I was reading a post on a subreddit the other day, and the user was asking how to grow their e-commerce business on a £3,000 p/m budget.
It sparked my interest because I’ve spent some time working in e-commerce, and It’s one of the fastest ways to generate money online simply because there is an evident exchange in value.
So, assuming you have logistics, customer service, operations and a validated product, let’s discuss how you can sell your product on a £3k p/m budget.
The first step in building a successful store on a budget is a high-functioning website. Many website builders are available to help you achieve aesthetic quality quickly. For example, Shopify has premade templates, built-in search engine optimisation (SEO), conversion rate optimisation (CRO), and payment facilities. You don’t have to be a technical expert to build a quality website.
Shopify
Shopify is a one-stop e-commerce solution built for small brands. It’s a standard for the industry and integrates with thousands of third-party apps—many of which you’ll need for your remaining budget.
When searching for a premade Shopify template, focus on the flexibility of the product page.
Conversion happens on the product page.
So, optimising your website around that page is a sensible idea.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
You can use free Shopify apps to improve your CRO without spending a fortune. I discuss some examples further down the letter, but here are a few more.
I try to avoid working with brands who haven’t invested in creatives. It’s an important piece of the digital marketing puzzle.
It’s your shop window, a representation of your brand and a customer’s first impression. In a physical environment, a user has the opportunity to touch and feel the product, but they don’t have that luxury online, which is why your visuals are important.
Good creatives contribute to a shorter buying cycle, more email addresses and more revenue, especially for e-commerce brands.
There are four types of creatives I’d invest into
Buy it right, or buy it twice.
A good chunk of your budget should go towards creating content for your ads and website.
Email marketing is one of the cheapest ways to generate sales online. I’ve seen active email lists generate millions for brands, but it requires an initial setup and a plan to grow your list. There are several ways to do this, and if you’re a practitioner, you only need to assign £50 p/m.
Email Flow sequence
With your website built, you’ll need a way to collect email addresses. The fastest way you can do this is with an abandoned cart sequence. (The process of sending reminder emails to users who’ve added to cart and abandoned it). With your email software, you can create a flow to send automated emails to your potential customers. These emails introduce your brand, so take time to create an engaging sequence. Focus on content and design. It’s where many brands need to catch up because they use the generic abandoned cart templates.
Pop Up
Another way to collect email addresses is to create a website popup with an incentive. These subscribers are early in their buying journey and more open to email communication. Segment this audience and create a sequence that correlates with their journey stage.
Landing pages
You want to collect email addresses easily, no matter what page a user lands on. Include a sign-up on the footer of your website, blog posts, about us sections, and landing pages. Use out-of-stock notifications apps to collect more data so you can inform your subscribers when products are back in stock.
Collecting email addresses is as important as selling the product, so build your website with this in mind.
The majority of your £3k budget will go towards paid advertising. Advertising will become easier with a well-designed site, email flow, and strong creatives. However, we need to identify the platforms that will give us the most conversions for our budget.
Here are two platforms I’d begin with
Traffic campaigns will collect email addresses as well.
Set up your campaigns with up to 10 different variations of creatives and start to analyse what’s working.
After a week or two, move your campaigns to broad conversion campaigns and let the algorithm do its thing. Avoid touching the campaigns for the remainder of the month.
The first month is a vital learning stage for your ads, so don’t worry if you don’t see any conversions for the first week or two. Eventually, sales will trickle in if you’ve followed the above steps. Your brand’s aim is to break even.
I discuss the next stages in detail in the advertiser’s playbook, which you can download here.
The goal is to gradually optimise your campaigns and creatives by adjusting the campaign budget by 10 to 20% in either direction and identifying high-performing ads using the following metrics.
And just like that, you have an operational Digital Marketing strategy on a 3k p/m budget.
I’ve used this exact process to grow several online brands, and it works every time. The only thing you’ll need to consider is your timeline. The larger your initial investment, the faster you’ll reach your revenue goals.
If just thinking about it is overwhelming, feel free to contact me to see how I can help.
I hope you all had a lovely weekend.
See you again on the 1st.
It sparked my interest because I’ve spent some time working in e-commerce, and It’s one of the fastest ways to generate money online simply because there is an evident exchange in value.
- The customer wants a product.
- The business sells the product.
So, assuming you have logistics, customer service, operations and a validated product, let’s discuss how you can sell your product on a £3k p/m budget.
