The world of ecommerce is constantly evolving, and small businesses (SMBs) need to be able to adapt to stay competitive. One of the most important aspects of any SMB's marketing strategy is to be cost-effective. With limited resources, it's important to make sure that every marketing dollar is spent wisely.

This guide will provide you with some tips on how to build cost-effective ecommerce marketing strategies for SMBs. We'll cover a couple of topics from the list:

1. Email Marketing - Automate emails to reach and engage customers with promotions, updates, and offers.
2. SEO - Optimising your website for search engines to reach you organically and increase visibility. 
3. Content Marketing - Creating valuable and shareable content (blogs, posts, videos, etc.)
4. Referral Marketing - Offering incentives to existing customers 

Other ways might include more of a marketing budget expense BUT are proven to work when executed correctly: 

1. Social Media Marketing - Utilizing social media platforms to reach potential customers to increase sales. 
2. Paid Advertising -  Reaching a wider audience using paid advertising options (Google & Social Media) 
3. Affiliate Marketing - Partnering with affiliates to promote your products and giving them a commission on their sales.
4. Influencer Marketing - Engaging influencers to share about your product and brand across social media platforms. 

Influencer Marketing

Emilie Appleyard, Community and PR Specialist from FifthCor, shared that a sure-win strategy to return the investment for ecommerce brands is by partnering up with micro and nano-level influencers for user-generated content. 

Micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates than macro-level influencers with an average engagement rate of 6%. They also tend to have a more niche audience, which is great for brands looking to effectively target a specific demographic. Smaller influencers are often more affordable to partner with and typically more hands-on in the creative process as well. 

Once they’ve found micro-influencers that the company feels align with their brand, they can ask them to create UGC showcasing their product. UGC is beneficial for many reasons, one of the biggest being that it can add credibility to your brand—it is seen as more authentic and unbiased than content created by the brand. UGC is also a cost-effective marketing strategy because brands do not have to invest the time and money that goes into creating content, the content is being made for you. 

Fifth & Cor successfully partnered with an Italian hair care company expanding to the U.S., with a micro-influencer to create UGC for TikTok. Within the first 24 hours of posting the TikTok video, the brand saw $15k in revenue. One of the reasons the UGC performed so well is that the micro-influencer we chose to work with, was already a massive fan and organic consumer of the hair care brand. It made sense to her audience that she was talking more about the brand, and they trusted her opinions. Before the UGC was made, the strategy for this campaign included capturing trending hairstyle photos and videos and establishing a dedicated community through proactive outreach and community management. Once UGC was created, it was leveraged across all media channels for the brand. 

Working with micro-influencers and UGC creators can also benefit your site's SEO as it can increase the number of backlinks, and social shares and improve the time users spend on your website. Along with this, UGC allows for more product feedback. This can help your company identify areas for improvement which will increase customer satisfaction and ultimately lead to more sales.

Referral Marketing

Ultan O'Callaghan, Head of Growth at Thooja mentioned that in 2022, they onboarded a sustainable coffee brand struggling to attract new customers, despite investing significant resources into paid ads. The good thing was that said brand had strong customer loyalty with a lot of repeat business, which gave the Thooja team the confidence to set up a referral and loyalty program using ReferralCandy. 

Customers could refer friends and family members to try the brand’s coffee with 15% off their first order. Referring customers would get 10% off their next order, and after three successful referrals, they’ll receive a free bag of ground coffee. 

The best part? The only cost for the brand was the price of the referral platform subscription. 

The Director of Marketing of the coffee brand said, “Previously, we relied heavily on non-owned channels such as Instagram Ads, limiting our growth and making our CAC high. We changed our approach to investing in a referral program, and it’s paid huge dividends for our business.“ 

Now, whenever the Thooja team onboards a new ecommerce brand, here’s what they do. If the average customer places at least two orders within 120 days, they’ll set up a referral and loyalty program for them.

Website Optimization

In a marketing environment where everyone is trying to do more with less, it makes sense for brands to start with the key resource already available to them: their website.

