Running a business is no joke. It was especially true during our ancestors’ time. But now, the scenario has changed. All thanks to dropshipping. Dropshipping lets you sell products to customers, set your own prices, and build your own brand.
You Don’t Even Have to Pay For “Inventory” Until You Make A Sale!
That’s right, managing inventory is not a problem. There’s also no need to rent a warehouse or package the product yourself. And even employ someone to ship orders.
Isn’t that amazing?
The only thing you need is to market your business to attract site visitors.
You’ll be amazed by how easy it is to start a dropshipping business. The ease of its startup is probably why many people want to join the ecommerce arena.
Above all, dropshippers can earn more than 50% profit compared to sellers who have their own inventory. As a matter of fact, 27% of online businesses operate on the dropshipping model.
It means that the competition is high, and it’s going to get higher.
So, if you want to survive and enjoy high profits, marketing is your answer!
In today’s article, I’ll help you explore some strong marketing tips. These tips will help you develop a winning dropshipping marketing strategy.
Seven Marketing Strategies That Will Level Up Your Dropshipping Store
1. Build A High Converting Dropshipping Store
Hold Your Horses!
Before we jumpstart our marketing strategies. Make sure your website gives visitors a reason to stay and convert.
Nobody wants to spend time on a website that looks suspicious or that looks like another startup.
You don’t want your customers to think that about your website, right? If not, let’s talk about how you can make your website appear professional and jaw-dropping.
Look for a theme that makes your dropshipping store look fantastic. After all, the first impression lasts.
Also, check if the theme is fast. No, actually make sure it’s super-fast and responsive to digital devices.
Kiss goodbye to the theme that lacks these 2 important elements.
Slow loading and mobile-unresponsive websites put online users in a bad mood. And I believe that would be the last thing you’d want to do. So, choose your theme wisely.
Now, let’s talk about the most important page of your website: the product page.
A visitor relies on the images to add products to his cart. Do you think grainy or blurry pictures will tempt him to buy the products?
Thus, upload good quality and professional photographs to your website. Capture product pictures in good lighting and from various angles. It will help the visitors to get a better view of the products.
Talking about visitors brings us to a very interesting question:
Where will you get the visitors from?
You’ll get visitors from Google.
So, buckle up and put on your SEO marketing hat as we talk about…
2. Improving Your SEO
What’s the quickest way to boost your SEO and improve your ranking?
Unfortunately, there is no shortcut for boosting SEO. It’s a long-term investment that promises quality leads to your website.
People turn to Google to find the answers. And Google always shows highly relevant results to the users. Wouldn’t it be great if the search engine giant shows your website to the users?
Imagine the quantity and quality of traffic that you’ll receive. High organic traffic who’ll have serious intent to buy your products.
So, how do you board the SEO train for better ranking?
By blogging!
Create and publish interesting articles on topics of your niche. Add relevant pictures, videos, and infographics to make it more interesting.
Don’t forget to sprinkle long-tail-keywords in your content to improve your ranking.
For example, instead of writing ‘silicone plates’. Use the words ‘Environmental friendly best silicone plates.’
Conduct thorough keyword research. It will help you find the words your potential audience uses to look up the products you sell. You can then use it in your content to enhance your SEO.
Once you get visitors on your website, capture their emails for email marketing.
3. Say Hello To Email Marketing
Are visitors pouring in on your dropshipping website?
Great! Don’t let them leave without getting their email addresses. You can keep in touch with them by sending offers, promotions, and announcements via email. Be sure to include a call to action and add your telephone numbers for business.
For example, there is Debutify’s theme that offers over 47+ add-ons, and one of them is Newsletter Pop-up. This is the add-on you need to capture your customers’ email addresses.
But why would your customers share their emails with you? I am sure they aren’t up for receiving sales-y emails. Correct, but customers are always up for freebies and discounts.
Offer your visitors a discount code or free goodies to make them share their emails. Once you have their emails, put them to use.
Segment your subscriber list based on their gender, age, and interests. It will help you curate and send highly targeted messages to each group segment.
For instance, you can email the announcement of limited-edition male jackets to your male customers.
Similarly, if you offer a discount on female apparel, you can email your female customers about it.
4. Getting Social
It’s my most favorite marketing strategy.
Social media marketing shows promising results and doesn’t cost a dime. You’re doing a great deal of disservice to your business if you aren’t on social media.
So, make sure your business is visible on famous social networking websites.
Because these social networking websites are a lead goldmine. It’s where you can reach your potential customers. If you are running your online store on for example WordPress, you can use a WordPress Survey Plugin to create surveys and forms to get to know to your customers better and keep them engaged on your website.
Here’s how:
You can introduce yourself and promote your products to your audience. And entice them to visit your website.
