Hiring an eCommerce Agency: The Key to Effective, Intelligent Growth for Your Ecommerce Business
To say that the global ecommerce market is thriving is, at this point, likely a bit of an understatement.
According to one recent study, approximately 20.8% of all retail purchases took place online in 2023. That number is expected to grow to a full 24% by as soon as 2026. All told, it’s anticipated that the total number of people who actively shop with ecommerce stores will grow to about 4.5 billion by 2028. To put that into perspective, there were about 7.8 billion people on the planet as of 2021.
So ecommerce in general isn’t just succeeding despite everything going on in the world right now. It’s on an uphill trajectory that shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
Of course, that’s not to say that ecommerce isn’t without its fair share of challenges. It’s an increasingly competitive marketplace and organizations are cropping up all the time that are seemingly targeting the same people you are. Customer retention and building loyalty will always be easier said than done in a field where everyone races to the bottom as far as prices are concerned. Cart abandonment is a big issue. Pricing and shipping costs are a delicate balance, as the latter can absolutely eat into the razor-thin profit margins of the former. The list goes on and on.
Thankfully, the right approach to digital marketing can effectively handle all these challenges and more, all at the exact same time. Marketing in general can quickly become a full-time job, which is problematic since you already have one of those monopolizing the majority of your team. That’s where hiring the right digital marketing agency for your ecommerce business becomes such a good idea. They can leverage the full power of digital marketing to your advantage, all while freeing up as much of your valuable time as possible so that you can focus on running the most successful business you can.
The Power of Digital Marketing: Facts and Figures
One of the most important things to understand about all this is that “digital marketing” is something of a catch-all term. It refers to a lot of different techniques that add up to something far more powerful as a collective than any one of them could be individually.
Case in point: online digital ads. The types of ads that run alongside search engine results or next to certain websites are what most people think of when they hear the term “ecommerce digital marketing.” But did you know that according to one recent study, people are 155% more likely to look up business-specific terms after they’ve seen one of these display ads? Digital ads in general can increase brand awareness by as much as 80% when utilized properly.
Again, one of the major challenges for any online business involves standing out in a crowd. You need to separate yourself from your competitors and get people to notice. Digital ads become a great way to raise awareness and accomplish precisely that and that’s just one small part of the much larger digital marketing story.
According to another recent study, about 15% of the traffic your website receives will come from paid search advertisements. Another 5% will come from social media sites like Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram, and others. So what makes up the other 80%? Efforts like:
- Digital PR
- Email marketing
- SEM
- SEO
- Walmart advertising
- Content marketing
- And more
Take something even as seemingly straightforward as content marketing. Research has indicated that businesses that maintain an active blog get 126% more leads than those that do not. Nearly 80% of all Internet users regularly interact with blogs throughout their day. Content market literally costs 62% less to execute than other types of campaigns, but tends to bring in a far higher return on investment.
Why Hiring a Digital Marketing Agency Matters
So when it comes to digital marketing, what’s the catch? Simply put, attempting to handle these efforts on your own is more than just a simple “bad idea.” It’s a disaster waiting to happen for a wide range of different reasons.
Again, take something as seemingly straightforward as social media marketing. Most people assume this is a lot easier than it really is because they have a personal Facebook profile, so how difficult can it be to run one for their business? It turns out that the chasm between those two ideas is a deep one, indeed.
Your ecommerce business’ social media pages are more than just virtual business cards. They’re extensions of your customer service efforts. You’ll need to respond to questions and address concerns. You need to regularly post compelling, relevant content multiple times a day to keep people engaged.
That content has to come from somewhere. That means researching your target audience so you can get to know your “ideal customer” as much as possible. You’ll need to know where they live, what type of background they have, how much money they make, and more. You’ll need to know what problems they have that you can solve or what questions they have that you can answer. You’ll need to do all this before you even think about sitting down and coming up with topics for blog posts or other types of content, which you then need to create.
When it comes to SEO (search engine optimization), things get even more complicated. You don’t just need to get to the top of engines like Google for your desired keywords – you need to stay there. Don’t forget that less than 1% of people ever scroll down to the second page of search results. Not only that, but the first result alone gets about 27% of all clicks for a page.
Do you have time to research the keywords your ecommerce business is competitive in, optimize your efforts to rank highly for them, and then maintain that presence indefinitely? Considering that you’re also actually running the ecommerce business in question, probably not.
Finally, consider the fact that there is no “one size fits all” approach to any of this. The digital marketing path that one business takes to be successful may be woefully inadequate for the next. This is because each business is unique and the digital marketing campaign they build needs to be equally so.
This is why hiring an ecommerce agency is always recommended to make sure that your digital marketing efforts are being executed exactly as they need to be. You’ll be getting access to a team of professionals who can make handling your online presence their full-time job, exactly as it should be. They can stay up-to-date on the ever-changing world of digital marketing so that you don’t have to. They can help you avoid all the mistakes that your competitors are making while capitalizing on every opportunity that presents itself.
But more than that, they won’t just help you achieve the results you’re after – whatever they may be. They’ll make sure you keep achieving them tomorrow, six months from now, five years after that, and beyond.
Considering the complexities of running even a modest ecommerce business, achieving similar results on your own isn’t just difficult. In most situations, it is quite literally impossible.
The Renaissance Digital Marketing Approach
At Renaissance Digital Marketing, we understand that no two ecommerce businesses are created equally. Even if you took a look at your closest competitor, you’d probably be looking at a very different organization from your own. You have different goals. You’re offering a different experience. You’re communicating with your target audience in different ways.
Indeed, those are major contributing factors to the success you’ve achieved up to this point – those things that you do that people can’t find anywhere else.
They also help to underline the importance of working with a digital marketing agency moving forward – you need a strategy for growth that is optimized for you, not someone else.
Renaissance Digital Marketing is an ecommerce agency that is passionate about helping companies like yours navigate the complex digital landscape we’re all currently a part of. We want to help you grow quickly and intelligently, and we leverage data and analysis to do it, driving exposure and inspiring customers to take action on a daily basis.
We offer a wide range of different services for you to choose from depending on your needs, from social media management to SEO (search engine optimization) and SEM (search engine management) to email marketing, digital PR, and more.
The custom solutions we offer are designed to do more than just help you navigate the ever-changing online digital landscape. We want you to become the fast-growing ecommerce business you need to ascend to the market leader you were meant to be – which in and of itself is the most important benefit of all.
If you’d like to find out more information about why hiring a digital marketing agency is such a critical move for your ecommerce business, please don’t delay – contact the Renaissance Digital Marketing team today. We also offer free, no obligation consultations and audits so that we can get to know you better and learn exactly what we need to do to help your organization thrive.