Koozai > Blog > 15 Ways To Sell or Promote Your Products Online

15 Ways To Sell or Promote Your Products Online

| 7 minutes to read

If you run a large ecommerce website or just sell products online in your spare time at home, there have never been a greater number of places to promote or even sell your products online.

Some of these platforms work well alongside your main website, some have replaced the need for an ecommerce site entirely and work as a standalone solution for Internet-based sales and promotion. In this article, we discuss the best digital marketing services available to really drive your online sales.

Social Websites

Facebook

Facebook is a site many of you should be familiar with. One of the most effective ways of selling products if you can make it work is to be active on Facebook. Sharing news, connecting with fans, throwing competitions and persuading your fans to share information is great for getting your product in front of the right eyes. This is generally more time consuming, you have to keep at it to see significant increases in sales but it can work if you put the time in. You may also want to consider paid social for Facebook to increase your reach and ROI.

Twitter

Twitter is another popular social site you can use to increase sales and promote products. Once you have a number of followers, you have people who are interested in your brand or your products and you can promote any new products or information to this audience. If they like what they see then there is a good chance that they will then share the information you tweet with other followers. Similar to Facebook, Twitter requires a lot of time put in for it to have a significant effect on sales. You also have to be sure to avoid being too self promotional so as not to annoy your followers.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a relatively new platform that has exploded onto the scene lately. The whole platform enables users to create theme focused boards to which they can pin images to from across the web. Considering the ease of creating a new pin and the number of people who use and are willing to re-pin things they like, it can be great for exposing your products and website to a whole new crowd. The platform is completely free and is easy to set up which means that it is worth regularly posting; even if you do not see much from this initially, it only takes a few people re-pinning your pins to get a decent level of traffic from it.

Daily Deals

There are quite a few daily deal sites around nowadays, the most notable being Groupon and Living Social. These sites are centred on offering consumers great deals on products, gifts and holidays based on a certain number of people purchasing. If companies choose to use the platform for promotion, they can create a lot of sales in a fairly short period of time and also increase the awareness of the brand. There is a good chance that these people may return to purchase again after the initial daily deal purchase. It is worth noting that there have been times where people have underestimated the number of sales that can be achieved through these types of platforms and have found themselves in a position where they cannot fulfil the orders.

All in One Platforms

Shopify

Shopify is a complete ecommerce and hosting platform that allows you to set up your own shop, selling whatever you like without having to attempt to build your own site or to spend lots of money getting this done. You can easily build your store and customise it as you like and there are various pricing solutions available to you to suit your needs. It is more expensive than hosting your own site, however you can potentially save a lot as the development cost of an ecommerce site can be quite high.

Big Cartel

Big Cartel is much the same as Shopify however it is mainly aimed at clothing designers, jewellery makers, bands etc. This solution offers full customisation of the sites and does not take a percentage of the sales generated through the site which makes it a good solution for smaller, independent, from home-based businesses.

Google Shopping Results

If you are actively selling products online, one great way of promoting the products is to get them listed to display on the Google shopping results. These results are sometimes displayed on the Google search results pages for various product queries. It can be a great way to gain more business and send more traffic to your website, especially if your business offers products cheaper than your competitors.

To start using the Google shopping results you will need to be signed up to the Google Merchant Center and upload data related to the products you sell.

Product Videos

The power of videos is still largely underestimated. There is a huge audience on sites like YouTube and other similar platforms where people are likely to search for products and related reviews. If you create some well thought out, informative and good quality videos, you may be able to capture the attention of an audience that previously might not have found you.

Videos also appear in the search results within Google and other search engines. They typically get shown on the first page which could be a good way of gaining an audience for more competitive keywords or just dominating that page if you are already ranking for that keyword.

Reviews

Reviews can help send traffic to your site, they can also persuade someone to make a purchase once they arrive. There are various ways in which reviews can be utilised for your benefit. Firstly you can make sure you are listed on the many external review sites so happy customers can find you if they wish to comment on a good experience, some examples include Review Centre and The best of. This can help send visitors to your site if people are using these directories.

You can also display reviews on your own website to help improve the number of sales you are likely to receive. People are much more likely to purchase if they can see that others have previously used the site and have been happy with their experience or products. If you have a number of good reviews on your website or other external sites, you can draw attention to these by using Rich Snippets. This will display the average rating within the search results and help encourage searchers to click through to your website.

Ebay

Ebay is still a great way to sell products online. You can run an Ebay shop alongside your other sites and methods of selling products. It will cost you a bit more for the privilege of using the Ebay platform, but it will help get your products in front of more people, especially as it has millions of users.

Email

Even though email is a comparatively old technology within the internet world, it can still be a great way to build awareness of new products to existing and new customers. Usually if someone has given you their email, they are already interested in your products. This gives you a chance to entice them with special offers or highlight to them products that they might like.

