The landscape of business is digital today for more than two decades.
Now, the first step many businesses take in going digital is creating a professional business website. Sometimes also a mobile application. But that’s still less prevalent, even in 2024.
But with time, things keep improving. So, your digital business also requires more attention as well as attention to detail.
Hence, when your primary consideration is a good website, CMS platforms are an attractive way to go.
- You spend less.
- You get the final product in less time.
- You don’t need to code to use it.
So, it seems like the perfect path.
Yet, many fail to identify that simply existing on the World Wide Web isn’t enough. You also need people to know you’re here. You need exposure to audiences willing to invest. You need consumers to easily find their way to your brand from where they are.
All in all, you need marketing. Let’s discuss that in a bit more detail.
Why E-Commerce Needs Marketing
Marketing is the cornerstone of your organization’s branding.
The better you market yourself, the better your consumers see you, and so, the better their likelihood of investing in your offerings. So, whether you sell physical goods or timed solutions, marketing helps bring out the best image of your brand.
After all, as the late Jack Welch (former CEO/Chairman, General Electric) put it…
“Marketing is not anyone’s job… It’s everyone’s job!”
But what if you didn’t have marketing? Can’t you do without it?
I’m sure you must have considered that at some point.
The answer is yes.
There’s always a chance that your business might survive without spending a dime on marketing, digital or otherwise. But that chance is slim.
That’s because when you create your e-commerce store, most consumers don’t know about it. On top of that, even if they search your store by name it’s possible it may not show up on search result pages.
You’ll be lost in the digital noise with little to no consumers finding you.
Of course, digital marketing helps put the word out that your store’s here and people should buy from it.
And this is where the synergy between CMS and marketing helps you go big.
Using a suitable CMS platform, you can easily automate various marketing tasks for better reach and engagement.
Let’s talk about a few suitable platforms.
Marketing-Friendly CMS Options
Like all software, not all CMSs are built alike. The primary advantage of every CMS is that it offers you an easy no-code way to build attractive websites. But every platform also has its distinguishing characteristics.
- For instance, WordPress is focused on simple websites like blogs and portfolio sites.
- On the other hand, Shopify targets e-commerce businesses.
- Similarly, Magento targets large organizations that need complex security and business features.
But for most leading platforms, marketing isn’t a major selling point but an additional or optional feature. So, you can’t expect the best marketing results with every CMS out there.
However, there are a few options that can offer better digital marketing experiences for your business. So, let’s talk about those before we dissect the leading platforms.
HubSpot
HubSpot is without question the best CMS for marketing, e-commerce, or otherwise. It’s one of their major selling points.
So, if you don’t already have your website set up and your goal is effective audience reach and engagement, this is the best tool you can get.
The reason is that while other platforms, too, offer you a few marketing features here or there, HubSpot offers a complete hub for digital automation, strategy, and analysis.
Whether email marketing, SEO, social media, or web analytics (like conversion tracking), HubSpot serves as your all-in-one solution for all things digital marketing through its Marketing Hub. It’s quite comprehensive and helps you map out, track, improve, and analyze marketing strategies. In fact, it lets your entire marketing team collaborate for better results.
Plus, paired with their Sales Hub, you can efficiently synchronize your sales and marketing teams for joint efforts toward your business goals.
Squarespace
At some point, while browsing YouTube, I’m sure we’ve all had to hear things like,
“This video is sponsored by Squarespace”, or “This episode was brought to you by Squarespace”.
Yep, that Squarespace. A bunch of us already know that it helps you set up your online store due to their… *insert keyword: marketing.
Likewise, they also support your digital marketing efforts once you’ve created your store through ready-made integrations for search optimization, social media marketing, and email marketing.
Of course, this blog post was NOT sponsored by Squarespace. So, we’re not going to list out everything they offer. But you get the idea.
Wix
Wix is another marketing-friendly platform. So, you do get built-in tools with this CMS as well. The problem is that it offers less room for flexible marketing strategies. But it’s been around for some time and you can still use its built-in email marketing, SEO, and social media features.
But at the end of the day, it’s Wix. If it works for you, great. But if feels like it’s not all that, I would probably agree. It still earned a mention because it does offer a few built-in marketing options. But do with that information what you will.
Streamline Marketing Through CMS Extensions
There are many big names in the CMS market, even for e-commerce service providers. But as I mentioned earlier, most of them don’t offer any marketing functionalities out of the box.
Yet, on the plus side, there are always methods to enhance a CMS’s marketing capabilities for greater engagement with your audience. If you’re tech-savvy, you can implement any required changes by yourself. Otherwise, you can get a CMS website development company to do it for you.
Let’s explore some strategies for integrating marketing features into three popular CMS platforms:
WordPress
WordPress is the most popular CMS platform today. So, it would have been an insult to leave it out of this post.
Thus, as the leading platform, it offers thousands of marketing plugins for SEO, email marketing, lead generation, social media management, and more.
For instance, you can integrate Yoast SEO, Mailchimp for WordPress, OptinMonster, and MonsterInsights.
The best part? You can add these directly through the plugins section of your WordPress dashboard.
Shopify
Shopify is another one among the well-known options in e-commerce CMSs. So, if that’s the one you prefer, you can still find additions for your store.
The difference is that you can’t simply add things directly through your website. You instead need to go through the Shopify App Store to discover useful website add-ons.
To name a few, you can integrate the likes of Klaviyo, Smile.io, Privy, and Trustpilot for email marketing, loyalty programs, and social proof.
Magento (/Adobe Commerce)
No e-commerce platform list is complete without Magento, is it?
Of course, it’s no longer “Magento”, but instead Adobe Commerce. Old news? Yes. But I think it’s worth mentioning that they should have kept the old name. It had a nice ring to it.
Anyway… this too has a marketplace, now known as Commerce Marketplace instead of Magento Marketplace.
So, you can grab extensions like Mageplaza SEO Suite, MageWorx Abandoned Cart Email Reminder, and Amasty Social Connect to boost your digital growth efforts across SEO, content marketing, personalization, and social media marketing.
Use Third-Party Tools On The Side
You can not boot up everything on one e-commerce website. Some platforms can handle it well. But not every platform will. If you see that integrating a certain plugin, add-on, or extension increases your website’s loading speed, or diminishes the quality of the user experience in any other way… it’s not worth it.
But there is another way out. You can still use third-party tools separately to accelerate your digital reach and engagement results. For instance, you can opt for:
GA & GSC
GA (Google Analytics) helps you analyze your entire website traffic. Likewise, GSC (Google Search Console) helps you identify ranking issues. These are two of the best tools for your SEO needs.
MailChimp
If there’s a name in email marketing, it’s MailChimp. You can create fancy newsletters and manage multiple subscription lists with automated mail blasts. All that without breaking a sweat.
HootSuite
When it comes to social media growth and monitoring, you can easily rely on HootSuite. The tool allows you to easily manage your brand’s accounts, engagement, and online reputation for all platforms.
HubSpot
Yup, HubSpot again. It’s a CMS by itself too. But you can also invest in HubSpot’s Marketing Hub separately to gain all of the latest marketing and analytics tools. Mark my words. Your marketing team would love you for it.
Market On Your Terms
This was my input to help you gain online traction for your e-commerce store. But no one solution works for all. So, what brings results for others could differ from what might work better for you.
Ultimately, you’ll have to go through a bit of trial and error to see the method best suited to your business goals. So, get off your seat… and then sit back down, and get to work with consistent efforts for lasting returns.
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