Bigcommerce Strategies to Optimize Your Online Store in 2023

BigCommerce is a cloud-based platform that allows businesses to create and operate online stores. It provides a range of features and tools to manage the entire e-commerce experience, including website design, product catalog management, payment processing, order fulfillment, shipping integration, and marketing and SEO tools.

BigCommerce is known for its scalability and flexible customization options, making it a popular choice for businesses of all sizes looking to build and grow an online store. It is also one of the world’s most popular e-commerce platforms. Its powerful, user-friendly interface gives businesses of all sizes everything they need to build a thriving e-commerce brand.

To get the most out of your BigCommerce store, you must also implement a comprehensive BigCommerce strategy. In this article, we’ll discuss how to do exactly that.

Preparation Checklist

Let’s go over a quick preparation checklist before diving into your strategy:

• Market research: it’s a good idea to understand the latest e-commerce trends for growth in 2022. This will help you to identify your priorities and discover what kind of features and services your customers currently expect.
• Strengths and weaknesses: analyze your current performance and prioritize the areas that need the most work. Then, outline your specific marketing goals for the year ahead.
• Choose the right theme: A professional and appealing theme is essential for a profitable BigCommerce store. Choose a BigCommerce theme that’s fast, customizable, and mobile-friendly and tailor the design to your specific needs.
• Get the right apps: from marketing automation to streamlined shipping and improved customer loyalty, many of your processes can be given a boost with BigCommerce third-party integrations. Check them out and add the ones that could be useful for your BigCommerce store.

With this preparation done, let’s check out some of the proven BigCommerce strategies to drive shoppers to your store.

1. Utilize Marketing Automation

Integrate robust marketing automation tools with your BigCommerce store to save time on repetitive tasks. Depending on your needs and goals, you can try a variety of automation techniques. However, the following features could benefit any BigCommerce store:

• Abandoned cart recovery: recapturing customers who added items to their cart but did not complete the purchase. Send an email, an SMS, a push notification, or a combination of the three.
• Welcome emails: bring new subscribers into the fold with your brand story and tempting deals for a first purchase. Keeping customers engaged and informed is crucial for building trust in the long term.
• Omnichannel marketing: this gives your customers an integrated, personalized experience and allows you to reach out on the channels where they feel most comfortable. Follow up a promotional email, for example, with an SMS offering time-sensitive discounts.
• Birthday emails: make subscribers feel valued on their special day with special deals and discounts.

BigCommerce automation is essential for increasing your efficiency, accuracy, and productivity. Delegate repetitive marketing tasks to your marketing automation platform to free up time for more strategic thinking.

2. Focus on Referral Marketing

Word-of-mouth marketing has always been one of the most effective forms of advertising. People who share their positive experiences with their friends, family, and social media followers are more likely to be listened to and trusted. In fact, 71% of people are more likely to buy something after seeing it on social media.

As a result, referral marketing is an important part of your BigCommerce marketing strategy. The first step is to provide the kinds of experiences that encourage people to recommend your brand to others. Making a lasting impression requires things like friendly communication, helpful support, informative welcome messages, and other personalized services.

The following step is to set up a referral program and publicize it through your emails, newsletters, social media channels, and website. In exchange for a referral, these BigCommerce referral program examples provide incentives such as discounts and gifts. There are numerous specialized third-party apps that seamlessly integrate with BigCommerce and provide everything you need to run successful referral campaigns.

3. Focus on BigCommerce SEO

Most online shopping journeys start with a Google search. This makes your BigCommerce SEO efforts a crucial aspect of your overall BigCommerce marketing strategy. You should aim to present search queries that answer user intent from Google users.

Most people prioritize blog articles for their SEO. Blogs are ideal ways to boost your SEO rankings, but there are other ways too. The product pages, homepage, and other resources on your BigCommerce store should also be SEO friendly and optimized so that they rank high in search results.

Consider the following when developing an SEO strategy for your BigCommerce store:

• Consider both the bottom and top of the funnel keywords. Bottom-of-funnel keywords are more likely to result in signups and future conversions, whereas top-of-funnel keywords boost organic traffic and visits to your BigCommerce store website.
• Concentrate on long-tail keywords. Even though they have a low search volume, they are more intent-oriented and aid in conversions.
• Improve the speed and performance of your website, as well as other technical SEO practices.
• Make sure that all of your titles and meta descriptions are optimized.

BigCommerce SEO can be a difficult task, so consider hiring a freelancer to assist you in optimizing your BigCommerce store. A small investment in BigCommerce SEO practices can provide significant long-term benefits as more customers find their way to your site organically. The more traffic you have, the more subscribers you can add to your email marketing list.