Free Products

Everyone loves to get something for free; this can be a useful way of gaining new customers. There are various ways of doing this; some platforms enable the user to get the free item if they enter their email or if they send a Tweet to their Twitter followers. Free products can easily lead to organic promotion if done successfully and gain you long term customers. The food company Graze do this well by offering people who sign up a free first box with an easily acquirable voucher code.

Affiliate

Creating an affiliate program can help expand your reach to gain more sales and customers. Why not have people interested in your products do some promotion for a bit of commission for referrals that result in a sale.

Landing Pages & PPC

Pay Per Click (PPC) offers a guaranteed way to get visitors to your website. It ensures that you have full control over the amount of money you spend and if you have a rough idea of the percentage of visitors that convert when visiting the website, you can make sure that you always return a profit. By combining a well optimised PPC campaign with targeted landing pages you can make sure that each visitor is likely to be interested in the products you are selling. It is then down to the landing pages to convince them to make the purchase.

Remarketing

Remarketing is a strand of PPC. It will create a list of visitors to your website and is able to track them with a cookie. Once you have built up a list, these people can be targeted with ads on other websites they visit. As they have previously visited your website, you can be fairly confident that they are interested in your products. Targeting these people with a banner campaign can be a useful way to build awareness of a promotion or sale, promote any new products or just create a second chance to convert them into customers.

Get in touch with us today for more information or advice. Alternatively, find out more about our Digital Marketing Services.

Image Source

Girl holding bowl of lemons via BigStock

Responses

  1. […] a good storyteller is good enough, but being able to advertise your products or services and actually sell them to your customers is even more critical. Mothers, just like […]

  2. […] affiliate program is another great way to widen your reach. This works by working with blogger or social media […]

  3. Rahul Yadav avatar

    Thanks for the suggestions. Cant wait to use some these for my new shop!

  4. Prince avatar
    Prince

    I love this tim

  5. […] over a year ago, I created a post on ways to sell and promote your products online. This largely focused on physical products and ecommerce stores, so I wanted to create an […]

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  7. Dicubit avatar

    which one is better to promote a product / service, pinterest or instagram?

    1. Harry Gardiner avatar

      Hi there. It all really depends what is you’re offering, and who you’re offering too. You need to first identify your audiences preferences, and find out which platform they prefer using. If you’re still unsure, try split testing on each platform to see which delivers you the best results. Of course, both platforms are primarily visual, so you’ll need to create attractive imagery related to your product or service if you want to breach either platform.

      1. Aakash Sohani avatar
        Aakash Sohani

        You are absolutely right. It depends on the product.

  8. Daniel avatar

    I like the idea of distributing free products like e-books. It always helps to get people re-visit your website again and again. Nice post!

  9. […] your website, you should also focus on promoting your site and connecting with customers via social media. Focus on those social media sites where your customers spend the most time. This will prevent you […]

  10. […] more selective in promoting products. There are many online affiliate marketers who join many different affiliate programs and promote […]

  11. Samantha Wilson avatar
    Samantha Wilson

    The websites mentioned above are all great and at one point I did use some of them to sell my handmade bags, but I recently discover Adfora which is 10x better than all the ones mentioned above and started selling there and couldn’t be happier.

  12. meersaab avatar
    meersaab

    One of the easiest ways to grow your social communities over time is to post content consistently.

  13. […] is at the top of the list of answers whenever people are discussing how to market a product online. This is because you not only have the ability to use Facebook to maintain your company in the […]

  14. Losing Sales? You Could Be Making These 5 Simple Mistakes — Bellevue Business Journal

    […] are many ways to sell online, and it’s easy to create buzz for your business without spending thousands of dollars on […]

  15. Cat Mario avatar

    I liked your article. I agree with link building as an important promotional method. I also think that having the proper analytics program on your website (we use the free Google Analytics package) that can help shape your on-page SEO can be a way to promote your webstore. The reason being, if you are optimized well you will likely be attracting higher quality, more targeted, and often prequalified leads to your website. For businesses that do not have much of a pay per click budget, optimization is a good long run strategy.
    Leveraging a social media strategy that is right for your business can also be a powerful way to promote your products and deepend relationships with customers. Which social media is appropriate depends on the individual business and their customer’s behaviors.

  16. Discount and Sell: Why Online Discounts Are the Key to Increased Sales – Make Money Your Way

    […] products for you like a drop shipper. One way to justify using this kind of a service as one of the ways to sell onlineis that you are not having to pay for any marketing costs at all to sell these products. As with any […]

  17. […] you’re presenting your facts, keep in mind that the trick to how to sell a product onlineis to be short and to the point. One of the things people love about the Internet is how fast they […]

  18. May avatar

    I use Bigcommerce to power my online store.
    It was with oscommerce, but I’m short of time on selling, wasting too much time on programming.
    With hosted solution, I can focus on selling. :)

  19. […] In order to leverage social media as a way to sell more of your products, you can’t bombard consumers with hourly Twitter updates spouting lines about how great you are. To successfully use the social media platforms, you need to make sure that you keep your online presence as tactful as possible, and only supply your fans and followers with content and information that they can use. You want to show them that you are exactly what they are looking for. Social media now gives you a number of different ways to sell online. […]

  20. […] to direct people to it. You can do that through assorted marketing tactics. Those who want to learn how to sell a product online should first find out how to market their website. Marketing strategies may include lots of […]

  21. Realistic Ways to Promote Your Business

    […] you want to know how to mar­ket a prod­uct online , you should start by using the resources that are eas­ily avail­able to you. Are you already […]

  22. […] online tools available for all website owners. A few of the lesser-known but pretty well-kept ‘how to sell a product online’ promotional tools include the […]

  23. meron avatar
    meron

    Hi tom your advise is so good. how can i Creating an affiliate program?

