Successful Marketing Strategy: How are Etsy, Amazon and Shopify different?

Selling and buying online have been around for several decades. However, 2020 became a revolutionary year for e-commerce businesses. Electronic commerce, or e-commerce, which is the act of selling and buying products and services online, has become a vital part of people’s daily lives.

The pandemic that hit the world in 2020 became a catalytic agent for online businesses to surge and for online marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and Shopify to become household names. Nevertheless, it was also because of these marketplaces’ unique features and marketing resources that many entrepreneurs utilize to start and grow their e-commerce stores. 

Take a look at the different marketing strategies you can use on Etsy, Amazon, and Shopify. It will help you determine the platform that will best optimize your e-commerce store and maximize your sales this year.

What Is A Marketing Strategy?

Any business, e-commerce or not, needs to make the public aware of its existence and its products’ unique advantage over other similar products in the market.

It needs to reach its customers and prospective consumers to ensure that the business’ sales won’t drop. These actionable plans and concerted efforts of businesses aimed at attaining their business goals are known as marketing strategies. 

Marketing strategies promote your brand, products, or services to targeted consumers. Your target audience is a specific group of the market or population who would be the end-users and patrons of your products and services. 

Elements of a Marketing Strategy

To successfully launch a strategic, actionable, and sustainable marketing plan, vital marketing elements should be present. First and foremost, you have to understand who you are.

What’s your story, and what do you stand for as a brand? What’s the key message that you want to communicate to your audience?

Having a clear vision of who you are as a brand and conveying a clear message to your audience will build your brand image and reputation. In turn, it will build customer trust and loyalty.

Then, you need to conduct a competitive analysis. A competitive analysis is part of a market analysis that looks into the competition. You research about your competitors, how they position their brands and how they present and price their products.

Knowing your competition’s strategies helps you come up with your own competitive advantage. In other words, it leads you to pinpoint the selling points of your products that are different, unique, and generally more advantageous than the competition.

Your marketing strategy should have the marketing mix or what is known as the 4Ps. It is crucial because the 4Ps stand for Price, Product (or Service), Place, and Promotion. 

Marketing Mix:

• Product – It is the goods or services that you sell to your target audience
• Price – It is how much your goods or services cost
• Place – It is where you sell and conduct business and may also involve where you stock and get your inventory
• Promotion – It is how and where you promote and advertise your products or business

Difference Between Etsy, Amazon, and Shopify Marketing Strategy

1. Etsy

Etsy started as a niche market focusing on creative, handcrafted, and vintage goods. Its primary target audience is women who love unique creative items and collectible vintage items.

With creativity being its unique core feature, Etsy grew from a mere gross merchandise sales (GMV) of $314 million in 2010 to $10.28 billion in 2020. It also has 4.3 active sellers on its platform of the same year.

You need to have defined goals and solid marketing strategies to rise above this much competition and become your buyer’s first choice. 

Fortunately, Etsy provides resources to streamline your marketing plans to doable tactics. Here are different ways Etsy helps you draft successful and sustainable strategies that boost sales and scale your business.

• Use Etsy’s strong integration with Pinterest to promote your products and brand. Pinterest is one of the most popular social media networks, with 478 million active monthly users.

• Add Etsy attributes when you list your products. Attributes are category-specific additional information that helps buyers easily find your products.

• Content Marketing. Create social media pages on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc., for your business, where you’ll share engaging and curated posts of your products. You may share how-to videos of your handmade products or post aesthetic pictures that will enhance visibility. Do this regularly.

• Viral Marketing. Show off your unique products through social media brand ambassadors and influencers. Collaborate with YouTube content creators or make a YouTube Channel for your business where you can upload videos of your products.

• Email Marketing. Generate helpful resources for your buyers, like tips and tricks on taking care of vintage items. Prompt them to subscribe with exclusive perks, vouchers, and other promos to maintain their loyalty.

• Search Engine Optimization. Use long-tail keywords but avoid unrelated keywords on your listings. Use 13 tags when doing advertisements. Keep product titles comprehensive and clear.

To know more about Etsy, read more on this blog: Etsy Marketplace Fees for Sellers: A Complete Guide

2. Amazon

Amazon is one of the most renowned online marketplaces and one of the biggest players in the e-commerce scene.

