3 Strategies to Future Proof your eCommerce Business

After surviving a pandemic, business owners understand the importance of planning and anticipating the future. A successful eCommerce company must always adapt and change to take advantage of ever-changing opportunities. This way of thinking allows for long-term business success.

The question on everyone’s mind is how do we achieve this? This is where future-proofing strategies come into play. Continuously improving your marketing strategies and looking for new systems to integrate are critical to ensuring your company's longevity—and overall eCommerce success. It's the only way forward! 

Here are some key marketing strategies to help you future-proof your eCommerce business.

Lifecycle Marketing Strategies

The question you need to ask yourself is, what is your primary business goal? Is it to expand your customer base or to nurture your current ones? This is a very important question to ask because many business owners believe that more customers mean more potential sales. However, this is wrong. In fact, the exact opposite is true. Research shows that a company generates around 80% of its profits from only 20% of its current customers. 

For example; your business could have a large number of low-quality leads that don’t actually benefit your business. Instead of adding value, this can actually do more harm than good to your marketing initiatives. The best strategy is to concentrate on nurturing smaller segments of your customer base. Why? Because repeat customers with brand loyalty contribute far more to your company's growth.

Automated Workflows

It is nearly impossible for any eCommerce business to meet the needs of every single customer throughout the customer journey. There are typically two solutions to this problem. Either your business forks out a large number of resources and hires a costly team of live responders or you simply invest in workflow automation.

As important as customer satisfaction is, it’s almost impossible for any sustainable eCommerce business to respond to customers in a timely manner without it interfering with business operations. This is where workflow automation enters the picture. It enables you to respond to customer needs in a timely manner without having to babysit your emails. It also enables you to maintain a steady stream of revenue in the background while your team handles more hands-on operational tasks.

Omni-channel Marketing

We've all heard that putting all of your eggs in one basket doesn't work. The same is true for your marketing strategy. If your company only uses one marketing channel, you're not reaching out to a large portion of your target audience. This is why it is critical to diversify the marketing channels used by your eCommerce store.

This is also why understanding your buyer personas is so critical. You must know where to reach your intended audience. Are they more active on email, social media, or text messaging? Having knowledge of such information allows you to better tailor your marketing messages to each segment and target each audience on platforms where they are most likely to be. 

As you can see, it is critical for your eCommerce business to be adaptable and resilient in these times. Future planning entails thinking more strategically about what you do. Keeping an open mind and understanding new systems and strategies brought about by changing times will ensure your business grows regardless of the challenges that lie ahead.