The simple fact is that the more people you have visiting on the website, the more you are likely to sell with your ecommerce business. So, how can you ensure you have a lot of people visiting your website? The easiest way to up your visitor numbers is by adding more content to your site. Content marketing is one of the easiest and the most effective ways you can ensure people find themselves looking at your website and making purchases on your online store.
But not all content is alike. Some content is not necessarily the right type when it comes to boosting your ecommerce business. Indeed, your content needs to have the ability to increase sales by creating a link between what you are trying to sell and the content you are offering. You can’t just add random videos on your site – everything needs to make the visitor feel like your products or services are worth the purchase.
So, let’s look at the ways in which you can boost your ecommerce business by using the right content marketing.
Set goals for your content marketing
It’s a good idea to start by setting goals to your content marketing strategy. Why does this matter? Without goals, you can’t really quantify whether your ecommerce business is benefiting from content marketing or not. This means you don’t know if you’re wasting money and time using this strategy.
You need to set clear goals and define what success looks like. Identify the objectives you want to achieve, as well as the conditions under which you deem this strategy to have failed. Be as specific as possible and never choose goals that aren’t tangible. Setting a goal that is simple “to sell more” doesn’t give you the ability to measure whether you’ve achieved it or not. Selling more can mean anything from making a single extra sale to making a thousand. As well as being able to measure the goals, you can also set objectives for weekly, monthly and annual goals. Stick to your goals for at least six months and remember to measure how well you are doing – if you change content marketing strategies, remember to keep an eye out for the impact they have on your sales.
Know your audience
You must then shift your attention to knowing your audience. It’s important to know what kind of content your ecommerce visitors would value – what are the types of content that not only interest them but also provide them with benefits? For example, your visitors might find introductory videos a beneficial feature that makes it easier to purchase your product. They might also love to read more about the technical aspects of using the products – perhaps they are business customers who can take advantage of information like this.
Whatever the findings of your market research, the key is to conduct it as soon as possible. Your focus should first be on what kind of content your customers would love to see – information, ideas, humour, etc. – and then on the type of content they prefer – blog posts, videos, images, etc.
Creating the right strategy
Content marketing strategies come in different shapes and sizes. It’s important to look beyond just the use of blogging and video. With the target audience research, you can start creating a flexible strategy that focuses on your strengths. A good strategy is always a combination of different types of content. Even if the majority of your visitors would prefer informative blog posts, it doesn’t mean all of your content should be this type of content. You need to mix it up and find new ways of telling the same story.
So, focus that the majority of your strategy is focused on the most desired type and kind of content. Then add some variations with the other desirable types and kinds. You can even go beyond these and look at the latest content marketing trends – mixing it up is a good way of also engaging new types of visitors and getting existing visitors to share your content more widely.
When it comes to creating the right strategy, you also need to consider two other things. First, you need to think about the budget for your content marketing. As with any marketing, not having a proper budget in mind can result in two things. First, you end up spending a lot more money on your marketing than you can afford. The second problem is that you might waste money on inefficient strategies since you’ve not paid a lot of attention to what actually works, but instead, you are just throwing money at the problem.
Aside from thinking about the budget, you should also keep in mind how to manage the content publishing. Schedule your marketing and automate it as much as possible. SEO software is definitely something to worth considering – it can help keep the costs down, as it can provide you a better understanding of how your content is performing. With statistics, you can see what content is the most viewed, leads to the most sales and so on.
3 content marketing strategies for ecommerce boost
You should adopt three key strategies for content marketing. These are essential when it comes to driving content marketing on your site and aligning the content with your ecommerce business.
1. Linking the brand reputation with the product
When you are using content marketing, it’s important to use it for enhanced brand recognition and reputation. The best way to create this kind of visual impact and deepen brand image is through video. People are visual learners and you will make it easier to identify with your products if you add video to your content.
Video is definitely the content marketing tool for displaying to the customer how the products or services will help them. It’s quicker and more effective way in displaying the use and functionality of the products. In terms of combining your brand’s reputation and the how-to attitude of videos, you should use real user videos as part of your content too. Engaging your audience in a way that makes them post reviews and user videos will act as a powerful content marketing tool.
2. Showing the flexibility and range of the product
Your content should also be aimed at showing the flexibility and range of your product or service. You don’t want your customers to just buy the product when they need it – you can use the content to make them realise they need the product and if they have the product, to want more of it or to use it more.
For this kind of content strategy, traditional blog posts and infographics are a great option. You can simply explore the different functionalities and uses of the products. For example, for clothing ecommerce this could be about different outfit combinations and for a cooking retailer, different recipe ideas and so on.
3. Using social proof as a purchasing tool
Modern customers are smart and informed. People don’t make buying decisions just on a whim – many products are purchased after careful deliberation, which is often based on other people’s reviews and comments. Therefore, your content marketing should also focus on social proof.
Create content that shares customer success stories – these can be featured involving customer interviews, testimonials and even those user-generated videos. Make the content engaging and easily sharable. One way to encourage this is with competitions – when customers share stories with you, they have a chance of winning a special prize. Your social proof should focus both on everyday Janes and Joes, as well as any influencers or celebrities you can get on your side.
The benefit of using customer stories is rather obvious – it highlights the benefits of your product or service, but you haven’t really given out a sales pitch.
Promoting your content
It’s also important to ensure you don’t just create content, you also need to promote it. Content marketing goes hand-in-hand with social media marketing. You need to have a strong presence in social media in order to get your content shared more widely.
It’s important to tout your content on social media profiles – a good idea is to schedule and automate when and how often your content links are shared. Of course, your content should also be easily shared by the customer – include social media sharing buttons and encourage customers to like and share your content.
Furthermore, you shouldn’t just rely on social media. You can also use the so-called earned and paid media to your advantage. The earned media refers to other people that promote your product or service. This could be your customer, but even better if you get influencers, journalists and industry experts to talk about your content as well as the products. You can then also use paid media – paid advertising on platforms such as Facebook can be a good idea. But even traditional forms such as print media can work for modern ecommerce businesses.
If you want to make the most of your content marketing for boosting your ecommerce business, always ensure it is the right strategy you use.