“A well-designed website, with lead generation, lead nurturing, and lead conversion strategies built-in is a must for small to medium-sized ecommerce businesses. You also need to automate as much of this as possible, to minimize the amount of time you spend answering the same old questions over and over again, whether it is in person, by phone, or email.” Terry Chadban, Online Marketing Manager at Port Macquarie Online Marketing

Specifically, you should put time and energy toward conversion rate optimization.

Rather than expanding to untested channels and platforms, brands should first improve the performance of their existing marketing efforts by focusing on the site visitors they already have. By auditing their site, implementing ecommerce best practices, and A/B testing site changes, companies can easily increase conversion rate and average order value, directly driving more revenue for their brand.

Kate Miller, Content Marketing Manager at Inflow shared that conversion rate optimization is the marketing effort with the highest ROI for their ecommerce brands. 

In fact, for one brand that first engaged with them in mid-2022, investing in a monthly conversion rate optimization program led to an estimated 20.1% test conversion rate lift and a 99x expected annual ROI (and that’s just in the first six months of testing!).

For context, the brand sells a high-order-value product with thousands of SKUs. Based on initial research and analysis from Inflow’s conversion rate optimization experts, the client received a 70+ page document detailing exactly which changes to make to the site right away and which future elements needed to be A/B tested to ensure they improved conversion.

Within six months after their program started, the ecommerce brand not only saw immediate lifts in conversions and revenue from their first round of site changes, but they also saw a 90% win rate for all A/B tests run (vastly outperforming the 60% industry average). 

Some notable wins during this time included:

1. Optimized Navigation

By updating their navigation based on user research findings, the ecommerce brand saw an 8.6% test lift, resulting in a conservatively estimated $619,736 lift (annualized) to revenue.

Specifically, the Inflow team optimized the order and visual presence of navigation items to match how users wanted to navigate the store (see a similar test example below).

2. Optimized Product Detail Page

By combining user testing, competitive analysis, and industry findings, the Inflow team was able to create a test version of a Product Detail Page that lifted conversion rates by 10.1%, resulting in a conservatively estimated $1,360,726 lift (annualized) to revenue.

In this test, they moved, merged, and adjusted the copy on text and benefit statements to address customer pain points in a better way (see similar test example below). 

3. Optimized Product Listing Page Facets

After collecting and analyzing the ecommerce brand’s data on user behavior related to filtering, the Inflow team created an optimized facet configuration for the client’s Product Listing Page (see test example below).

The new test version beat the control by 7.4%, resulting in a conservatively estimated $525,429 lift (annualized) to revenue.

“In our experience, many ecommerce brands are already advertising in the right spots—they just need a budget to perform better. A Conversion rate optimization engagement can be the perfect way to improve return on all of your investments, by delivering more revenue for your site (and, by extension, for use in your marketing efforts).” 

Jason Ciment, CEO of Get Visible also shared with us that most ecommerce sites face similar pain points: not enough quality traffic, poor conversions, and overall low return on digital marketing investments. That’s when his team took to the stage to help redesign and re-platform websites and overhaul existing marketing strategies for the brands that have approached them.

Conversion rate optimization programs can be long-term testing commitments or a la carte audits. No matter which option businesses choose, as long as they work with the right experts, the return on investment makes this effort well worth it, even for small and medium-sized companies.

Before you go

It is now easier than ever before to start an ecommerce business, which also means more competition. Being ahead of your competitors is not only important, but it is also essential to survival.

“There is no "magic" recipe for marketing that applies to every brand, however, the most basic thing of marketing is to deeply know your audience and provide a product/service that fulfills their needs,” shares Luján De Felice, Marketing Executive at Mo Works.

What are the best Shopify themes available?

We're always hearing from retailers and experts that getting the right theme for your store is one of the most important things you can do. Besides, there are some truly beautiful ecommerce websites out there that leave a great impression.

A good Shopify theme could make the difference between having your store be professional or frumpy, stylish or sluggish. It can literally make or break your online store.

Here are some of our favorites.

(NOTE: If you're interested in setting up a referral program for your Shopify store, try ReferralCandy free here, or perhaps your new domain needs a bit of optimizing, if so, check out our post on the best ecommerce tools for new ecommerce stores).

