Marketing can be very expensive, but you can actually drive traffic to your eCommerce store for free.
To drive traffic to your eCommerce store, you will have to put in some time and energy, of course. You won’t have to spend any money to get this done, however, and the results will be well worth the effort.
Without further ado, here are 9 ways to drive traffic to your eCommerce store:
(1) Social Media
Social media is a powerful and free tool that you can use in different ways to drive traffic to your eCommerce store. You can use it to find and reach out to prospective customers and partners. You can use it to share information about your product.
Start by doing some research on the different platforms like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest. Get involved in different social media groups that are relevant to your products. Start conversations and post useful information for group members. Make friends to add to your account. Track your metrics so you know what is getting attention. Repost and share these pieces on your profile. Make adjustments to what you are posting based on the stats and feedback – rinse and repeat.
You will soon find that you have built a nice community of followers visiting your store, and that you can tap to help you spread the word.
(2) Referrals
Referrals can drive traffic to your eCommerce store quite steadily if done correctly. Spend some time thinking about the different ways that you can set up referral programs to attract attention. Find out from your participation on social media what online shoppers find interesting and put together incentives based on these factors. Then create a referral program that incentivizes them to become customers.
You can also create a referral program that targets your current customers. This program should focus on incentivizing them to refer more customers. The catch should still, of course, be something that they are interested in.
Gamification is one effective method that has recently become more popular. Instead of asking for something from people, you offer them a chance to win it. The concept of winning makes them more likely to participate and feel like they have really gotten something when they do win.
(3) YouTube
Video is another powerful tool, and one that has been leveraged by eCommerce businesses for a long time. The art of using video to capture attention has been developed and improved so much over the past years. There are so many channels that offer free tools to enhance your videos. One of the best ones you can use to drive traffic to your eCommerce store is YouTube. You can upload a simple homemade video to YouTube and use these tools to edit and add cards and screens to make it more attractive and serve your purpose.
Create simple product videos with your standard computer programs and equipment. If you don’t have a nice camera, even a decent smartphone will do with the proper lighting. There are also many free video editing programs available for download that you can use to spruce them up before you upload them. Do a little research as well on how to take good shots by paying attention to how you angle your camera and what you include in the frame.
With a few simple product videos on YouTube, you can boost your visibility. Being a part of the videos is also a great way to get some attention. People like to see who is behind a product, and seeing you use the product and show how excited you are about its features build confidence.
(4) Reviews
In this day and age, you really need to get some nice reviews to drive traffic to your eCommerce store. Shoppers will always go to reviews before they make a purchase, and many are also likely to go straight to these reviews before browsing a store. It’s important, therefore, that your store is visible on such review pages so that shoppers can choose you when they read a good review.
Reach out to bloggers who regularly post about products in your niche. Look for the ones who have a good-sized audience. It’s even better for your store if their site has a good reputation with the search engines. Ask these bloggers to write a product review that links back to your store. Some of them might have certain requirements that you’re not willing to meet, but most will be happy to do a review. All you have to do in most cases is send the blogger a free sample of your product that they can test out and give their honest opinion.
Good reviews will effectively drive traffic to your eCommerce store by putting links to your store on different sites that consumers go to for product advice.
(5) Blogging
Blogging on your own can also be a good way to drive traffic to your eCommerce store. Write blog articles about how your product helps people. Post some on your site, and some on platforms like Medium. Reach out to other blogs in your niche as well and ask if you can submit articles as a guest for posting on their blogs.
Building up your own blog is a good way to show your audience that you care about their concerns. For topic ideas, go back to social media and find out what people are talking about. Ask your groups what they would like to know. Blogging is also a good way to provide additional, useful information about your products that you don’t want to crowd your product pages with. The same thing goes for guest posting, plus, you can get some nice links back that will improve your visibility and drive traffic to your eCommerce store.
(6) eBay
eCommerce platforms generally charge fees for listing, but you can list for free on eBay up to a certain point. Take advantage of the fixed amount of free listings you can get per month on eBay to get more visibility for your products and store. You can also keep an eye out for free listing periods when you can list as many items as you want on the platform without having to pay the fees.
(7) Craigslist
It’s free to list on Craigslist, and there aren’t as many restrictions as there are on other platforms. Craigslist also has a huge audience, and this is what you want to gain access to. With a simple listing on the site, you can drive traffic to your eCommerce store by showing a bit of information with a link to see more product details on your actual store.
(8) eBook
Write a simple eBook that provides interesting and useful information that you can share out for free. Combine it with your social media efforts and make it a part of your gamification campaigns. You can drive traffic to your eCommerce store through several channels at once with just one eBook.
An eBook is really easy to put together and can have a significant long-term impact on your visibility. You can also use the eBook as a lead generation tool to collect email addresses that you can use for other campaigns.
(9) Email Campaigns
Email campaigns are huge. They are one of the oldest and remain to be one of the most effective tools for reaching out to people and building interest in your brand. Run fun email campaigns using free and simple tools to drive traffic to your eCommerce store. Make your email campaigns valuable to your targets and you will get good responses. These campaigns can also be used to spread the word about your promotions, and can also include a gamification aspect.
Over to You
These are just 9 of the ways that you can drive traffic to your eCommerce store for free. There are so many other ways that you can discover and learn about as you begin delving into these 9. You probably won’t be able to take on more than one of these at a time, but it’s a good idea to keep the others in mind as you take each one for a test run. There is so much value in each campaign, and they can be used together to create so much more value for your business.
