Step 5: Marketing Your Dropshipping Business with Everything You’ve Got
So at this point, you’ve found your product and built your store, now’s the time to market your dropshipping business like there’s no tomorrow. This is a crucial step in your dropshipping business plan. So don’t keep making tweaks to your store design
If you’re just starting out, you’re probably on that super tight budget. Some of my best marketing ideas have come from those super frugal moments. Here’s a few to get you started:
- Facebook Advertising: I know it can be tempting to blow $500 on Facebook ads. Many new entrepreneurs think you’ll make it rain money on your first try – you won’t. My first ad I spent $20 and lost all of it to no conversions. I actually cried from a failed ad. But truth is, I didn’t risk much. So I bounced back quickly and created a second ad which converted at five cents a click. You need to keep your budget low at the beginning to be able to afford experimentation. You don’t even know what your best selling product will be at this point. Create several ads to figure out which product sells best. When it comes to targeting, create a World ad but remove Canada, Australia, United States and U.K. this will keep your ad costs lower. As your business grows, or if you have a bigger budget, you can create separate ads for those four countries. So the United States will have its own ad, as will the remaining three.
- Retargeting Ads: If you’re really tight on budget, I really like retargeting ads because they keep the cost low. This ad works great if you have a store with tons of traffic. Maybe you’re marketing for free on Pinterest and getting a lot of traffic from there. Maybe you wrote a blog post on your website, featured influencers and now influencers are sharing your blog for free. With a retargeting ad, you take that free traffic and it’s a lot more likely to convert into a paying customer. Even better than a standard Facebook ad. Plus, it’s a lot cheaper. It’s actually how I got my first sale in only two days.
- Influencer Marketing: Starting a dropshipping business will require you be a bit scrappy in the beginning. If you can’t afford to pay influencers their rates, trust me this is a good thing, you can offer them an affiliate commission instead. Why is this a good thing? I learned the hard way that sometimes even a niche specific influencer doesn’t actually convert. It’s almost like a shot in the dark. If you pay an affiliate fee for every sale, you lower the risk for your dropshipping business and it’s up to the influencer to convert the sale. Plus, you’ll get some pictures which will help increase your social proof for your brand. If the influencer has real followers, they could potentially make a lot more money as an affiliate than they would’ve if they were paid a flat rate. Thus, giving them a chance to make even more money.
- Get free media coverage: Using the free HARO tool you can subscribe to a three times a day email list where reporters reach out to you to get stories for their article. Some may be looking for influencers in a specific niche others may be looking for product recommendations. Either way, if you’ve got that retargeting ad running, that free traffic back to your website could result in some sales. Instead of adding a link to your homepage ‘websitenamehere.com’ send it to a product collection or a specific product to create a more targeted focus. You can still add your brand’s name as the name for the hyperlink.