How To Attract Customers To Your Store With Channels Other Than Social Media

How to attract more customers to your business? A common method for promoting a dropshipping store is using various social media platforms. But, what other tools and channels can you implement into your marketing strategy as an alternative?

By now, it has become clear that online promotions are essential to attract customers to your business. Once your online store is launched, it is highly unlikely that people will find it by themselves. So, any entrepreneur that looks to start an online business needs to come up with a proper marketing strategy.

Essentially, if you don’t come up with a marketing plan, you risk ending up with a business that doesn’t bring you any income.

To make sure your business comes out on top, we have gathered a list of the most effective ways to attract customers online. However, this time we decided to exclude social networks.

We know how substantial social media is for marketing purposes, but on various occasions, they can simply be ineffective. For example, different audiences simply don’t use social media, thus you won’t be able to promote your products to your target audience. Another reason why social media can be useless for promoting your products is if you’re selling items that have advertising restrictions.

So, how do you attract customers if you can’t or don’t want to use social media for some reason?

How to attract customers with search engine optimization (SEO)

If you’re expecting online users to find you, then you need to focus your efforts on search engine optimization. When people intentionally search for specific products, they usually do so with the intent to buy them. This is why SEO is important – by optimizing your website, you increase the chances of people finding it organically.

Let’s cover the basics so that you can understand what you need to focus your efforts on.

A great SEO strategy includes the following aspects:

• Researching related keywords to find the types of keywords customers are using in their online searches
• Optimizing the website based on the keywords
• Working on content marketing to attract more customers organically

Now, let’s look at each aspect in more detail.

Researching keywords

Keyword search is the very first step in any ecommerce SEO strategy.

To make sure you properly handle this aspect, simply follow AliDropship’s strategy of finding the best keywords for SEO: you’re welcome to check it out here!

Website optimization

Once you’ve found your keywords, you need to optimize your website based on these keywords.

First off, focus on using short URLs. Google prefers shorter URLs to longer ones.

Second, fill your product pages up with content, and keep in mind that Google prefers long content. If you don’t know what content to use to fill your pages up, here are a few examples:

• High-quality detailed descriptions
• How to use the product
• Customer reviews/quotes

The aim is to provide Google with as much information as possible. By doing so, you increase the chances of your page ranking higher in search results.

Need more tips? You’re welcome to go through our Product Pages Optimization guide!

Content marketing

Content marketing is aimed at reaching your potential customers, communicating with them, and motivating them to buy your products.

Generally, content marketing comes in the form of a blog, used for publishing articles about your products. Moreover, by launching a blog you can generate more traffic to come to your website organically. That’s why we invite you to check out the benefits of blogging in ecommerce, to take a look at some great blogging strategy examples, and of course, to check out a smart strategy of repurposing your older blog content.

How to attract customers online with an email marketing campaign

An email marketing campaign is an integral part of any ecommerce business. To this day, it is still one of the best methods for increasing engagement with your customers and convincing them to purchase from you.

How to collect emails for your campaign

To properly implement an email marketing strategy, you’ll need to set up an email list. And to do so, you need to gather consumer emails or have them subscribe to your email newsletters.

So, here are several ways for you to collect emails:

• Pop-ups

Pop-ups are small windows that automatically appear on a certain page after a specific user action, page scrolling, or just after a specific time.

• Subscribing to store news

Offer them to subscribe to your email notifications so that they get notified about new sales, discounts, etc.

These are just a few ways you can use to effectively collect your customers’ emails and contact them back. You will find more tips from our digital marketers in this article!

What to write in your emails

Now that you have a general idea of how to collect emails, you need to put them to good use. So, here are some email marketing strategies for you to consider:

• Season, holiday, or special themed sales

The word “Sale” always brings a lot of attention to a particular store which results in attracting lots of customers. Throughout the calendar year, there are numerous occasions when you can start a sale around a specific theme. This is a clear opportunity to attract some customers and sell them what they are interested in.

