so you've just launched your online
store and in today's video i'm going to
show you how you can make your first
sale the truth is you won't be able to
attract your first customer
if you don't drive traffic to your store
that's why in this video i'm going to
walk you through the ultimate marketing
checklist so you can drive
highly targeted traffic to your store
start making money
and grow your online business
[Music]
welcome back to learn with shopify i'm
your host michelle i've worked with over
100 small businesses and getting them
started with their shopify stores
and making sales making sales is all
about marketing so today we're going to
go over
five strategies on how you can drive
more traffic to your website
it's definitely a milestone getting your
first customers that aren't your friends
or family
early sales from targeted marketing
tactics are a milestone in every
entrepreneur's career
sometimes we stand in our own way though
it's easy to fall into the trap of
trying to tweak everything on your store
to get it perfect
you might think you're improving by
nitpicking your brand colors
going back and forth on font choices and
overthinking your prices but what you're
actually doing is you're building a
business behind
closed doors real improvement only
happens when you expose your brand to an
audience
you can't know that you're genuinely
making improvements until you look at
the hard data
as to how your audience is interacting
with your brand instead you should be
investing that energy into the most
important activity
getting people to your store once you
start driving traffic to your store
you'll get real data to be able to
answer your questions
for example you'll be able to gauge if
there's any interest in your products if
your pricing is too high and if people
can relate to your brand
try to detach from overthinking the
minutia if your site is already launched
i'm going to challenge you to focus
exclusively on getting people
to your site over the next 30 days
download the free calendar in the
description box below to keep you
on track with your marketing for the
next 30 days make sure you're set up
with google analytics before we do any
of these steps
that way you could see what's working
and what's not working first let's get
warmed up with some low-hanging fruit
here are some free easy ways that you
can start getting traffic to your store
consider offering a discount code to
entice people to come to your store and
then market it on social media this
jewelry brand offered a 25
credit and posted it on linkedin where
people had to fill out a survey and give
their email addresses
in order to redeem the credit if surveys
are a part of your lead strategy
take this opportunity to collect
important information to be able to
improve your business so for example you
can ask do you prefer gold jewelry or
silver jewelry
or you can ask do you feel comfortable
with shopping for jewelry online
if you haven't done this already add
your store url to your social profiles
you'll want to include this for your
business and your personal profiles like
instagram and facebook
even if your audience size is smaller
you'll still want to do this
to increase the opportunities that
someone can land on your website
market to your personal network you
likely already have some people in your
network that would be interested in your
product
and that's why it's so common for
entrepreneurs to get their first few
sales from people they already know
you can post on your social channels but
i highly recommend sending personalized
messages to people in your network
that reflect your target audience and
would be interested in your product
offering
even if they don't buy they're still the
perfect candidates to support you
by introducing your business to their
network and giving you honest feedback
join online communities don't
underestimate the value of dropping a
link to your store in the right place
find niche audiences in forums like
reddit threads facebook groups linkedin
groups
and shopify's own community each of
these channels is an opportunity to
reach people who have organized
themselves around specific interests
that are related to your product make
sure you adopt a give before you take
mentality
and that you're adding value and
engaging in genuine conversation with
these communities after you've built up
a reputation and created authentic
connections
then you can drop a link to your store
and share any discount codes
with paid advertising you need to spend
money to make money the best way to get
targeted traffic quickly is through paid
ads
the good news is that you can spend as
little or as much money as you want
and in some instances you can start with
a budget as low as 10
you should choose your advertising
channel based on who you're targeting if
you're marketing globally do some
research as to which advertising
channels are popular in different parts
of the world
but in today's video we're going to be
talking about facebook instagram
pinterest and google ads
according to pew research facebook is
one of the most popular social networks
with the most diverse user base
in terms of age gender ethnicity and
income you can
create facebook ads to target job title
marital status and interest to name a
few
expert facebook advertisers usually
focus very heavily on interest targeting
interest targeting is where the magic
happens on facebook because you can
target a very niche audience
i would recommend this for store owners
who have a very clear idea of who their
ideal customer
is and what they like a store that sells
t-shirts with cat means for example
might target people that are interested
in cats memes and gift shops
united by blue uses facebook advertising
to promote their eco-friendly products
in this instance they can target people
who are interested in sustainability
and are engaged online shoppers this is
an example of a carousel ad where they
promote their different collections
make sure you're checking out our
facebook ads for beginners video to get
started
instagram is good for marketing to a
millennial audience according to smart
insights instagram has one of the most
engaged user bases amongst social
networks
with instagram ads you can drive traffic
by showing up in people's feeds or
stories
for example beauty brand folene uses
instagram ads to promote their free
samples
and you can see that this ad has been
viewed more than 3 600 times
brandlesscoffee uses instagram ads that
focus on the coffee's costs
and features here they use a video ad to
drive sales
i would recommend instagram ads for
fitness food fashion
and any verticals with strong visuals if
you have high quality enticing
