategy to carry your new website through the first six to twelve months of its existence. That may sound like a lot of work, but there’s one more tired adage that applies – it’s always best to strike when the iron is hot, and in this case, the iron is your new website. By planning the next six to twelve month of content marketing, you can craft a long-term strategy for not only establishing and building the online presence of your new business, but also to provide a roadmap for achieving success even after the initial excitement of launching a new website wears off. Too many small business blogs and social media accounts become neglected, simply because there was no marketing roadmap to follow and the daily responsibilities of running an ecommerce business took precedence over developing a marketing strategy.