• Abandoned cart notifications

It is very common for consumers to abandon their shopping journey for whatever reason. So, don’t get discouraged if it happens to you. Instead, send notifications and remind people about what they wanted to purchase.

• Automated email series

Create a chain of emails that will contain valuable information for your customers. It can contain insights on your niche, special product offers and deals, coupons, etc. As long as you give your email subscribers valuable content, they will keep returning to your store and can even become your loyal customers.

Want expert advice on creating a professional-looking email sequence? Our Official Member of Forbes Communications Council is here to share her automated email marketing advice!

How to attract customers to your business with influencer shoutouts

A common strategy used by various brands is promoting their products or services through influencers.

Who is an influencer? An influencer is someone who has a large following on a specific social network: we have previously talked about YouTube influencers and Instagram influencers in more detail. Influencers share insightful and useful information on their preferred niches or industries. It can be anything really, from sports to foods, to photography, to gadgets, etc.

So, what’s the strategy? Nothing too difficult really.

What you need to do is find an influencer who specializes in a topic that is relevant to your online store and contact them so they can shoutout your online store.

Essentially, by collaborating with an influencer who has a similar niche to yours, you promote your products or service to your potential customers.

How does it work?

All you have to do is come to an agreement on what you will give them in return. Of course, many influencers set a specific price for their shoutout.

However, you can also provide them with an item or a few from your store. Thus, they can promote your products, give an honest review on it, and in the end keep it. It’s that simple and everyone will be satisfied.

How to attract customers using Google Ads

Everyone is familiar with Google, right? After all, it is one of the world’s biggest companies and perhaps the most popular search engine on the Internet.

Besides all that, it can also be a great instrument for you to find and attract more potential customers. You have a few ways to attract customers on Google, through “Google Search” and through “Google Shopping”.

Google Search

Let’s start with the first one. Google search is perhaps one of the most popular Ads services out there. It displays ad texts when an internet user uses various keywords specified by the advertiser.

Compared to Google Shopping, Google Search allows you to use more keywords you wish your product to be seen for. Moreover, it allows you to use more textual content, including even a product’s description. Here are some examples to give you an idea! However, that’s where it’s limit lies: unlike Google Shopping ads, search advertisements are text only.

Google Shopping

On the other hand, there is Google Shopping and it is perfect for ecommerce store owners. All you need to use Google Shopping is a product feed, Google Merchant Center, and an ecommerce website. Google Shopping ads are usually shown at the top of the search results, which is great in terms of visibility.

However, it is a bit more complicated than Google search. Whether your product appears at the top is heavily based upon your “Product feed”. It consists of various information about the product: the brand, quantities, sizes, colors, etc.

So, to ensure your product pops up, you need to carefully optimize your Google Shopping data feed. The challenge here is to provide all the different attributes that Google wants and provide it in the format that Google wants.

The key thing to remember when using any of these ad services is that these are PPC ads. A PPC (Pay Per Click) ad is a form of advertising, where you only pay when someone clicks on your ad.

So, essentially, when setting up any of these tools for your promotional purposes, you need to optimize your ad spend budget. If you want to know what is the ideal budget to set – unfortunately, there is no clear answer.

Nevertheless, we encourage you to start with a small budget and work your way up. Even if you don’t get sales right off the bat, you will get data. And in online marketing, data is very valuable.

While your ads are running Google will learn about your audience and their preferences, and can find various connections to their buying patterns. As a result, your ads will be shown to more consumers with similar buying behavior.

When can I expect to see results from these methods?

It is quite difficult to tell, as there are a lot of factors that affect each method.

• SEO

If we’re talking about SEO, the results vary heavily. However, experts state that it takes about 6 months to see notable results.

And the 6 to 12-month time period is when you will see the largest gains. Keep in mind that SEO is not something you set up and wait for to bring you results. It requires you to always keep track and manage it to see any lasting results.

• Email marketing

Moving on, an email marketing campaign can take even more time to see sufficient results. Especially if you’re starting from scratch and don’t have an existing email list. You’ll need to build one so that you can launch email campaigns.