Still not believing in what I’m saying?
Here, have a look at the following statistics to support my claim:
- There are 4.48 billion active users on social networking sites. It means 56.8% of the world’s population;
- 99% of users access social networking sites via their cell phones;
- On average, people spend 2 hours and 24 minutes daily on these websites.
So, what do you think?
Are you ready to expose your business to millions of people across the globe?
If yes, start creating splendid content for your audience. Introduce your brand and talk about your products. Don’t brag or rave about product features. People aren’t interested in it (sad but true!).
Talk about how your product can help the people, what problems it will solve, etc.
Share your brand stories and what goes behind the screen to grow your audience.
Do you want an instant boost in your social media audience?
5. Collaborate With An Influencer
Social media influencers are people who create content in a particular niche.
For example, every makeup enthusiast knows about Huda Kattan. She is a famous Instagram influencer. Her content creation niche is ‘beauty and makeup’.
Then we have Murad Osmann. He’s one of the top influencers listed by Forbes. He’s a travel influencer. And has many organic followers. People follow his account and trust his recommendations.
So, if you want to reach a wider audience, influencer marketing is your answer.
Start by searching for the influencer in your niche. Let’s say you sell makeup products. So, you’ll need to find influencers who create different makeup tutorials. Or, if you sell fitness gear, you’ll have to collaborate with influencers who are fitness freaks.
Pitch your idea to them and plan your budget. The rest is up to the influencers. They’ll create content, talk about your products, and mention your profile and website links under their post.
The followers can visit your social handles and website to learn more about you or buy the products.
Do you want the combined benefits of Influencer marketing and SEO?
Of course, yes! Who will turn their backs on such an amazing strategy?
Have a look at the next strategy and see how it can help you.
6. Video Marketing On YouTube
YouTube is the second most visited website after Google. It has over 2 billion monthly users.
Do you know what’s mind-blowing about YouTube? People watch over 1 billion hours of videos daily on it.
No, it’s not a typo. I’m serious.
So, what’s stopping you from joining this platform?
Why not create videos for your potential audience?
Videos are great if you want to convince people to buy your product. In fact, 90% of buyers decide to buy a product after watching its video.
So, create engaging product demo videos to show how users can benefit from it before buying. Cover all the questions and concerns that your potential customers might have.
See how Samsung does it. This video is highly engaging and not at all BORING!
The best part? It covers all the questions about the product while tempting the audience to get it ASAP!
Not a fan of creating videos? No problem!
Hunt down some popular YouTubers of your niche. Collaborate with them, send your products, and they’ll do the job of creating awesome videos for you.
Before agreeing to work with a vlogger, ensure that he/she has a good number of active subscribers. Alternatively, you can use a dropshipping video ads creation service to buy low-cost product videos for use on any platform including YouTube.
Now…let’s move to our last strategy.
This strategy requires you to loosen your pockets… just a little bit.
Yes – you guessed it right! It’s…
7. Paid Ads
The above tips can help you market your dropshipping business to prospects. But, paid ads are a sure-fire way to attract a good bunch of audiences in less time.
The difference between the paid ads and other methods is:
Paid ads bring customers to you. Whereas in other methods, you need to find and target the audience.
So, why not spend a little to attract ideal buyers to your website?
Google ads, Facebook ads, and Instagram ads are powerful to bring high-quality leads to your website.
Think of Instagram and Facebook as ads that appear in magazines and TV. People flip the magazine pages or surf the channels, and BAM!
They come across a great product ad.
Facebook and Instagram ads do the same. They’ll display the ads to the prospects while they’re aimlessly scrolling their feeds.
Google ads, on the other hand, are like paid newspaper ads. Google ads appear on result pages when the user enters the query. Paid results appear before the organic results.
So, if your SEO is hitting the ground, paid ads will make sure your website tops the result page.
You’ll see the results in Google Ads reporting dashboard or in other report depending on the platform of choice.
And don’t worry. You have my word; these ads won’t make you break a bank. You can set the budget and launch your advertising campaign.
Level Up Your Dropshipping Game… NOW!
There you have it!
7 simple yet effective marketing strategies to level up your dropshipping business.
The ecommerce arena has become cutthroat. Businesses have to compete against hundreds of, thousands of brands to convert a prospect.
If you want your business to flourish and not collapse like many others, don’t overlook the aspect of marketing.
Use the strategies shared above to attract quality leads, increase sales, enjoy profit…
And make your entrepreneurial dream come to life.
Author Bio:
Ricky Hayes is the Co-Founder and Head of Marketing at Debutify – a free Shopify theme, helping ecommerce brand owners build high-converting stores in minutes. He is a passionate entrepreneur running multiple businesses, marketing agencies, and mentoring programs.
