E-commerce has shifted towards digital advertising that ranges from social media campaigns, to online ads, to employing ORM and SEO techniques. More and more consumers are using e-commerce – in the U.S. and internationally – bringing you new opportunities to market to new audiences without a lot of extra expense. Last year marketing spend on digital ads reached record-breaking amounts (around $15 billion) and that amount is expected to grow. Users are increasingly browsing through shopping opportunities over mobile devices, even though typically they save the actual purchase for the desktop.

These are all good things for your business. However, they will affect your public relations strategies.

Because so many companies are switching over to e-commerce and digital advertising, users and consumers are having difficulties with navigating the vast amount of advertising content. Increasingly, companies need to intensely compete for attention with their content marketing. This means that those who are already implementing content marketing as a public relations solution will have to up their game, and those who have not gone this direction with their advertising yet will truly get lost in the shuffle. This makes it more necessary than ever to get on board with content marketing and to do it well, even on a local level.

In order to succeed with e-commerce marketing, you need to be proactive with your online reputation. The online presence of your company needs to look great right away as it makes its way into 2017. Get organized with all your digital assets, snag customer testimonials and product reviews, and start allocating more money towards this area of your marketing department. You have to keep up with the companies around you!

But don’t worry – you have an opportunity to get in and push your way to the top because many companies, while they are increasing spending on digital marketing, are not necessarily increasing their knowledge. If you educate yourself on this field of advertising, you can get ahead of the curb and make this a successful endeavor for your company.