If you solely rely on social media to drive sales for your e-commerce business, here’s a harsh truth: “You haven’t got a business, you’ve got a job.”
This is something I recently heard on Jenna Kutcher’s Goal Digger podcast, and I couldn’t agree more!!!
Social media undoubtedly has its place in any e-commerce businesses strategy, but if your sales plummet the moment you take a day off from posting, there’s a significant problem in your ecommerce business. You’ve become too heavily reliant on a platform over which you have no control—and that’s not a smart place to be.
Why Is This a Problem?
Because you have no control over how any of these social media platforms operate. This is why we constantly hear about e-commerce businesses struggling due to algorithm changes, platform outages, or shifts in content preferences. As an ecommerce business mentor, I’ve spoken to countless clients who are e-commerce business owners and are finding it increasingly difficult to make sales. Many blame the fact that their business is not being seen by the right audience—thanks to ever-changing algorithms and platform dynamics.
I’m not saying that social media doesn’t have its place; it absolutely does. However, it cannot be the only marketing channel or traffic driver making you sales. For a sustainable and successful e-commerce business, diversification of your revenue and marketing channels is key.
So, What Are Your Other Options?
Here are my favorite alternatives to social media that can drive traffic and sales more reliably:
1. Pinterest
Many people mistake Pinterest for just another social media platform, but in reality, it’s a visual search engine. I’ve seen some of my e-commerce business owner clients achieve significant sales by using Pinterest strategically to drive traffic to their websites. Unlike Instagram or Facebook, Pinterest requires less frequent content creation, yet it can yield substantial results. I always recommend incorporating Pinterest into the marketing mix for all of my clients. It is also the EASIEST and QUICKEST channel to create for, so you definitley don’t want to miss out on this.
2. Email Marketing
If you’re an e-commerce business owner, hopefully, you already have a mailing list and are actively growing your subscribers. Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to get directly in front of an audience that’s already interested in your products. Unlike social media followers, email subscribers have chosen to hear from you DIRECTLY, making them far more likely to convert into paying customers. I often focus on helping my 1-1 clients build and leverage their email lists effectively.
3. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
SEO is another powerful tool that many e-commerce businesses overlook. One of my clients recently focused heavily on improving her SEO, and the result was a massive increase in traffic to her site. Don’t forget about the power of Google Shopping, either—it’s a great way to drive targeted traffic directly to your products. The only challenge with SEO is that it is a long game, but if you can optimize your websites for search engines to ensure they capture organic traffic, it really can lead to long term sustained sales growth.
Convert More of Your Traffic into Sales
Once you’ve diversified your traffic sources and brought visitors to your website, the next step is crucial: converting those visitors into buyers.
Your website needs to be set up in a way that guides users through a seamless shopping experience, ultimately leading them to make a purchase. So many of my clients come to me at this point because they are getting traffic on their website, but it is not converting.
As an FYI – the average ecommerce conversion rate is 2% – so if yours is sitting under that there is ALOT of missed opportunity for sales in your ecommerce business!
TASK: Log on to your Shopify or Google Analytics and have a look at what your conversion rate currently is! If it is sitting under 2% right now I want you to click here and download my FREE “Convert More Customers” checklist. This guide will give you 10 key strategies that you are going to want to implement on your ecommerce website to optimize converting your browsers in to buyers. I can almost guarantee there will be atleast 3 things on that list that you ARE NOT DOING. How do I know? Because this is ALWAYS the case for every client that comes to me for support in my 1-1 mentoring or business audits.
If you’re interested in learning how to optimize your website for better conversions, click here, pop your email address in and I’ll send you the link to download my “Convert More Customers Checklist”.