Can Ecommerce Survive without the Help of Digital Marketing?

The TL;DR version of the whole matter: No, eCommerce cannot survive without the help of digital marketing. Now let’s explore why.

The internet has changed the way we relate to the world around us. And ever since the advent of mobile—high-speed internet in the palm of our hands—life as we knew it changed dramatically. From the way we connect with people, the way we exercise, the music we listen to, and the media we’re exposed to, all the way to the way we shop, everything changed.

We no longer have to wait in line to buy most things; we can buy online. We can find information about anything we want at the click of a button. We can compare prices online or ask a friend 2000 miles away to review a product we might be interested in. Shopping is now just as much a social experience as it is an economic activity.

Besides, many people—especially millennials—now care about the personality of the brands they buy from; they want to know that the business has a soul. Does it have a mission? Is it environment-friendly? What social causes does it support? And, as it turns out, the only way to communicate the brand’s soul to the customer is by interacting directly with them. To do that, you must gather where they gather.

Everyone knows that millennials wield an overwhelming majority of the economic might today. Capture the millennial market, and you capture a massive share of the overall market. So, where do the millennials gather? Social media. It is estimated that millennials now spend 2 hours and 38 minutes on various social media sites daily. Digital marketing—most effectively executed by an ecommerce website Singapore—allows you to take advantage of this massive opportunity to interact directly with your customers.

Moreover, eCommerce is growing exponentially year to year. The democratization of online shopping means that payments are now safer, deliveries are faster, and new businesses are being established fairly quickly with low investments and even lower entry barriers. But these low barriers to entry are creating an undesirable side effect, at least for business owners.

Despite the relative ease of setting up an eCommerce operation, getting good results can be remarkably difficult. A physical fashion store competes primarily with other stores within its locality; however, an online fashion store competes with every fashion store globally, physical and online. Thus, it takes a lot more than a superior product to stand out in the crowded marketplace and make a killing.

This brings us back to traditional marketing tactics and methods vs. social media, which is a mainstay of every digital marketing strategy. A single well-placed tweet or Instagram post can reach tens of thousands of people, if not millions, for free. Compare that to television ads and radio jingles that cost a lot of money to produce and require repeated runs to achieve the same results.

Also, consider this: how many trade shows will you have to attend to achieve the reach of a single social media post? If you consider that social media content can be shared at the click of a button, you would see that even if you attended 200 trade shows every year, you definitely wouldn’t achieve the same reach.

Again, let’s consider another aspect of digital marketing: Search Engine Marketing and SEO. Search engine marketing and SEO allow you to market your products to people who are already searching for them or need something related to them. Search marketing and SEO are nothing short of powerful.

Consider this scenario: a user asks this question, “where can I buy the best shoes online?” You own an eCommerce operation that sells shoes, and you just happen to have a blog post on your website that answers this question. Google shows your post to the user. And naturally, the post advertises your company as one of the providers of the best shoes in town. The user now sees you as a shoe authority because Google listed your post as an authoritative answer to their question, and will most likely buy from you when he needs to buy shoes. And that is assuming they don’t buy from you immediately.

After writing the post and uploading it to your website, you don’t have to answer the question manually each time someone asks again. Google simply serves up your answer among all the other relevant answers. In other words, you basically set it and forget it (a tad oversimplified, I know).

Now think for a minute: if you were to do this manually, how much time could you devote to answering the same question every single day? What alternative options do you have for automating this exact process?

These are just 2 aspects of digital marketing that illustrate that eCommerce cannot exist without the help of digital marketing. The exponential growth of eCommerce would not have happened had digital marketing not been deployed successfully by eCommerce operators. Though eCommerce may or may not have been able to grow on its own, it definitely would not have taken off as fast as it did, nor would it have gained the massive adoption it now has.

But having to master digital marketing can be daunting. Thankfully, eCommerce operators do not have to master it for themselves. You can employ the services of an eCommerce marketing agency to handle your digital marketing needs. For businesses in Austin, BriteIdea Marketing is your best bet. BriteIdea Marketing is an Austin eCommerce agency that provides turnkey eCommerce marketing services. You can visit their website to learn more.