  24. adsauto avatar

    I think one good way to promote products it is using classifieds advertising … one ad for each product!
    take a look at adsautosubmitter DOT com tool … it is a different approach , it is not a universal spam tool …it is dedicated to a certain category and country

  25. KP avatar

    Hello Tom. This is good. but how we get relevant using facebook, twitter….

    My product is Android monitoring software which helpful to all parents to monitor minor. Then how i give this message to all parents.

  26. Geoff avatar

    Hi Tom. Thanks for the useful List. As well as shopify and BigCartel which are good for people with large amounts of inventory you could use http://www.Selz.com which is an easy way to sell online for bloggers and website owners who want to sell digital or physical products. It has automated delivery of digital downloads so good for ebooks, videos, or music. You just need to cut and paste a snippet of code, like embedding a YouTube video. Best of all, customers do not have to leave your site to complete a purchase.

  27. Jessi avatar

    Thanks Tom. Useful article. Please write an article and let us know how to earn some money from a deal website. What strategy to choose.

  28. Hango avatar

    Good article, but what are some good sites for selling digital products?

  29. tenoras avatar
    tenoras

    Try http://www.keapo.com, its a mobile app free for sellers and buyers

    1. Tom Howlett avatar

      Thanks Tenoras,

      Looks like a useful app. Could be useful for some businesses, particularly small businesses and those who are just starting out.

      Interested to find out how the payment works for this app (couldn’t see from browsing the site), do you know?

    2. Migs avatar
      Migs

      Cool app cant wait to try this and share it to my business partners.

  30. wasy avatar
    wasy

    Thanks tom, your advise are very useful since I am starting my business soon and has opted to sell online mainly.

    1. Tom Howlett avatar

      Glad you found the post useful Wasy. Good luck with your business.

  31. Pio avatar

    Hi Tom, great article. What are your thoughts on sites like Shopzilla, Etsy and other like it? I have a Website where i sell my products but i was wondering about these other sites to increase my sales.

    1. Tom Howlett avatar

      Hi Pio,

      If you are using these external platforms as your main website, the best thing would be to ensure that they are easily optimised – whether you can create a unique Meta structure for each page and easily manage and organise the content.

      If you are talking about creating a presence on these websites in addition to your main website – it can certainly be useful to help you reach a new audience who may be interested in your products. Just take care to avoid duplicating the text content from your main website (to prevent duplicate content issues). Ideally these platforms would be tailored to the new audience and should have its own unique content and value.

  32. Stella Wilson avatar

    Hey Tom ..thanks a lot for bringing this bool for us. Every SEO or Internet Marketer has the same problem of building backlinks for their website. You have brought lot of great information for us.

    Regards
    Stela

    1. Tom Howlett avatar

      Thanks for your feedback Stella, glad you found the post useful.

  33. Darren avatar

    Hi Tom

    How much book marking do i need to achieve to help with ranking ?

    1. Tom Howlett avatar

      Hi Darren,

      Bookmarking can be helpful for promoting your content – it is suggested that other link building activities are carried out on top of this.

      Creating lots of bookmarks, and having links from low quality websites is unlikely to do your site any favours.

      Try to think about sharing your content on industry specific bookmarking websites to find your target market.

  34. Samuel Troy avatar

    Hi Tom, this is simply great, so informative and if anyone use some of these to promote their product online, then sell comes automatically. Will look forward for more article

    1. Tom Howlett avatar

      Hi Samuel,

      Thanks for the feedback, glad you found the post useful.

  35. Oliver Ewbank avatar

    Great post Tom. If I had the time I would do all 15! If not I would stick to PPC.

  36. Ross Chapman avatar

    Hi Tom,

    Great article – and yes, the value of video is largely under-estimated – pretty much due to nobody trying it. Yes, it doesn’t have the traditional ROI metrics of, say a PPC campaign, but like you say – original, thoughtful videos can bring in the customers – without seeming “hard-sell”.

    1. Tom avatar

      Thanks Ross.

      I completely agree, the only drawback is the time it takes to create them. I think there is also a pressure for companies to create videos ‘viral’ in nature and they don’t have to be at all.

      1. Ross Chapman avatar

        Yes, unfortunately “viral” has become a bit of a buzz word. Popularity comes with being a good video and if it’s good enough it will be shared.

        Time is an interesting consideration – normally I find that budget is the deciding factor.

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