Finding an E-Commerce Marketing Agency – What to Look For

It’s common knowledge that e-commerce success depends on a successful digital marketing plan. With more than 100,000 new websites registered every single day, finding your niche is more important than it has ever been.
The sheer rate of the Internet’s growth makes standing apart from your competition harder than ever before. No matter how useful, accessible, or necessary your product or service is, you can be sure that someone out there is already doing it.
Even if the product or service your e-commerce store offers is somehow so unique and innovative that you have no competitors, you ­still need to find the right digital marketing agency to get the word out there to potential customers. They’ll never find out about it otherwise.

The Best E-Commerce Marketing Agencies Specialize

Most e-commerce store owners already know that the key to surviving in this environment is specialization. As Shopify points out, specializing on a niche hedges your bets against competitors who may be focusing on a different audience – even if you’re selling similar products or services.
This trend towards specialization has been a long time coming, and is now in full bloom. The most successful digital marketing agencies have followed suit by specializing in certain e-commerce niche categories. By identifying the specialized service you need most, you can find a marketer who can make your brand thrive.

1. Creative Agencies

Creative digital marketers make up a broad category of agencies. Any marketer whose primary value lies in the ability to develop branding and design deliverables for your website is likely to fall into this category. Creative agencies excel at focusing on identifiable target demographics by creating company specific imagery, content, and infographics that appeal to those people.
You may wish to work with a creative agency like Greynab if you’re starting out and wish to fast-track the process of identifying and marketing to a specific type of consumer.

2. Technical Agencies

Think of technical agencies as the opposite of creative ones. Instead of relying on flash and pizzazz, these companies use powerful data analysis and cutting-edge technology to generate leads and optimize your customer acquisition process. These agencies may specialize in a particular e-commerce platform – often Magento – and will offer wide-ranging customization options for your campaigns.
Some firms offer a different take on the technical side of e-commerce marketing agency service. Publicity.ai, for instance, uses artificial intelligence and predictive modeling to generate leads. Since these companies thrive on data, they are best-suited to established e-commerce stores looking to optimize their online presence.

3. Reputation Managers

Is your e-commerce store suffering from poor reviews? Has a particularly popular blogger has taken to slandering your name? If negative content is creating problems faster than you can solve them, you might need to hire a digital agency specialized in reputation management.
These agencies specialize in reversing negative public opinion. Often, they’ll start campaigns by drowning out negative reviews with new content and then begin a steady climb upwards for your brand, relying on high-profile partnerships and traditional rebranding techniques to reconnect you with your audience.
One such firm is Know, Like and Ignite. It uses content designed for word-of-mouth value to overcome bad press and reputation blunders. Everybody makes mistakes – you shouldn’t have to pay for them forever.

4. Customer Relationship Managers

Some e-commerce marketing agencies focus on the customer relationship. Customer relationship management (CRM) is a whole field unto itself when it comes to digital marketing. E-commerce stores in sectors with high rates of customer return, such as fashion and lifestyle brands, are well-suited to this digital marketing strategy.
Many of these agencies will focus on a particular CRM platform, like industry-leader Salesforce. Primitive Logic is one such agency, who tailors bespoke customer relationship management techniques into broad digital marketing strategies.

5. Organic Traffic Generators

Organic visibility is a marketing term – but not one for the produce isle at your local supermarket. It refers to full search engine optimization of your website, helping you rank higher on search engine results pages and build your customer base.
This strategy is organic because you are not paying for clicks – it is not an advertising campaign. E-commerce marketing agencies like Kubix that specialize in generating traffic organically can produce great results for businesses in high-demand fields. If there is enough search volume for the products or services you offer, the right digital marketing agency might be the one that offers the best SEO results.

Know Your Goals, Know Your Customers

At this point, it should be clear that the key to lasting e-commerce success is using digital marketing to play to your strengths. If you offer a service that potential customers use search engines to find, you should prioritize SEO. If your store offers innovative tech products that people don’t know they want until they see them, then a creative marketing strategy may be best suited for you.
In each case, achieving real success requires you understand two important things – your goals and your customers.
Clearly defining your goals will let you avoid some of the biggest mistakes e-commerce store owners make. It will also help you choose the e-commerce platform best-suited to your needs . Do you prioritize growth over profit? How important is branding to you?
Knowing your customers will help you identify the best strategy for marketing to them. This is the difference between brands that excel, and those that find themselves caught in a constant struggle to stay afloat.