I know this kinda deviates from what everyone says, but here's what I've learnt about ecom traffic: have a plan. I'm focusing exclusively on AdWords and SEO, and these work out great.
The best way to market anything really is to go to your customers and give them information. There are a few ways of doing this, the one i use a lot is Reddit. By going into the relevant Subreddit and looking for guys that are asking for the things you are selling(in my case, webhosting), and then engage them either publicly or privately, give them discounts and be a general nice guy, Don't piss of the mods by spamming though, it does not work. Adwords can be helpful if you are selling something very specific, but for broad terms I would avoid it as i believe it will have a low conversion rate, although it depends on the product you are selling.
Funny how some people always tell you that you can never make it just because they can't. "You can NEVER make a living depending on SEO!" "Affiliate marketing is dead!" "PPC sucks!" Just because they suck at it they want you to be the same as them, if you succeed it shows that they are dumb, and they cannot have that. I had a look at your website. It's a good idea and I think you win hands down when it comes to prices. I am surprised that you have PR3 too! Can be hard to advertise when you're selling this cheap, how much do you have to pay to earn $1.98 selling 2 books? There is no easy way out and there the cap is low which I think you already figured out by now. Many a times it can be more profitable selling that one book if you do it right. Also you may want to work on your website and possibly purchase a premium template instead of using free one, it looks way too shady the way it is no matter how you look at it.
Learn new techniques from different social networking sites that you have and start promoting it to your customers. Engage with them and ask your target market some hint on what products or services really attract them, but take note focus on your target market, don't change just because they told you so. Have a unique way of persuading them while connecting to their needs. Give your customers what you have, because somewhere someone needs the products and services that you offer.
Here's what I did when I had an ecommerce business, which worked very well. Depending upon your niche, contact your manufacturers or distributors to see if they would link to your site as one of their resellers. This works especially well for smaller vendors. Contact fan clubs or organizations (ie for sports-related ecommerce site) that may have an interest and ask for a link. You could establish a nice relationship with them with discounts, etc, so you are their preferred vendor, so to speak. Let's say there is a really popular forum for your niche, ask to advertise on that site. Establish relationships with 'authority figures', who could be well-liked personality, who could talk up your store. The most important is to take really good care of your customers. Include a quick hand-written note on the packing slip thanking them for buying from you, wishing them good luck, etc. Always over-deliver on a purchase from a customer. I got a lot of repeat business and via word-of-mouth, a lot of family and friends of my original customers.
Use Affiliate marketing for advertise your eCommerce site. Use Google Ad words Marketing and Banner marketing. This marketing strategies is costly but give a instance result. Do SEO for your site but it give long time result for your site. M-Connect Media an eCommerce Development Company
"There are many ways to drive qualified traffic to your e-commerce website. Some good choices are: email marketing, Facebook FB +0.21% Ads, Google Adwords, LinkedIn LNKD -1.66% Ads, StumbleUpon’s Paid Discovery, Reddit’s Ads, Google Merchant, Yahoo YHOO +3.8% Ads, etc."
The best way would be paid ads but if you are interested in actual sales, than the best way would be to submit your product feed to price comparison engines such as bing shopping, google products, thefind.com, etc, as they drive massive amounts of sales. To learn more about this technique and to see a long list of price comparison websites, go read the "ABC of Ecommerce and Dropshipping Success" ebok, from http://www.abc-of-ecommerce.com where on chapter 2 or 3 they explain this in detail.
As everyone is saying about online marketing which is best for a e commerce site but beside this you also have to try something different. The thing you have to do is 1st identify the target market then do some local marketing/advertising. It depends on you which media you will use. Like I have used sticker and leaflet to advertise my site locally and I got the response as well, beside I kept posting on Facebook and this technique is going well.
I would prefer some features integrated in the site along with the online and local marketing campaign, such as comparison with different brands, availability, and as much diverse category of products with a strong search capabilities. Now a days, mostly people are emphasizing more on the marketing campaigns rather than furnishing/completing the site. No matter how much traffic you get, its worthless if your features are not effective enough.
5 ways advertise of e-commerce website :- 1. PPC (Pay Per Click ) 2. Banner advertising 3 . Paid reviews by blogger 4. Affiliate program 5 . Contests
One of the highly efficient ways to market an eCommerce website is to create a presence on the social networking websites. You will surely find your target audience there. The most important aspect is posting updates constantly.
I agree with miles, the new way of marketing as i see it is to be in social media. alot of discussions goes away from regular websites to social media sites. Me personally I go more with content marketing and establish some trust within my field. Try to be on all relevant places where my customers are and push the articles that I put my money in. Then I slowly build recognition and trust. The returning and loyal customer is what you should look for!
1) Create a product specific squeeze page 2) Utilize Facebook ads & Google adwords to get targeted users to view your product. Or 3) Advertise your product on FORUMS (example, DP) Now it all depends on how eye catchy your Squeeze page / Product turns out to be. There are thousands of online sellers who have wonderful products but are never able to make a buck, make sure you are not one of them. Before going ahead with this I would suggest you to work on the following : 1) Available resources 2) Sources from where target users can get attracted 3) How cost effective these ways would be 4) How soon will you be able to see $$ 5) Plan a ad campaign appropriately People out there spend soo much money on Marketing strategist. In case you dont have the budget, then learn how to plan a ad campaign before hand. Act Wisely!
Hey my success story, I set up a tablet sales site selling china version android tablets, like you said adwords cost me way to much, I managed to make some sales through free ad listing sites such as usfreeads, but then i spoke to someone who also sells online and mentioned they have used leaflet distribution for there sales, so i looked into it myself and released how efficient it can be, its fairly cheap and works i have tested this, I run adwords for 6 months and spent just under £20K! I purchased 120,000 Leaflet distribution for £4200 over a 6 month period, The results we're very surprising, My Google campaign brought in £27,500 oh which £7,500 Was profit, The leaflets that were distributed worked so well! I made over £32,000 <-- That is MORE Then google's profit and even better it cost me less to get! I used www.watfordleaflets.co.uk The staff are very nice and helped me design a really cool leaflet with some social icons on for maximum effect!