How to Create and Implement an eCommerce Launch Strategy

Many people glorify eCommerce as an easy way to make money online. In their eyes, you only have to set up your website and run a few ads. Once you’ve done that, you’re sold the promise that customers will just roll in.

If only it was that easy.

Running a successful eCommerce store has so many critical elements. To make sales, you often have to have an audience. I remember when I tried launching my first shop from scratch without a serious strategy, and it was a colossal failure.

Nonetheless, I learned from those mistakes and am here to help you not make the same errors. Keep reading to discover everything you need to know to build a successful eCommerce launch strategy.

Before doing anything else, you need to understand the audience you’re trying to appeal to. Knowing your target audience will determine almost every part of your campaign, from your messaging to the channels you build up to your launch from.

You can perform market research in several ways. Here are some of the most common options.

Surveys

The best way to understand what your target market wants is to simply ask them. For this reason, conducting surveys can be very effective.

Ask about their most common problems and what would convince them to make a purchase. It’s also worth asking questions about buyer behavior, such as their preferred payment method and from which devices they like to buy items from.

Several tools, such as Typeform and SurveyMonkey, can be used to collect information. If you don’t want to do the manual work yourself, consider working with a research company.

Social Listening

Social listening involves observing what people say about a topic or brand on different platforms. This can reveal a lot of interesting information, such as sentiment and preferences.

Understanding what people say on social media is a great way to determine whether your products need iteration before launching. Moreover, you can customize your messaging to meet your audience’s needs.

You can leverage several social listening tools, such as Brandwatch and Hootsuite.

Soft-Launching Products

Getting direct feedback is arguably the best way to determine whether your products and store are ready for market launch. Offer free or discounted versions of your products to your target customers and ask them what they think you could improve.

Focus on just one small market and build from there. That way, you’ll better understand what you still need to do.

After doing your research, you’ll need to ensure you’ve got the basics right. By doing this, you’ll be ready for launch.

Build a User-Friendly and Secure Website

A secure and user-friendly website is the best thing you can do to attract and keep customers.Secure and fast hosting is crucial; keeping users safe is paramount since you’ll be dealing with sensitive information.

When looking for hosting, make sure that you get an SSL certificate. Sometimes, you can get a free domain for the first year, which can help you save money.

Ensure that your website is user-friendly, too. If you have a WordPress site, use WooCommerce themes optimized for mobile. It's also a good idea to understand effective types of web design.

Setting Up Your Payment Gateways

Choosing the right payment gateways is key to ensuring you’re ready for launch. Look at different gateways for international eCommerce if you’re operating across multiple markets, and ensure that they offer the payment methods your target customers want to use.

Adding Stripe to your WooCommerce store is also worth considering. Focus on both available payment methods and security options.

Once you’ve covered the basics, it’s time to start developing your eCommerce launch strategy. Set measurable goals before proceeding to the planning and implementation phases.

Below are the most important considerations, from choosing the right channels to building excitement with your audience.

Choosing Your Launch Channels

Knowing where you’ll promote your eCommerce store will make a huge difference in whether people see your brand. Once you’ve done your market research, you should know where your ideal audiences hang out.

Pick one of two platforms and invest your time and energy in growing those. If you don’t know where to start, consider trying and analyzing each one listed below.

• LinkedIn: Ideal for selling B2B products. If you’re a B2C store, you can add it later to focus on client relations – but it shouldn’t be your priority.

• TikTok: A good platform if your target audience is Gen Z. You should particularly look at TikTok if you sell fashion items or something related to art.

• Instagram: Ideal for millennials and Gen Z; it works especially well if you sell something visual. Posters, clothing, and fitness apparel are some examples.

• Pinterest: Similar audience to Instagram, but with more of a search focus. Pinterest is more for ideas rather than posting short-term content.

• Facebook: Ideal for a more general audience.

You can also look at Snapchat, WhatsApp, and other social media that might fit your audience.

Paid advertising is another key consideration. You can advertise on social media platforms, and many of them – such as Facebook – offer excellent segmentation tools. Focus on engaging copy and use different designs/prototypes to see what does and doesn’t work.

Offering Incentives

Content marketing as an eCommerce brand is very challenging if you’re starting from scratch and need to build up goodwill with your audience. Gaining trust and offering incentives are two superb ways to do this.

You can offer various incentives to build an audience and keep them engaged. For example, you might want to consider giving them an exclusive discount when they sign up for your newsletter. Other things you can do are:

• Offer priority access to new products

• Give subscribers a first look at anything you launch

• Discounts when customers refer you to someone else

The incentives you offer need to align with your brand and products. Get creative and think of unique ideas. Measure your eCommerce data and tweak it when required.

Building Excitement

You’ve almost certainly seen brands build excitement around events, products, and other new launches. The main reason why is that it’s arguably the most effective marketing tactic.

As humans, we often get more enjoyment from anticipation than actually doing. For example, preparing for and looking forward to an upcoming trip is typically more exciting than the actual trip itself. You can leverage this psychology to create an effective eCommerce launch strategy.

First and foremost, you should set clear launch timescales. Create a graphic telling users when they can expect your store to go live. Many social media tools let you pin your content, and you should do this for your initial launch post.

In the meantime, give snippets and teasers. Little by little, you should reveal more about your eCommerce store and its products. By the time the big day arrives, you should have people eager to spend their money with you. You can take photos of different parts of your products, such as a t-shirt sleeve, for example.

Leveraging fear of missing out (FOMO) can also be effective. Consider using elements like timers to tell users that your offers are only available for a limited time and to count down to your store launch.

Consider also partnering with influencers to try your products first and share their stuff on your channels. Others will likely also want exclusive access if they like what you have to offer.

Launching Your eCommerce Store

Make sure you know precisely what you’ll do on launch day. It’s worth checking your website servers and ensuring that they can handle the extra traffic you’ll get. Alongside that, you also need to check that all of your pages look as they should and that your inventory is ready.

Your launch post should be the culmination of everything you’ve previously posted. It’s great if it’s epic in and of itself, but you’ll often get more engagement if you’ve taken the time to build rapport with your audience.

It’s also worth thinking about building relationships in your industry. Ideally, others will share your posts with their followers; as a result, you’ll get more traffic.

Continuing the Momentum

Launching your eCommerce store is a huge step, but the work doesn’t stop on launch day. Keep the momentum going as long as you can afterward, and think in advance of ways to ensure that users stay engaged.

One way you can do this is by launching one product at a time. Doing so has the added benefit of simplifying your marketing messages. You can also offer discounts for an extended period.

Now that you’ve got a rough idea of what you need to do to launch your eCommerce store, keep this checklist handy.

• Get a secure hosting provider and website domain before building your website.

• Set up your website security and payment gateway providers.

• Perform audience research (e.g., social listening) to understand what your customers want.

• Set goals for your eCommerce website launch. How many sales do you want to generate, for example?

• Determine how you’ll distribute your products. Consider dropshipping if you don’t want to store inventory.

• Choose your platforms and start building a launch strategy.

• Publish consistently to build your followers.

• Launch your eCommerce store within a specified time frame.

• Iterate on your products over time.

Launching an eCommerce store is a comprehensive process that requires a lot of planning. Knowing what to focus on is essential for ensuring that you cover all bases and attract an audience that will continue buying from you over the long run. From setting up your website to choosing your social channels, you should now have a better understanding of what to do.