4. Use email marketing for your BigCommerce store

Email is still by far the most effective marketing channel. It delivers by far the highest ROI and is trusted by consumers. Make sure you’re using the following email marketing tactics in your BigCommerce store:

• Promotional emails: for specific campaigns and offers you’re running, such as around the holidays.
• Reengagement emails: allow you to reach out to customers who haven’t made a purchase within a certain period of time. Entice them back into the fold with tempting offers and increase your customer loyalty.
• Simple email newsletters: for keeping your subscribers in the loop with regular content such as news, updates, and your weekly blog.
• Segmented emails: splits your subscriber list into smaller categories using automatically updated customer data. Simply choose the segments that you’d like to target for more relevant and personalized messaging. Ensure that your marketing automation platform supports advanced segmentation that prioritizes your messaging to customers that need it most.
• Order/shipping confirmation emails have a high level of engagement, so include personalized recommendations in your post-purchase messages for upselling opportunities.

Successful BigCommerce email marketing requires a well-stocked and highly-engaged contact list. Sign up visitors to your store using dynamic sign-up forms that capture more subscribers.

5. Use Loyalty Programs

It is much easier to sell to customers who are familiar with your brand and have previously purchased from you. Encourage customer loyalty as part of your BigCommerce marketing strategy to increase repeat revenue and reduce the costs of constantly attracting new leads.

According to Accenture, more than 90% of businesses now have some kind of customer loyalty program. However, loyalty programs are not always successful. You must understand your customers’ needs and purchase motivations, and then provide them with the appropriate incentives to stay with you. The best loyalty programs offer more than just cash discounts. They appeal to emotions by providing a sense of belonging, a sense of purpose, and exclusivity.

Consider integrating a third-party loyalty app into your BigCommerce store. Advanced point-based systems, can encourage customer loyalty and engagement. Purchases, referrals, reviews, and other positive interactions earn customers points. These points can then be used to obtain special benefits and incentives.

6. User-generated Content

Nothing improves brand trust like user-generated content. Content such as reviews, social media posts, product unboxing, and more are examples of social proof.

With consumers increasingly turned off by direct advertising, we’re turning to one another for buying advice. According to research, people find user-generated content such as reviews and other forms of social proof to be 35% more memorable and 50% more trustworthy than other forms of media. It’s time to let your happy customers speak for themselves.

Including user-generated content on your website, promotional emails, and social media posts to reassure customers that purchasing from you is completely safe and normal. Not only that, but your offerings are well received.

On product pages and during the checkout process, social proof is especially important. These are the areas where a customer’s uncertainty and doubts can cause them to reconsider making a purchase. A glowing recommendation from a fellow shopper may be just what they need to close the deal.

Optimizing your review marketing is the best way to immediately boost your social proof. Include requests for reviews in your post-purchase messages to make it easy for customers to leave reviews. You should also make your presence known on popular review sites like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Yelp.

Yotpo and other third-party apps provide everything an e-commerce business needs to optimize its review marketing. Yotpo searches the internet for user-generated reviews, photos, and videos about your company. It then assists you in displaying your social proof for maximum impact.

7. Consider Influencer Marketing

Influencers can help you raise your brand’s profile among your target demographic. They have a dedicated social media following of people who trust and respect their opinions, giving you a captive audience for your products.

Choose your preferred social media platform to get started with influencer marketing. This will be determined by your target audience and your products. Clothing brands, for example, will fare better on visually appealing platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. Consider YouTube, Pinterest, or an industry magazine for more niche products.

The following step is to find the right influencer. They should be in line with the ethos of the brand and the products you sell. To create authentic and interesting content, choose someone who can naturally endorse or review your products. Don’t forget to set clear expectations and guidelines with your chosen influencer to ensure that you get the results you want.

Simply contacting a well-known person and asking them to promote your product is insufficient. A good influencer marketing strategy can raise brand awareness and generate content that can be used across all aspects of your BigCommerce marketing strategy.

Conclusion

Depending on their specific needs, each retailer will have their own distinct BigCommerce marketing strategy. However, by implementing the strategies outlined in this article, you will have a significant advantage over your competitors.

Looking for the best BigCommerce email marketing service provider? OTT SEO, as an experienced marketing company, can seamlessly promote your BigCommerce store and can also provide powerful omnichannel automation. You will be able to conduct personalized email marketing campaigns that include SMS and other channels. You’ll also find ready-to-use workflows like abandoned carts and welcome emails, allowing you to start automating right away.

Contact OTT SEO today to receive assistance from our experts and much more!