Website
£500 (£2,500 Remaining)
The first step in building a successful store on a budget is a high-functioning website. Many website builders are available to help you achieve aesthetic quality quickly. For example, Shopify has premade templates, built-in search engine optimisation (SEO), conversion rate optimisation (CRO), and payment facilities. You don’t have to be a technical expert to build a quality website.
Shopify
Shopify is a one-stop e-commerce solution built for small brands. It’s a standard for the industry and integrates with thousands of third-party apps—many of which you’ll need for your remaining budget.
When searching for a premade Shopify template, focus on the flexibility of the product page.
Conversion happens on the product page.
So, optimising your website around that page is a sensible idea.
Conversion Rate Optimisation
You can use free Shopify apps to improve your CRO without spending a fortune. I discuss some examples further down the letter, but here are a few more.
- Back-in-stock notification – an app that notifies the users when an item is back in stock.
- SellUp – An upsell app that recommends additional related products to the user to increase your average order value.
- Judge.me – An app to build trust and boost sales with social proof.
Creatives
£1,000 (£1,500 Remaining)
I try to avoid working with brands who haven’t invested in creatives. It’s an important piece of the digital marketing puzzle.
It’s your shop window, a representation of your brand and a customer’s first impression. In a physical environment, a user has the opportunity to touch and feel the product, but they don’t have that luxury online, which is why your visuals are important.
Good creatives contribute to a shorter buying cycle, more email addresses and more revenue, especially for e-commerce brands.
There are four types of creatives I’d invest into
- Video
- User Generated Content (UGC)
- Lifestyle Images
- Product Photos
Buy it right, or buy it twice.
A good chunk of your budget should go towards creating content for your ads and website.
Email
£50 (£1,450 Remaining)
Email marketing is one of the cheapest ways to generate sales online. I’ve seen active email lists generate millions for brands, but it requires an initial setup and a plan to grow your list. There are several ways to do this, and if you’re a practitioner, you only need to assign £50 p/m.
Email Flow sequence
With your website built, you’ll need a way to collect email addresses. The fastest way you can do this is with an abandoned cart sequence. (The process of sending reminder emails to users who’ve added to cart and abandoned it). With your email software, you can create a flow to send automated emails to your potential customers. These emails introduce your brand, so take time to create an engaging sequence. Focus on content and design. It’s where many brands need to catch up because they use the generic abandoned cart templates.
Pop Up
Another way to collect email addresses is to create a website popup with an incentive. These subscribers are early in their buying journey and more open to email communication. Segment this audience and create a sequence that correlates with their journey stage.
Landing pages
You want to collect email addresses easily, no matter what page a user lands on. Include a sign-up on the footer of your website, blog posts, about us sections, and landing pages. Use out-of-stock notifications apps to collect more data so you can inform your subscribers when products are back in stock.
Collecting email addresses is as important as selling the product, so build your website with this in mind.
Digital Ads
£1,450 (£0.00 Remaining)
The majority of your £3k budget will go towards paid advertising. Advertising will become easier with a well-designed site, email flow, and strong creatives. However, we need to identify the platforms that will give us the most conversions for our budget.
Here are two platforms I’d begin with
- Meta – For reach and brand awareness
- Google – For retargeting
- £1000 for Meta
- £400 for Google
- Spend a bit of budget on traffic and reach campaigns for Meta.
- Invest some budget into branded keywords on Google.
Traffic campaigns will collect email addresses as well.
Set up your campaigns with up to 10 different variations of creatives and start to analyse what’s working.
After a week or two, move your campaigns to broad conversion campaigns and let the algorithm do its thing. Avoid touching the campaigns for the remainder of the month.
The first month is a vital learning stage for your ads, so don’t worry if you don’t see any conversions for the first week or two. Eventually, sales will trickle in if you’ve followed the above steps. Your brand’s aim is to break even.
Rinse and Repeat
I discuss the next stages in detail in the advertiser’s playbook, which you can download here.
The goal is to gradually optimise your campaigns and creatives by adjusting the campaign budget by 10 to 20% in either direction and identifying high-performing ads using the following metrics.
- Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)
- Cost Per Purchase
- Cost Per Add To Cart
- Outbound Click-through Rate
- Click Through Rate
- Cost Per Click
- Thumb Stop Ratio
And just like that, you have an operational Digital Marketing strategy on a 3k p/m budget.
I’ve used this exact process to grow several online brands, and it works every time. The only thing you’ll need to consider is your timeline. The larger your initial investment, the faster you’ll reach your revenue goals.
If just thinking about it is overwhelming, feel free to contact me to see how I can help.
I hope you all had a lovely weekend.
See you again on the 1st.