It’s been around since 1994 and first established itself as an online bookseller with the largest collection of books available on the internet. It provides it’s 6.2 million total sellers worldwide and 1.5 million active sellers with growth opportunities through marketing tools and in-app integrations. 

Below are feasible marketing strategies you can use on Amazon to leverage your online business.

• Top Performing Products. With its own cloud-based data processing system, Amazon identifies products that sell heavily in the market and amplifies its popularity on various channels to get customers to buy not only the products in high demand but also accessory products found on its site. It is called a high-runner strategy.

• Amazon Advertising. This is an extended marketing service offered by Amazon to its sellers. It shows you different advertising options tailored to different kinds of business models and seller types on its platform. You can choose sponsored ads, and sponsored brands or apply for custom advertising solutions. Of course, you can mix and match different options to maximize your reach and conversions.

• Amazon A+ Content. It allows you to enhance your product details, like descriptions and images, and modify your brand content. It also provides product comparison charts. You get access to unique customizations not available to ordinary sellers. This is an exclusive marketing service, though, so you have to make sure to pass eligibility requirements.

• Promotional Events. Use events like Amazon Prime Day to your advantage and make sure you offer discounts and other promos on a day when more than the usual visitors are flocking the site.

• Affiliate Marketing and Multi-channel Marketing. Collaborate with famous blog sites to promote your e-commerce business. Use popular social networking sites like Facebook to promote your products and widen your consumer reach.

• Influencer Marketing and Reviews. Join forces with content creators from various streaming and social networking sites like YouTube to give reviews about your products. It acts as online word-of-mouth, builds trust, and increases visibility for your store and products.

• Search Engine Optimization. Do not bother with keyword stuffing in product titles and descriptions. Use keyword research tools to determine only applicable keywords that are related to your product. Learn to add backend keywords or keywords that your customers will not see, but Amazon’s search algorithm will read.

3. Shopify

Shopify is a specialized e-commerce platform.

Unlike other online marketplaces where you can directly sell on the platform and allow the marketplace to do most of the product management for you, Shopify is actually a website builder.

It means that you build your very own online store from the ground up using the tools provided by Shopify and supervise its management every step of the way. 

This year, there are already over 1 million Shopify users selling a wide variety of items in different niches. These merchants are coming together from all over the world in 175 countries.

It is one of the most reputable e-commerce platforms and offers a highly competitive market. Yet, it’s one of the platforms that commits to supporting the growth and scalability of e-commerce stores through in-app software and tools and integrations outside the app. 

It provides multiple marketing opportunities and gears to help you develop solid marketing strategies that warrant positive outcomes.

• Search Engine Optimization. Once again, properly use only needed keywords, be it long tail or short tail, on all product details. Edit your Meta description with keywords and add tags and categories to your product listings. Optimize your product pages with high-resolution images and, if possible, hire a professional SEO specialist and web developer to organize the structure of your website. 

• User Experience. Enhance your store’s load time. Make action and command buttons more visible. Arrange your products in categories and organize content for easier buyer navigation. It helps reduce cart abandonment.

• SMS and Email Marketing. Generate leads by sending news of your store promotions on customers’ mobile numbers. Send thank-you messages and remind customers to give feedback and rate your store. 

• Affiliate Marketing and Backlinks. Team up with known bloggers and trusted blog sites to promote your products. Always remember to get them to provide a link to your store. You can use subscriptions to resources like short e-books to give helpful tips to loyal customers. Additionally, backlinks are websites that are linked one way to your e-commerce website. It helps with SEO, but you must hire professionals because it has its risks.

• Social Media Marketing and Google Ads. What better way to rank higher and become visible to many audiences than advertising your business with Google? Shopify also integrates with several networking sites like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, so use it for advertising your brand and products. Also, check to sprout social sites that are promising in terms of wide customer base and relevance to your business niche.

• Influencer Marketing. Use famous content creators and vloggers in the same niche as your business to raise awareness about your products and get leads. If you can, create brand ambassador programs to establish credibility and brand image.

• Video Marketing and Podcasts.  Make tutorial and how-to videos. Conduct webcasts and webinars. Produce podcasts. All of these show customers that you know what you are doing, and they can trust you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion

There are many ways to promote your business and make it visible to a wider audience. Website builders and online marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and Shopify are already making it easier to provide marketing tools and resources. With in-depth planning, effort, and some budget, you’ll be able to create sustainable and practical strategies that will help you achieve your business and sales goals.