What are the best Shopify Themes for your ecommerce website?

(Last updated: 21 June 2023!)

1. Taiga

Pricing: $350

Reviews: 7

Rating: 5/5

Taiga is a premium 2.0 Shopify theme for brands that value visual freedom and high performance, available in the official Shopify theme store. Taiga delivers lightning-fast speed and an exceptional browsing experience. Taiga has modern sections eg. a countdown timer or featured look and 10+ sections to use video content. Its modular codebase allows for effortless customization without compromising stability. Taiga is featured by the well-known D2C brand Daniel Wellington and a fast-growing apparel brand Almada Label. Taiga is developed by Woolman, an award-winning Shopify Plus agency.

2. Dawn

Shopify's very own free theme topping the charts in their theme store. Dawn serves as a chic and minimalist design so that products take center stage with large imagery, crisp lines, and simplified fonts that keep buyer attention focused on what matters. The best part is that Shopify constantly rolls out updates so you never have to worry about compatibility!

3. Kalles

Pricing: $89

Reviews: 889

Rating: 4.99

Kalles is a Shopify theme that allows brands to build a robust online store that provides a smooth and seamless shopping experience for their consumers. Kalles is built for a variety of various online businesses, with a modern design, minimalist feel, and a variety of specific demonstrations. Display products in a stylish manner and make it simple for consumers to explore, choose, and buy.

4. Blum

Pricing: $290

Blum is a modern and minimalist Shopify theme designed for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle stores. It has an elegant design that showcases products in a professional and appealing way. If you're looking for a clean and modern Shopify theme that's easy to customize and has excellent support, Blum may be a great choice for your store.

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5. Gecko

Pricing: $99

Reviews: 653

Rating: 4.99

Gecko is Shopify theme that is jam-packed with incredible features, and with endless options, and unmatched versatility, easily create a store that suits the needs of your business, is in line with the brand, and exceeds expectations in a matter of clicks.

6. WOKIEE Shopify 2.0

Pricing: $89

Reviews: 434

Rating: 5.00

WOKIEE Shopify 2.0 Theme is more than the usual theme. This is a powerful ecommerce solution. Updated for Shopify 2.0 CMS, optimized with good performance. There are a lot of predefined skins/layouts for your specific requirements—86+ homepage layouts with predefined structures for your specific needs, six product page variants, seven collection page variants, and more.

7. Fastor

Pricing: $56

Reviews: 1,600

Rating: 4.88

Also updated for Online Store 2.0, Fastor allows for better website performance even with more features. Sections can be added to all pages, not just the homepage, unlocking a range of new opportunities to personalize every aspect of your store.

8. Shella

Pricing: $59

Reviews: 216

Rating: 4.98

Shella is a responsive, fashion Shopify theme. It supports Shopify's Online Store 2.0 and has over 99 pre-designed pages for ecommerce operators to choose from.

(RELATED: Need help with marketing your Shopify store? Check out our Shopify marketing guide.)

9. Porto

Pricing: $99

Reviews: 255

Rating: 4.82

Porto is a powerful package that has everything you need for your Shopify store. It has all the required tools and features to create a super fast and responsive website with an amazing UI and UX experience. The theme boasts over 20 niche demos & layouts and styles that allow you to create your own modern Shopify store.

10. Ella

Pricing: $89

Reviews: 717

Rating: 4.82

ELLA is an all-in-one Shopify template supporting Online Store 2.0 with multiple layouts and styles that allows you to create different structures and any specific requirements as well as provide you with numerous varying themes for different kinds of business. This theme has over 22 homepage and skin layouts, more than nine stunning shopping pages, product pages, and styles of headers and footers.

11. Paper

Pricing: $240

Paper is an effortlessly beautiful and fully customizable Shopify Theme. It’s great for helping you show off your products in an easy-to-use and just seriously good-looking design. The theme is built with conversion rate optimization in mind - Paper comes with plenty of promotional sections to get your customers to checkout with ease.