photography
and you want to market to millennials
this might be the right platform for you
pinterest is an underappreciated channel
it's also the one with the most clearly
defined user base
according to pinterest most of its users
are female and
hootsuite cites that many of those users
have disposable income
plus you can drive a significant amount
of traffic using both free and paid
efforts
using pinterest is like scrapbooking
it's used to plan events
and curate wardrobes so keep that in
mind when you're advertising
this ad from third love bra company uses
a tall image which is the preferred
format for pinterest
users will click on the ad then they'll
be taken to a landing page where they
can browse the product further
from promoted pins to buyable pins
pinterest has so many tools to make
marketing easy
so make sure that you're not overlooking
pinterest as a way to start making sales
the first thing many people do when
they're wanting to buy something is
they'll look it up on google
google ads show your website at the top
of the results page when customers use a
relevant search term
google ads offer a few different options
you have text ads and shopping ads
shopping ads show your product photo and
price in an e-commerce format
do keyword research to see how many
people are searching for the terms that
you would want to advertise with
many people find google ads intimidating
because of the complex interface
so consider hiring a shopify expert if
you want to seize the opportunity
but would rather hand it off i would
recommend this for trending products
local businesses and products and
services that have a high search volume
but low competition
to get started with google ads make sure
that you're checking out our video on
google ads for beginners
outreach and partnerships is important
for every business because messaging
about your brand won't be as effective
if it's only coming from you
collaborating helps build trust
and awareness amongst consumers the
following collaboration tactics help
drive traffic
and produce content so essentially
you're killing two birds with one stone
remember when you pitch to create these
relationships you have to constantly ask
yourself
what's in it for them if it were the
other way around would it be an enticing
offer
remember that collaborations only work
when it's mutually beneficial
publishers are always on the lookout for
fresh content and good stories to tell
a solid pitch based on a good story or
an interesting product
can potentially land you a spot on a
blog or a publication look for
publications that overlap with your
niche so that you're marketing to your
ideal customer
here are some ways that you can partner
up write and submit a guest post to
share your expertise on a topic
remember to use your author bio to
describe and link to your business
ask for a product review give your
product to a blogger for free in
exchange for a review
pitch a new story if your brand story is
compelling use this as a hook for an
interview style piece
whichever tactic you choose your pitch
needs to be interesting both to the
writer
and their audience consider publications
based on fit first
and the size of the readership second
this tactic is recommended for
entrepreneurs who have an interesting
backstory and a unique product offering
that bloggers haven't yet seen before
it's also good for entrepreneurs who
have niche expertise and are willing to
share it
partnerships can be a great way to get
your product in front of someone else's
customers
the key here is to look for like-minded
non-competitive brands
that already attract the kind of
customers you're looking for it can take
some time
and luck to find and create these
opportunities but once you have a roster
of past partnerships you'll have built
credibility
within the industry try running a
contest with your product as a prize
you can get other brands involved to tap
into one another's audiences
package product samples with your
partner's orders and vice versa
for example you can pack a sample of
drink mix with your partner's water
bottle
orders create a product with an
influencer or a complimentary brand
this brand is a serial collaborator and
has worked with celebrities like adriana
lima to launch sunglass lines
gift your product to an influencer
within your niche in exchange for a feed
or a story post time and time again
influencers with a loyal following and
strong engagement have shown to have
high roi for small businesses
once you've implemented your strategy
it's important to take a step back to
see what's worked and what hasn't
this 30 day challenge is meant to be an
exercise in creating a feedback loop
where you expose your store to traffic
set a performance benchmark and then
work to improve it
you'll then diagnose the problems with
your store by looking at your shopify
and your google analytics as well as
listening to any feedback that you've
gotten
from actively promoting your store there
are a number of reasons as to why people
might not be buying from you
and you can make informed guesses based
on how your traffic behaves
here are common examples of how you can
use data to make changes
if you have a high bounce rate that is
people coming to your site and then
leaving immediately
that might mean you have low quality
traffic or your site takes too long to
load
if none of your visitors have added
products to their cart it might just
mean you haven't achieved the right
market fit
in which case you'll have to find the
right niche and try different products
if you have a lot of abandoned carts
during checkout you might want to
reconsider your shipping costs
based on these learnings you can start
testing your marketing tactics
from there do your second round of
marketing and see if there were any
improvements in these results
you need to get out there to grow
driving traffic is all about connecting
the dots between your brand and your
buyer
and that's partly what makes marketing
so overwhelming there's just
an infinite amount of opportunity out
there however there's no
one-size-fits-all approach to this
exploring trying failing and improving
is the only way to find out what works
for you
so get your store out there because
that's the only way to grow
what fees are you in with your store
have you just launched are you planning
on launching
drop a link to your store's url in the
comments below and i'll be sure to check
it out
make sure you're subscribed to learn
with shopify so you can learn a new
skill every week to turn your business
idea
into a reality thanks so much for
watching please subscribe if you haven't
already and i will see you in the next
one
you