And when you focus on creating an email list, the key is patience. It can take up to 6 months to create a fully-fledged email list of customers who want to subscribe and follow you.

Just remember that email marketing campaigns are used for establishing long term relationships with your customers.

• Influencer marketing

How soon will you see the results of collaborating with various influencers? It depends.

We know that’s not the answer anyone wants to hear, but that’s how it is. It all depends on your brand, product, budget, process, and how you execute your strategy.

If you properly execute your promotional campaign, you can see results within 3 months.

• Google Ads

Attracting customers through Google Ads is probably one of the fastest ways to get traffic, leads, and sales.

However, it takes time to create an effective campaign and it involves lots of testing. Nevertheless, you will see the first clocks and traffic boost almost instantly.

But to see successful long-term results, it can take weeks or even months.

How much does it cost to attract customers with these methods?

• Search Engine Optimization

Optimizing your store by yourself isn’t going to cost you much: if you don’t use any paid research tools, you can actually complete all your SEO-related tasks for free.

And even if you decide to ask for professional assistance, you can find quite affordable options from high-level experts. For example, you can get a SEO Starter Pack for $89 only, and order SEO-friendly articles for as little as $40 per a small one. And this SEO Image Optimizer, for its humble cost of $39 (one-time payment only!), will not only help you improve your site ranking, but also cut down its loading speed for a higher customers’ convenience.

• Email marketing

How much does an email marketing campaign cost? It all depends on your business type, of course. Essentially, it all depends on you and how much you are willing to invest in your campaigns.

For example, an individually made automated email sequence will cost you from $89 to $199 depending on the number of messages in the series. And integrating an email subscription form into your website will only cost you $59.

• Influencer marketing

It is important to mention that the pricing may change depending on the platform and the number of subscribers.

So, according to recent reports, here is the average cost depending on the platform and the number of followers:

• Facebook influencer pricing: $25 per 1,000 followers
• Instagram Influencer pricing: $10 per 1,000 followers
• Snapchat Influencer pricing: $10 per 1,000 followers
• YouTube Influencer pricing: $20 per 1,000 followers

Keep in mind, however, that influencer pricing varies depending on the person, as some people can set their own prices.

• Google Ads

Similar to other methods, there is no clear answer, as there are many factors that influence the total cost. The industry, products, and services, competitors all influence the advertising costs on Google Ads.

The average cost-per-click on Google Ads is $1 to $2.

However, it is worth mentioning that on average mid-sized businesses spend $9,000 to $10,000 on advertising per month.

Here is the average CPC based on a specific industry.

As we’ve previously mentioned, there are a lot of variables that influence the costs of running a PPC campaign. But almost any kind of business can make Google Ads work. It all depends on what you are aiming to achieve and how much you are willing to spend.

When is the best time to implement these methods to attract customers?

This is a very common question among many business owners and the answer for every method differs.

Let’s start with SEO. With this method, the sooner you implement it the sooner you will see the results. Like we mentioned before, it takes some time to see any sufficient results, so be sure to implement this strategy during the website development stage.

On the other hand, influencer marketing, and Google Ads should be implemented when the store is fully functional and you are ready to sell your products.

However, if we take email marketing, you can’t exactly set up a campaign without the proper resources. It takes time to acquire and create an email list of active customers. In this regard, when you manage to complete your email list, should you start an email marketing campaign.

Final takeaways on how to attract customers to your dropshipping business

It is evident that there are many ways to promote your dropshipping business and attract customers online. All of them are effective in their own way, but it will take some time to see any lasting results. Of course, a lot depends on how you approach and adapt these methods to your business.

So, how to attract customers? Besides the ever so popular social media platforms, you can turn to search engine optimization, set up an email marketing campaign, collaborate with influencers that are close to your niche, or set up a PPC campaign with Google. Remember, most of these methods require some time to kick in and get going, but the end results can be very rewarding.

There are many ways to attract customers online, but surely you want them to come to a website that’s professionally made and designed? Well, you can get one with AliDropship! You will receive a fully optimized online store that will create a lasting impression on your customers and generate sales.