7 inspiring marketing strategies examples (and what makes them so effective)

Abigail Bosze

Content Writer

As you already know, having an online marketing strategy is of the utmost importance.

Without one, it’s hard for people to get to know you, let alone to choose you (instead of the competition) – no matter how flashy your website is or if you sell the finest products on the market.

But it’s easier said than done.

So you end up googling something like “examples of marketing strategies” with the hope of finding inspiration for your own shop in what others are doing.

Are we wrong?

Well, worry not because we’re going to sort this out right now.

In this post, you’ll learn the most important actions you can implement into your e‑commerce shop, with real examples for each of them.

Plus, we’ll tell you why the companies we’ve picked are doing so well.

Ready for a visibility boost? 😉

Table of Contents

👉 Marketing strategies: 7 examples applicable to your online store
👉 Are you going to implement these ideas for marketing strategies?

👉 Marketing strategies: 7 examples applicable to your online store

First of all, let’s suppose that prior to designing your marketing strategy you’ve already:

Determined your ideal customer profile: this should be the focus of all of your marketing actions.
Analyzed what the competition is doing: both to set yourself apart and to get ideas. What social media are they on? What kind of content can you see on their blogs? Are they working with influencers?
Defined your brand image: your brand color, the tone you’re going to use when talking with customers, etc.
Set specific goals: it could be that you’re aiming to strengthen your branding strategy, gain more subscribers, or boost a particular product line, among others.

If you have all this figured out, you’ll find the following examples much more useful (and if you don’t, just bear it in mind for when you’re done reading 😉 ).

Let’s go over them.

✅ 1. Content marketing

Content marketing is about offering valuable and relevant content to your audience in order to attract potential clients.

Let’s take a second to scan through these two concepts:

Valuable: think of Google searches as questions asked by your audience, so your content needs to answer these questions. For example, if someone googles “what fridge should I buy?” it means they’re looking for an in-depth contrastive analysis about the pros and cons of the top models on sale.
Relevant: that is, the content needs to be interesting to your audience. That’s why you must get a thorough understanding of their needs.

Blog posts are probably the most common example, but podcasts and videos (and, in general, any content your audience finds useful) are also included in this category.

Rituals is a good example of an e‑commerce implementing this strategy.

This brand has a well-defined value proposition: they don’t sell beauty; they sell wellbeing.

In their blog, they share useful items for their potential clients, from healthy recipes to yoga routines, meditation posts and positive psychology.

Their content revolves around what their customers are really looking for by purchasing their products: health, relaxation, and well-being.

✅ 2. Email marketing

Email marketing creates a direct contact channel between you and your potential customers.

Which makes it a powerful tool if you want to:

Gain your customers’ trust.
Reinforce your authority.
Segment your audience according to their interests (as explained in this post) and make your conversion rate rise like crazy.
Foster loyalty among your current customers.

This guide has all there is to know about turning subscribers into customers following this strategy.

Similarly, the UK’s Holland & Barrett, which specializes in health and wellbeing products, uses email marketing very effectively.

What they do is send their subscribers valuable content related to their products as well as recommendations, offers and discounts.

Interested in a vegetarian diet?

Holland & Barrett sends you an email with related information and articles along with some of the top products purchased by their vegetarian customers.

This valuable content + sales combo is really, really effective.

✅ 3. SEO marketing

At this stage in the game, we know you don’t need to be told about how important it is for your online store to be well positioned on Google.

And if you want to rank high, you need a good SEO strategy.

As mentioned above, creating useful content is just part of the process; for your website to be well positioned, you also need:

A good user experience: intuitive navigation, fast loading speed on all devices, and a quick internal search engine (you already know the impact this last point can have on your sales).
SEO writing: every page needs to be optimized so Google understands the keyword you want to use to position each page.
Avoid cannibalization: that is, two pages trying to rank the same keyword – a common issue among online stores.

We could go on and on, but if you want to explore the topic any further, we suggest you check out our SEO mega guide for online stores.

Right, so what do you get out of all this?

Imagine you own an online shop that sells camping equipment.

The keyword “buy tent” has 1,700 monthly searches. In other words, 1,700 potential customers search for this keyword each and every month.

And if we google it ourselves, this is what we find:

In this case, Anaconda Stores is getting most of those potential customers by optimizing their category page for the search term “buy tent online.”

And all this with a single keyword, since each category and each product card in the shop is optimized for a different keyword. 😉

✅ 4. Online advertising

Online advertising is another effective way to capture traffic both with Google Ads or Facebook Ads. These are not the only available options, but they are the most widely used.

This strategy is very common among online stores that have created their website recently and are still not very well positioned on Google (it takes time, as you know) since it’s a good way to start getting clients immediately.

It’s also useful if you’d like to boost your sales promotions.

An example of this strategy?

Going back to the “buy tents” search, the first results shown by Google are ads from companies competing to have their products shown at the top of the results list.

✅ 5. Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a mighty tool to build your brand and connect with your audience.

But you don’t need to be on all of them: only on those your customers use.

For example, if you sell highly visual products, Instagram will prove a wise choice. If you’re targeting young audiences, Snapchat could be the most appealing option.

The key is to figure out how to keep your audience engaged and increase interaction.

Take a look at what they’ve done at Nescafé.

Among their latest Instagram campaigns is the #DalgonaCoffeeChallenge, which encourages their followers to make their own coffee and share the photo.

✅ 6. Marketing with influencers

As the name suggests, influencer marketing involves teaming up with influencers to gain visibility and create a stronger presence on the Internet.

Influencers are relevant figures in different sectors with substantial authority in the eyes of their followers.

OTBT is a good example.

This online footwear store works alongside micro-influencers to promote their products – and they aren’t just confined to social media.

In addition, their website has a specific section called “Influencer favorites”.

✅ 7. Affiliate marketing

Affiliates are people that promote your products to their own audiences, earning a commission in exchange for every sale they generate.

In the case of your e‑commerce, you can put the affiliate marketing strategy into practice with other stores, businesses, or blogs that share a similar target audience.

For example, if you sell sports supplements, you can contact different fitness blogs and propose an affiliation.

What can you gain with that?

The main point is to gain visibility (as the collaborating websites already have their own audience) without risking anything since you only pay your affiliates when they get a sale.

An example would be the pet food and product retailer Zooplus.

They offer a 5% commission for every product sold from an affiliate’s website.