12. Avone

Pricing: $79

Reviews: 401

Rating: 5.00

Avone is a fully responsive and powerful theme that is compatible with Shopify's Online Store 2.0 update. Avone features over 1000 theme options with over 28 stunning homepage designs and functionalities, making it the most customizable theme in the market. Avone is a favorite among industry professionals and experienced merchants.

13. Refresh

Pricing: Free

Refresh is another free Shopify theme with a clean and modern design. The segments emphasize product details where brands can share testimonials, ingredients, quality information, special certifications, and more with adaptive section layouts.

14. Paper

Pricing: $240

Paper is an effortlessly beautiful and fully customizable Shopify Theme. It’s great for helping you show off your products in an easy-to-use and just seriously good-looking design. The theme is built with conversion rate optimization in mind - Paper comes with plenty of promotional sections to get your customers to checkout with ease.

15. Electro

Pricing: $89

Reviews: 219

Rating: 4.89

Electro is a clean, modern, user-friendly, responsive, and functional Shopify theme with a vertical menu. It is compatible with Shopify's Online Store 2.0 update! 

(RELATED: Get inspired to succeed with your Shopify store by reading these Shopify success stories.)

16. Retina‍

Pricing: $210

Retina features beautiful testimonial sections, featured product callouts, and other features that help build brand trust. The theme also has a user-friendly editing experience and simple layout options making creating a professional-looking store as simple as possible.

17. Icon

Pricing: $240

Icon is a Shopify theme that allows merchants to promote products within products with meta fields to drive upsells, highlight complimenting products and increase the average order value. It also allows for increased product visibility with built-in Online Store 2.0 filtering with color swatches. Customers can break down large collections into manageable sizes.

18. Minimog

Pricing: $79

Reviews: 269

Rating: 4.99

Minimog is created with the most modern and sophisticated design and catered to a number of popular niches like Clothing & Fashion, Food & Drink Pet, Home & Garden, Health & Beauty. It also comes with a Shopify app—FoxKit, which is packed with a bunch of free and integrated ecommerce tools such as Variant Group Images, Countdown Tools, Lucky Wheel, In-cart Suggestions, Chat Bot, and many more, to help your business boost conversions and maximize profit.

19. Kala

Pricing: $69

Reviews: 176

Rating: 4.88

KALA is a multi-purpose theme with responsive design and UI/UX mobile-friendly. Its UI/UX design on mobile is optimized and perfectly suitable for shopping on smartphones or tablets. This Shopify theme provides 70+ unique designed sections and product sections that merchants can easily mix and configure to build their own unique store.

20. Boundless

Pricing: Free

Want to showcase your beautiful product photos on your homepage? Boundless is a minimalist theme that puts your photography front and center so you can show off your best products.

21. Venture

Pricing: Free

Running a Shopify store with a huge number of products? Check out Venture.

22. Empire

Pricing: $300

Reviews: 281

Rating: 75% positive

Designed and supported by Pixel Union, Empire is a theme meant for marketplaces. Perfect for large catalogs, this Shopify theme's visually appealing marketplace-inspired design is equipped to optimize large product catalogs for maximum conversions.

23. Parallax

Pricing: $220

Parallax is a Shopify theme that allows your user to check out your store using a parallax scrolling effect. It also provides an easy shopping experience with features like a slideout cart, quick shop, promotional banners, and sticky dropdown navigation so that customers cart out faster.

24. Motion

Pricing: $320

If animation and videos are required to bring out the best in your store's products, then consider Motion. Every part of the store can smoothly animate into view, capturing customers' attention and conveying a premium look and feel.

25. Fashionopolism

Pricing: $250

As its name suggests, Fashionopolism is a sophisticated style for stores with impactful imagery and multiple collections.

26. Basel

Pricing: $59

Reviews: 256

Rating: 4.71

Basel is a minimalist AJAX responsive Shopify theme that allows you to use a drag-and-drop page builder to set up your store. It comes with many header variations that can be used on the website. Customization can also be done while using the header layout in addition to the options related to colors and backgrounds.

