Search Engine & Social Media– The two marketing channels pave two different roads for marketers that promise more traffic than all the others. Entrepreneurs of small to medium sized ecommerce startups, with their very limited budget, often find themselves pondering over the question that which of these two marketing techniques (SEM or SMM) they should focus on to get the best results.
For established enterprises, with a gigantic amount of capital under their belt, the game of online marketing is much simpler. If we have to put it in one line – they use search engines as their primary traffic factory, and use social media for branding and to boost their seasonal sales & promotional offers.
For instance, consider this – whenever you google any product you want to buy online, you see a bunch of sponsored results from all the ecommerce giants like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, Flipkart, etc., (depending on your geographic location).
It’s not that landing among these results is impossible for new ecommerce players, but the bids for such popular product keywords (in Google AdWords PPC) is so high that even a single ad can cost you a fortune.
In that regard, social media serves as a viable medium for small businesses to promote their brand, reach thousands of potential customers, and bring traffic to their website in a much economical manner (since social media ads are not primarily keyword-based).
However, it is not to say that new ecommerce players should ignore search engines altogether. Search engine marketing (SEO & PPC) hold importance for businesses of all sizes and industry, all the times; therefore, should always be in your digital marketing mix. But considering your ecommerce startup is on a tight marketing budget, your focus should be on social media to get the optimum outcomes.
To help small ecommerce startups benefit the most from these two big marketing channels, in the following sections, we will briefly cover some actionable SEM & SMM tips specially designed for them.
As mentioned earlier, all the above-mentioned tips are especially recommended for small to medium sized ecommerce startups, and their execution doesn’t require much capital or technical expertise. If however, you lack the first-hand experience, don’t feel confident or simply don’t have much time to incorporate these practices yourself, it is always a good decision to take help of a reputed marketing agency.
Unlike Robert Frost (the poet mentioned in the beginning), luckily for entrepreneurs, there’s no such obligation that they can’t use both roads – search engine & social media. They can take advantage of both channels at once, but only if used strategically as per the available budget & resources. The bottom line is that they should primarily focus on acquiring customers through social media, while also not leaving the search engines behind.
As a successful small to medium sized ecommerce business, if you have additional suggestions for startups in regard to social & search engine marketing, we would love to hear them. Feel free to write them in the comments.
We create future-focused content to help you stay updated. Follow us on Twitter to get notified about latest tips, trends and product updates.
Disclaimer: The Blog has been created with consideration and care. We strive to ensure that all information is as complete, correct, comprehensible, accurate and up-to-date as possible. Despite our continuing efforts, we cannot guarantee that the information made available is complete, correct, accurate or up-to-date. We advise - the readers should not take decisions completely based on the information and views shared by FATbit on its blog, readers should do their own research to further assure themselves before taking any commercial decision. The 3rd party trademarks, logos and screenshots of the websites and mobile applications are property of their respective owners, we are not directly associated with most of them.
After earning her master’s degree in Journalism and Mass Communication, she knew that writing was the only thing that may never perish her zeal so she began her career as a content writer. She enjoys spending time with friends and "Friends" also happen to be her favorite television series.
