Does your eCommerce store offer products for children? If so, it is important to have a comprehensive digital marketing strategy that covers multiple different channels.
The reason for this is that the more parents and caregivers you reach, the better chance they’ll become loyal to your brand. Plus, it can’t hurt to get on the parents’ good side early on right? In turn, this equates to growth, increased lifetime value, and a better sales relationship with your customers. That’s hard to do if you’re only using one specific type of marketing approach.
At CAKE, we’re eCommerce experts when it comes to helping online retailers just like you who specialize in products for babies, kids, and teens. Here are four reasons why you need an integrated marketing plan to grow your children’s brand.
1. Only Running PPC Ads Limits Your Reach
You already know that social media is a critical component of driving traffic to your online store. But it is also the main ingredient in overall brand recognition, which is critical if you’re planning on or currently engage in brick-and-mortar sales too.
If all you’re doing is running Pay-Per-Click (PPC) ads on Google, you could really be missing out on getting in front of customers that are looking to buy what your brand sells. Instead, have a strategy that encompasses multiple different aspects of paid marketing. For example, consider adding social media ads and influencer campaigns to ramp up what you’re already doing. Think about showcasing things like testimonials, new arrivals, and more to keep your brand top of mind and in front of people at the right time. If you have a strong funnel approach, you should see sitewide growth and reach new people.
Paid Social Proof: Since we started running paid social ads for one of our clients that sell children’s clothing, overall website sessions are up 258%, new users are up 344%, and revenue is up 1,290%.
2. Occasion Purchasing is a Long-Term Strategy
Another reason why you need an integrated marketing plan for your children’s brand is occasion purchasing. Birthdays, Christmas, and back to school are just three common categories that children’s brands need to be viewed as long-term strategies. Gifting can also be considered a longer purchase journey, especially with more people shopping online and sending gifts rather than shopping in-store. It’s a game worth playing to keep people interested, invested, and coming back weeks and months out.
By having an integrated marketing plan with an omnichannel focus, you can make sure you’re reaching customers across various touch points over time. Then when it comes time to promote special offers and sales, you’re already in front of buyers who are ready to spend money with you instead of the competition.
3. Email Marketing for Children’s Brands is Powerful
Another reason to expand your advertising approach? Email marketing for children’s brands is incredibly powerful. If you aren’t currently trying to get shoppers to join your email list, now is the perfect time to make that happen with special incentives, coupons, or other deals.
Curating an email list means you have a captive audience each time your brand runs a sale or introduces a new product. Parents and caregivers start to look for these messages and often make immediate purchases based on what they see in their inbox. As a brand, this is super good news, and you want to make sure you harness it as best you can.
In addition, putting out content that targets parents from the very beginning of the buyer’s journey can help you establish a relationship that can last a lifetime (a returning customer “buy as your kids grow” approach). With email marketing specifically, you can send segmented emails with age group-specific clothing based on the customers’ past purchases. This will show them items that their kids can not only fit in now but grow into in a couple of months or years down the road.
Email Marketing Proof: As part of a paid social lead generation strategy, we created a welcome popup for one of our clients and gathered 2,210 emails out of 88,190 impressions, putting us at a 2.51% form conversion rate. In addition, the initial welcome email has an open rate of 42%, with 5.1% placing an order. The average open rate for the three welcome emails is around 33%, with an order rate of 2.3%.
4. eCommerce SEO Helps Bring in Those Who Are Ready to Buy
Of course, not everything is about paid advertising. A solid eCommerce search engine optimization (eCommerce SEO) strategy can also help boost brand recognition and improve sales. As a children’s brand, you want to make sure you’re showing up on the first page for Google, Bing, and other popular search engines.
Think about this for a moment. When a parent or caretaker types a particular phrase related to what you sell in their search engine bar, they’re likely ready to purchase at that moment. By having an excellent eCommerce SEO strategy that leverages targeted, organic keywords to write things like blog posts and product descriptions, you can ensure your listings or content show up when they’re looking, and guide them down the funnel to make a purchase.
SEO Proof: Since the implementation of SEO on our clients’ website, we have seen a revenue increase of 40%, and organic revenue increased over 21.04%. This success stems from an increase of 46.67% in transactions and a 21.85% increase in organic transactions.
How CAKE Can Help Your eCommerce Brand
At CAKE, we love helping all eCommerce brands find the perfect marketing mix for their needs. If you aren’t sure what channels to pursue as part of your overall strategy, we can help. Please contact us today to learn about our various services or to get a quote.