27. Minion

Pricing: $250

The Minion Shopify theme is compatible with Shopify 2.0. It is ideal for the pet industry with flexible features to fit more niches. This Shopify theme is great especially for ecommerce brands in the following categories: Pet Supplies, Baby and kids, Books, Music, and Video, Clothing, Electronics, dropshippers and high-volume stores. The theme provides versatile customizability with 24 sections and 3 different menu types to choose from and flexible design settings and customization options to achieve your professional look for your store. There's also a variety of predefined skins and layouts. It minimizes the resources required for building a powerful website.

28. Optimal

Pricing: $79

Reviews: 36

Rating: 5.00

Optimal is the best multipurpose Shopify theme that you have ever seen which offers an exciting stylish design and exclusive features. Optimal is compatible with online store 2.0. This theme can be a perfect fit for anyone looking for a clean, user-friendly, high-performance website. Optimal is loaded with all the tools you need: speed, performance, flexible sections, predictive search, SEO, advanced product filters, and much more. Optimal design is suitable for all Shopify stores including Clothing, Fashion, Food, Health, Pets, Tools, and many more.

29. Tailor

Pricing: $310

Reviews: 3

Rating: 100% positive

Tailor-made for fashion brands with a story to tell. Includes shop the look, image banner, and more dynamic sections.

30. Editions

Pricing: $180

Reviews: 67

Rating: 93% positive

Editions is a simple, spacious theme with a focus on featured products. Editorial-style sections and templates to showcase your brand messaging in style.

The best Shopify templates for you to choose from

Choosing a good theme is critical to the success of your Shopify store.

Look through these popular themes, and carefully consider whether it fits the needs of your brand and products. Some of them are more suited for certain niches (like fashion or gadgets), while some are better suited for larger catalogs and marketplaces.

Make sure you select the Shopify theme that fits your store like a glove—not one that simply "looks good".

And remember, an aesthetically pleasing or ergonomic theme isn't the only marketing strategy you can use to increase your domain's conversion rates.

A good marketing strategy is a great place to start or, if you wish to hear from the pros, check out our post on the best ecommerce podcasts.

Now that your theme is in place, why not find the best apps and strategies to grow your Shopify Store in our Ultimate Shopify Marketing Resource.

Or start bringing traffic to your store using the strategies in our Step-By-Step Shopify SEO Guide.

Here are more articles we think might be insightful for you: 

• 48 Best Ecommerce Web Designs To Inspire You
• 52 Shopify Websites That Are Killing It (And Look Good Too)
• How to Select the Right Shopify Theme (And Where to Find Great Themes)
• How To Setup A Referral Program For Your Shopify Store
  

Marketing strategies have become increasingly complex and diverse in today's rapidly evolving digital landscape. Businesses must use a variety of marketing channels and strategies as they work to communicate effectively with their target audience and find ways to reduce shopping cart abandonment. The words multi-channel, cross-channel, and omnichannel marketing are frequently used when discussing contemporary marketing strategies. Despite the superficial similarity of these names, they refer to various methods that differ in approach, scope, and customer experience.

Businesses looking to expand their reach and establish a smooth customer journey across several touchpoints must comprehend the distinctions between these marketing strategies. This article examines the divergent features of multi-channel, cross-channel, and omnichannel marketing, highlighting how they influence customer interactions and promote success.

Multi-Channel Marketing

Multi-channel marketing is the process through which businesses engage with customers via various channels to sell products and services. Companies either utilize direct channels, like physical spots, catalogs, and direct mail, or indirect channels.

Mobile devices, text messaging, email, corporate websites, social media, search engine optimization, or GPS to track clients' proximity to goods and services are additional ways to contact customers using multi-channel marketing. To reach customers through their preferred channel, multi-channel marketing integrates the techniques of inbound and outbound marketing.

Cross-Channel Marketing

Cross-channel marketing makes use of several channels, just like multi-channel marketing. The media being connected makes a difference. Information is transferred throughout the channels, and records of customer interactions are kept. So customers may easily travel between channels when they begin their relationship with your company.

Despite being interconnected and communicating information, channels continue to function independently. This gives stores a clear perspective of their consumers. However, improved accessibility and communication are required to establish an integrated consumer experience.

