10 Affordable Digital Marketing Tips for an Ecommerce Startup

4 min readMay 11, 2017

Now there are lots of ways to go about promoting your e commerce startup, but when there’s a funds crunch and every resource counts, then you better be careful about each step you take. Here are some Affordable Digital Marketing tips for an Ecommerce Startup that should help you better promote that e commerce startup of yours.

1. Stop spending money on increasing likes on Facebook Pages

Organic reach is at an all time low. Yes, you may hope that most of your customers may come from facebook, but there is simply no point these days in spending any money on facebook likes. Less likes and more hits on a website will lead to more conversions, concentrate on the latter.

2. Don’t use the boost post feature on your facebook page

The next temptation is clicking on boost post because facebook says it helps you reach out to more people. It does, but it is flawed. The right way to go about boosting a post is by going in your ad manager and targeting as extensively as you can. Make sure you choose interests, demographics as well as behaviour considering your target audience.

3. Don’t use twitter to simply promote, use it to hunt for customers instead

There’s a tool on twitter that most people don’t seem to use. Advanced Search. Use it to find customers looking for products that you sell, and then tweet to them in as personalised a manner as you can. Many many companies do the same, you should try it too.

4. Instagram should be on top of your mind

Pictures speak a thousand words, ones on Instagram can get you orders too. Upload pictures of all your products, customers, related pictures, banners and just about everything one by one. Add all the hashtags in the world that relate your product. Add your web address and a phone number if possible. Slowly people will discover. Slowly sales will happen.

5. Write about your startup, share your experience

Now this is a subtle, yet not so subtle way of making your startup reach your audience. This article made me order a Socratees tee. Stories about your startup, blogs where you share your experience, posts on LinkedIn talking about your business can earn you partnerships, admirers and customers.

6. EMail Marketing

The most important thing that most people miss out on. Now don’t start sending mass mails to lists you bought on the internet, but do this carefully and rightfully. We recommend you to use Mailerlite for your email marketing needs. You can get started with a Free Email Marketing account here. Once somebody gets in touch with you, it is your job to engage them and make sure they come back again. You must subscribe to Utpatang and Nirogam‘s mailing list to see how its done right. (Goes without saying you should subscribe to our mailing list too)

7. Facebook profile as a tool for promotion

Now stop acting shy, will you. You have started up and its time to tell the world about it. Be the salesman you ought to be, and sell. There’s no better place to sell than home and no better people to sell to than friends. They wouldn’t be the first ones to buy, that’s a different story, but you’ve got to harp on about the startup on your profile. Don’t sell the products directly, but sell your customer’s experience, their testimonials and just what you and the company is up to. If biggies like Vijay Shekhar Sharma (PayTM), Kunal Shah(FreeCharge) and Alok Kejriwal(Games2Win) can do it effectively, then so can you.

8. Partner

T.E.A.M (Together Everybody Achieves More) said an Archies Mug that I saw one day. What you can’t do alone, you can do together. Try looking for opportunities to partner, try to see how can you mutually benefit by partnering with somebody. This is often the most overlooked aspect of them all, yet the most effective. We go all gaga looking for partners.

9. Attend events

Now don’t just attend any events, but look for ones where you might end up finding relevant people to your domain. I made a lot of friends over the years at Indiblogger and Rodinhoods events, and many have turned out to some of the most helpful people over time. It is not about how many people a person networks with, but whom one meets that matters. Meet people offline, connect with them online, build relationships for a lifetime.

10. Stop Selling

Ya right. Don’t sell. Just become incredibly interesting. Ok, a little interesting to begin with. That’s how Happily Unmarried, Chumbak or Daily Objects became so big. They just became so interesting over time with their products, promotion and more. It took them lot of time, might take you a lot too. But if you concentrate on becoming more interesting with your products and as a company over time, then that’s lesser time you will spend on selling your products over time. Become interesting, people will want to buy themselves.

Think I missed on some important points? Please add them in the comments below. Hope this helps you e commerce portals on how to market and promote your startup better. All the best! For any related queries, comment here or head over here to our forum for getting answers to all your digital marketing queries.

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