Once your Shopify store design is set up and your products are added to your digital inventory, it’s time to launch. How you take your Shopify store live makes a huge difference in its success. An online store launch checklist can help you keep track of everything you need to do to bring visibility to your store and increase Shopify sales.
We’ve compiled this checklist to help you launch your online store and generate revenue within your first month of opening.
10 Step Checklist When Launching Your Online Store (Including Shopify Marketing Strategies)
1. Diversify with sales channels
You need to bring visibility to your brand and attract new audiences to check out your Shopify store and start browsing. You can do this by diversifying your sales channels and listing your products across different shopping platforms.
Shopify lets you list your brand’s products on different shopping platforms like Google Shopping, Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. By doing this, you can attract audiences who are already looking for your products without having to spend time on marketing.
2. Share on social media and build a community
A social media presence can help you appeal to new audiences and build a relationship with them. Set up and use social media profiles to share your story, build a narrative about your products, and create a personality for your brand.
Using Facebook and Instagram, you can share content in a few ways:
- Share pictures of your products.
- Show how it’s made.
- Put up small videos from behind the scenes.
- Give shoppers a look at your factories.
- Show how your product can be styled/ used.
For Pinterest, you need to give shoppers more ideas on how to use your products. Gather inspiration within boards, sharing in-context product images, and showing how they can be styled and used.
Social media marketing is one Shopify marketing strategy that you need in your arsenal to bring your brand to the forefront.
3. Let subscribed shoppers know via email
Many store owners add an email opt-in on their store pre-launch to let store visitors view their products and subscribe to learn about the store launch. If you set up such an email opt-in, you can send a compelling email to these subscribed shoppers.
Paint a picture of what your brand offers, let them know about your products, and successfully nudge them to come shop. You can also give these shoppers a special discount for having subscribed. This will help you successfully capture new sales.
4. Run brand awareness ads
If you have the budget, ads are a great way to build awareness about your brand. You can run brand awareness ads to let shoppers know more about your brand, what you sell, and what makes you special.
Many merchants create short videos using existing footage. Apps like Vimeo Make and Typito let you put your brand video together. With videos, you can engage your ad audience better. 64% of consumers make a purchase after watching branded social videos.
5. Partner with influencers
One of the best Shopify marketing strategies to build awareness for your brand is influencer marketing. Influencers make your brand more visible, showing off your products and bringing new audiences who will surely follow your brand and even shop from you.
Businesses earn $6.50 for every dollar spent on influencers with the top 13% earning $20 or even more.
Measuring your influencer marketing strategies can be a little tricky. Carro is a Shopify app that has been able to figure this out. The app lets you track the influencers you have partnered with and monitor the revenue they bring in, helping you successfully understand the ROI from each of your partnerships.
6. Provide personalized help to the first visitors
Your first few visitors are the most important. Ensure that you’re providing the best experience for them by enabling live chat. With live chat, you can provide personalized help to these shoppers and guide them to make the right purchasing decisions.
Apps like Tidio help you connect with your store visitors and help them with their queries. Tidio also has an automated response feature so that any common questions can be answered by the live chatbot, without requiring any manpower.
7. Show how your products work
With platforms like Instagram, you can connect with shoppers on a personal level. You can leverage this by going live on your social profile or collaborating with media accounts to share how your products work.
When hosting such virtual events, set up a giveaway to make audiences eager to tune in. By doing this, many audiences may attend your live event for the prize but will come away motivated to shop your products too.
Collaborating with media accounts looks more like digital PR. You can identify medium-sized social accounts that are in the same lines as you and partner with them to share your brand and your products. While this may be attached with a price tag, such a PR initiative is sure to help you gain the visibility you need.
8. Capture visitors with Facebook Messenger
When you launch your store, you need to capture subscribers so that you can easily market to them. This is where Facebook Messenger can help.
Facebook Messenger is one of the most powerful channels, with a readily available audience at your fingertips. By integrating Facebook Messenger on your Shopify store, you can capture your store visitors as subscribers and be able to send promotions to these shoppers.
You can enable Facebook Messenger as a marketing channel with Recart. The Shopify app lets you set up conversational flows that use automated conversations to promote your brand and products to your subscribed audience.
9. Re-engage visitors with retargeted ads
Oftentimes, shoppers visit your store only to abandon it mid-browse. Losing these visitors is a big blow, especially as a new business online. You need to be able to re-engage these visitors and bring them back.
Retargeted ads are the answer. You can set up retargeted ads on Facebook and Instagram to lure back past visitors to your Shopify store. These ads are proven to generate results, with retargeted ads seeing 10x clickthrough rate compared to a display ad.
To set up high-performing retargeted ads, you can install RetargetApp. The app allows you to find the right strategy and formula that you need to re-engage your past visitors and bring them back to shop from you.
When setting up these ads, consider using messaging that welcomes these visitors back for a purchase, even nudging them to shop with a sweet discount.
10. Install an analytics app to understand performance
Once you launch, you also need to understand what’s working well on your Shopify store and where you need to improve. An analytics tool can help you pinpoint where you’re losing visitors, which products are selling less, and which Shopify marketing strategies are bringing in more revenue.
Using RevTap, you can view your store’s performance within an integrated analytics dashboard. As a newly launched store, you can use this dashboard for 2 crucial things:
- See how customers flow through your store and which parts of your Shopify store they drop off. The checkout funnel can help you find the dropoffs points so that you can optimize them and increase engagement.
- Compare Shopify marketing strategies and understand which channel brings in more shoppers and revenue. This way, you can focus more on the winning marketing channel and look into optimizing low-performing ones.
Ready to launch your online store?
We hope this online store launch checklist helps you successfully bring visibility to your Shopify store, acquire new audiences, and start generating revenue.
When you launch your online store, it takes some time to generate revenue. This is why your short-term goals should not just be about getting revenue. Here are 3 goals to add to your list:
- Acquiring subscribers
- Building visibility
- Providing a positive shopping experience
Our team at XgenTech understands the importance of great shopping experience. We’ve worked with merchants across the globe to set up a Shopify store design that is optimized to sell more.
Reach out to us on info@xgentech.net and we’ll help you set up your Shopify store design!