For example, the skincare brand Blume has an online store, Instagram, and Facebook shop. Yet you can’t buy products directly from social media. Each product cart has a CTA button encouraging users to go to the website to purchase one of the items.

Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing takes the concept of cross-channel marketing a step further by integrating all channels into a unified and seamless experience. Omnichannel marketing is the most advanced strategy since it combines all channels to provide customers with a consistent experience across all touchpoints and devices.

Buyers frequently employ a few touchpoints and alternate between them. For instance, people search for goods online and make purchases offline. As a result, omnichannel marketing aims to streamline and customize the purchase process. To achieve this goal, a brand must connect its offline and online business divisions.

A company may streamline all phases of the purchase process and save the history of communications and sales by utilizing cutting-edge technologies. In other words, a record of every consumer action, including ordering, paying, receiving, returning, and getting customer service, is kept.

For instance, a store of outdoor clothing Patagonia provides online store visitors with information on inventory availability. When you go to a product card, you can also check the item's availability in offline stores nearby.

Multi-Channel vs. Cross-Channel vs. Omnichannel: Key Distinctions

Let's look at the key distinctions between multi-channel, cross-channel, and omnichannel marketing to help make the contrast vivid.

Main Goal

Utilizing as many channels as possible is the core goal of multi-channel marketing. Spreading the brand's messages to reach a large audience and identify potential touch points is of utmost importance.

In a cross-channel strategy, the goal is to make sure that clients may switch between channels without experiencing any interruptions or information loss. Customers should be able to start an engagement on one channel and easily carry it over to another to deliver a seamless experience.

The effectiveness of each contact is the main emphasis of omnichannel marketing. The ultimate objective is to integrate the media and ensure cross-media data interchange. This way, it's easier to have a detailed view of each customer's actions, past purchases, and potential requirements.

Consistency

Every channel is maintained individually and independently in a multi-channel strategy. Due to the nature of this method, there may even be variations in the tone of voice between channels. Customers typically repeat their actions since representatives of each new medium are frequently unaware of one's inquiry.

Cross-channel marketing aims to engage clients across many channels and spread consistent messaging, yet it frequently falls short of providing a streamlined and integrated experience. Each channel runs independently and may have its own goals, tactics, and measurements in cross-channel marketing. Although maintaining consistent messaging and branding across channels is the primary objective, the consumer experience may change when they switch between channels.‍

Omnichannel marketing adopts a more comprehensive strategy by attempting to deliver a smooth and uniform user experience across all channels. It strongly emphasizes combining several channels to provide clients with a seamless experience. Greater knowledge of consumer behavior and preferences is made possible by the interconnection and sharing of data and insights throughout channels.

Relationship with the Clients

Multi-channel encourages and engages in a particular moment. Instead of offering consumers specialized care and assistance and fostering long-term client relationships, it aims to get them to act right now.

Long-term connections are the subject of both cross- and omnichannel. But since there is a lack of consistency, cross-channel frequently fails to deliver a positive long-term experience. Omnichannel, in its turn, creates the framework for lasting partnerships. Providing a tailored client experience both online and offline is made possible by gathering data, storing it, and then evaluating the search and purchase history.

Which Strategy to Choose for Your Business

The multi-channel strategy is already standard practice for businesses. It may provide clients with a satisfactory purchasing experience if properly installed and maintained.

One of its most appealing qualities is that building such infrastructure is quite simple and inexpensive. A multi-channel strategy may be the best course of action for new ecommerce businesses, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and local ones. 

Cross-channel marketing enables one to create a presence across several channels without requiring intensive synchronization or integration. Through various affordable platforms, including social media, email marketing, and targeted email advertising, it helps businesses interact with their target audience. All these factors make cross-channel marketing perfect for small and medium-sized enterprises.

Omnichannel mainly entails integrating your online business with all other digital channels you employ to create a seamless client experience. It calls for a lot of work and practical, often pricey technical solutions. This transition affects all business operations, including social media, support and development teams, analytics, and logistics. So the transition to omnichannel is more feasible and cost-effective for larger companies.