Dropshipping is a great way to keep costs low, but it won’t be as successful as it could be without good digital marketing strategies. You need to do some work to get people to notice your brand and become customers. You should think about how to market. But which of the dozens of ways should I choose?
We already know what the answer is. This post will focus on three well-known digital marketing strategies that still work and will help your dropshipping store do well.
Problems with marketing for dropshipping
Before we get into how to market, let’s talk about why you need it. Dropshipping is a well-known strategy, but it can be hard to do well.
Competitive environment
From the screenshot above, you can see that the dropshipping segment is always getting more and more competitive. Unless you have a contract with the supplier that says they will only dropship certain goods to you, someone else will always be selling the same things, and sometimes for a better price.
If a store only uses dropshipping, it will always have to find ways to stand out from the competition and show off its strong points.
When making a marketing plan, you should look at your competitors and carefully analyze their metrics, such as pricing, conversion rates, customer reviews, and other e-commerce KPIs. So, if you know who your competitors are, you can start marketing right away.
Aside from promoting your brand and getting customers involved, you should be able to give your customers a high-quality experience and service.
Target audience identification
With competition comes another challenge: you need to know who your target audience is and not try to get as many different types of buyers as you can. For example, you are in the online clothing business or any other field with a lot of competition. There are many different kinds of customers, and it’s hard to talk to all of them. Because of this, finding your own niche in a larger market is a good way to stand out and attract your ideal customers.
It’s also hard to choose the right dropshipping marketing strategy if you don’t understand customer segments, how they act, and how they like to communicate. In this way, the problem might be solved by focusing on a smaller group of customers and using a smaller number of marketing strategies.
There are also two problems that have an indirect effect on marketing:
Budget restraints
Usually, if you want to make more money from your store, you need to sell more. To boost sales, you’d probably need marketing, advertising, and customer acquisition strategies. In turn, these need a budget. That’s why the problem of not having enough money can hurt your marketing.
Costs of running the business will always eat up a big chunk of the profit. To keep the marketing budget in check, you need a detailed plan and road map to know how much you will spend on marketing in the future. If not, budgets for marketing will have to go down.
Suppliers look at
Dropshipping always requires relying on a number of suppliers who fill orders. When things go wrong in your store, it can hurt how customers feel about it. Imagine you’ve started advertising a product to get people excited about it, but there’s a delay in making it. Some customers will wait, while others will leave. And all the money spent on the campaign is for nothing.
It is important to always have a Plan B ready in case the supplier doesn’t do what was agreed upon.
Digital marketing strategies for dropshipping to have
Even though there are problems with dropshipping, it is still one of the best ways to do e-commerce, and the market is expected to grow by 29% every year for the next 4 years.
Even though dropshipping marketing might be hard to start, your store needs it to grow, improve, and stay ahead of the competition.
Here are three ways to use digital marketing that you might want to try.
Content is still useful.
This article is on the Dropship Corporation blog, where you are now reading it. People still read and like blogs, so that’s why. We find blogs useful, we trust them, and we do what brands tell us to do.
Starting a blog is a great and relatively cheap way to talk to the people you want to reach. The main reason to blog is to get more people to visit your website and find new customers.
Your blog can get more relevant, organic, and free traffic with SEO magic. You’ll have a higher ranking, more daily visitors, and more people who might buy from you.
Keep in mind the following key content marketing principles for 2023:
Only content that is useful. No longer will a 500-word post about how cool your store is work. People look for things that are useful. You should write about product comparisons, posts about trends in your niche, useful tips, personal stories, and roundups with quotes from experts. The most important thing about blogging is to give something of value, not just to promote yourself.
Putting up posts regularly. There’s no need to post every day. But try to post about once a week or so. You’ll need a content calendar, which is like a series of blog posts that explain something in depth. Never forget one important thing: quality is more important than quantity.
Different kinds of content. Content marketing is more than just blogging. People like to see things, so you could make infographics or reviews of products with high-quality images. Landing pages for special sales or events are a good way to try out content that is more about promotion. Putting together a series of podcasts can also be a good idea.
In addition to starting a newsletter, which is a mix of email marketing and content marketing where you can share news about your store, best blog posts are an easy way to share your content and get people interested without putting in a lot of work.
Most of the time, the amount of content you make depends on your goals and, of course, your resources. Starting a blog with a focus on textual content and a few original images doesn’t cost that much to try out. You can hire freelance writers and designers, use AI copy services, or make your own posts.
You can use social media to get the word out about your dropshipping store. Setting up accounts, showing off your products, responding to comments and questions, and building trust are all things you can do on social media to connect with your target audience.
Also, there are so many different social media sites that you can choose the ones that work best for you. In the world after Covid, for example, Instagram’s advertising potential has grown because the number of visits has grown by 43%. It goes without saying that TikTok grew.
But there are so many social media sites that it’s hard to know which one to use. The Oberlo research shows that Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Instagram are some of the best social media sites for growing your business.
Choosing which social media to try depends on your niche and the people you want to reach. Facebook and Instagram, on the other hand, work well. If you want more people to know about your brand and see it, you can use ads on Facebook and Instagram.
You can also try out social media channels like Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and Telegram that are less obvious.
Overall, social media is a good thing because it focuses on getting customers involved and getting ads out quickly. You can make different kinds of content, such as text posts, videos, stories, images, carousel posts, and so on. The main problem is that it’s a full-time activity that depends on trends and costs a lot. When you use the same patterns to attract customers, it gets harder.
The new black is video marketing.
If you want to buy something, you should look at it from all sides. This is much better than reading reviews. It’s no wonder that 90% of people who watch a video review of a product are ready to buy it.
It’s easier for customers to get a feel for the item, and it’s easier for you to make your store and goods look good.
Videos can make a huge difference for a dropshipping store and help it stand out in a market full of similar brands. You can start with reviews of products, how-to videos, or a series of videos.
As part of your video marketing strategy, every video you post can be shared on YouTube, as a blog post, or on social media.
Another great way to use videos is to work with experts in the same niche as your business and ask them to review the products you sell. People have a natural sense of trust and empathy for those they’ve been watching for a while. If a trusted person tells them to try a new product, they’ll gladly do so. You could even send an influencer some products to give away to their followers to get people talking.
When you can show potential customers explicit videos of your products, that could be the tipping point that leads to sales and gives your brand an edge over others.
Even though it’s worth it to have a video marketing strategy, making videos is usually not easy and takes time and money.
Conclusion
Digital marketing is your best bet if you want people to know about your dropshipping store. There are many ways to do this, but the three above are essential. They are easy to put into place, can involve and empower both parties, and get good results.
It would be nice to see what you think and how you do things. Share your ideas in the comments.
