4 Tips for Creating a Niche Online Retailer
by Startacus Admin
A couple of weeks ago Nazia Nasreen shared her inspiring startup story on Startacus. This week she returns with some handy beginner tips for setting up a niche online retailer. Over to Nazia to explain all..
“Over the past ten years there has been an increase in e-commerce stores as online shopping has increased. The number of people setting up their own online business has also increased. As a startup business it can be difficult to market to everyone, hence it is good to target a niche market. Below are a few tips on setting up an effective niche online store:
Social Media Marketing
Before you set up a website to sell your product/service use social media (Facebook or Instagram) to promote your idea to your niche market. There has been a huge increase in the number of people using social media over the past few years. On average people check their Facebook account 10 times a day, thanks to smartphones. Social media can be used as a great marketing strategy since it is free and it gives you the opportunity to engage with your audience and build a community before you launch your website. People connect with people so use social media to show your future customers a glimpse of what goes on behind the scenes of building an e-commerce store (i.e. the stress, planning and decision making on colours and logos). You can improve on your idea by asking opinions and getting your potential customers involved in your business. Facebook also enables you to target a specific age group, location and people with certain interests when advertising.
Website design
Make sure your website is simple and easy to use. Use quality images and make sure your message is clear, so when your customers visit your website they know what products you sell and what your business offers. Websites with videos and images are more engaging than websites that are only filled with text as our brains tend to filter over the text. Include your social media links on your homepage so that potential customers can follow you.
Include a newsletter sign in bar on your website
This will enable you to keep a list of all your customers as email marketing is a great tool. Send regular emails about offers and product updates to your customers to keep in touch. You can also use pop up apps on your website which request customers to sign up to your newsletter. Email list building is very important for every business.
Write regular blogs which would interest your niche market
This will help you to connect with your customers. Having content rich blogs will also help you with search engine optimisation, which is very important for every online business. Invest in Search Engine Optimisation work from a reputable company or a freelancer. There is no point having a website if it does not appear on the first page of Google with the correct key words. It's a really good idea to share these blogs across social media.
Use Google Analytics
Use Google Analytics to understand what works on your website, where traffic is coming from and which pages are visited the most. This gives you great details about visitor behaviour, gender, location and is a valuable tool for planning marketing”.
Cheers Nazia and we look forward to hopefully hearing more from you on Startacus in the near future.
Nazia is the brains behind Ibraheem Toy House, the UK’s first online Islamic toy shop, winner of a Mumpreneur Silver website award, and a finalist for Entrepreneur of the Year at the British Muslim Awards, so its great to gain her wisdom.
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Published on: 16th March 2015
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