How to Create an E-Commerce Content Marketing Strategy
One must spend money to earn it. Most e-commerce company owners use that mindset when dealing with marketing. E-commerce usually focuses on PPC advertisements to drive traffic to the online storefront. However, it’s possible to not spend any money on advertising and enjoy higher ROI than paying for an ad. To do that, you need e-commerce content marketing. It’s time to learn why it’s important and how to create an e-commerce content strategy that keeps people coming back to the storefront.
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Why E-Commerce Is Important
An e-commerce website is a website that buys and sells products on the internet. E-commerce provides a range of opportunities for businesses, from generating more sales to increasing product options to marketing chances. With an optimized and developed site, it’s easy to achieve the brand’s goals and offer customers convenient service 24/7. Here are a few more benefits of e-commerce:
- Reduces Costs: With an online store, the products aren’t in a physical place, so there is less overhead involved.
- Go Global: One can sell products anywhere in the world, shipping directly to the customer from the warehouse.
- Less Risk: There are lower start-up costs involved with an online store, so one can save on security measures and utility bills to sell more competitively.
E-Commerce Content Marketing
There are an estimated 12 to 24 million e-commerce businesses across the globe, and more are being created every day. That is why you need an e-commerce marketing strategy to stand out. E-commerce content marketing is a marketing strategy that helps build an audience by distributing and creating valuable content. Readers have specific issues and turn to articles and blogs to get answers. If the website’s content answers a search query, they are likely to refer to that same blog for more information. This establishes trust and equals more sales for the business.
Content marketing isn’t only for content websites; it’s also crucial for e-commerce companies. Whether selling from a private brand or one of the top-named ones, content marketing strengthens the business by creating an audience of repeat customers.
Most e-commerce stores focus on getting one sale, but it’s often more lucrative to nurture the customers available to make more purchases. E-commerce content marketing is a great way to do that.
Now, customers buy the products again, but they tell their family and friends about the great experience they had with that brand. Online stores must develop a relationship with clients and build their subscriber lists.
Create an E-Commerce Content Strategy That Works
Whether a brand already implements content marketing or is starting out, these tips can help fine-tune the campaigns:
Know the Customer
One must truly understand the audience and their pain points to be successful. Therefore, it’s best to create buyer personas and revisit them often. There’s always something new to learn about a potential customer.
The best places to read feedback and learn about customers include:
Market research tools can reveal insights about your target audience, including where they hang out, their demographics, what sites they use, and the content types they like. Knowing what they care about and struggle with is crucial for branding.
Popular brands build strong relationships with customer service to lay the groundwork for an excellent e-commerce content marketing strategy. Customer feedback is the top choice here. While negative remarks often hurt, they can reveal what a dissatisfied client wanted to achieve and couldn’t. This leads to more information and ways to change that over time.
Create a Strategy
Once a person knows the audience’s pain points, they can create a strategy to help them produce content that addresses and overcomes the problems.
The first step focuses on researching relevant topics for content. Many tools can help, but entrepreneurs can also use their own knowledge of the industry to begin.
It’s best to conduct keyword research to determine what search queries the audience uses. Software tools can also provide information about search volumes and other necessities. Create a list of the relevant topics and keywords and build a publishing schedule or editorial calendar. Mark the dates of when and where to create or distribute content, including email newsletters, social media platforms, website blogs, and product listings. Having that information ready enables entrepreneurs to publish at the right time to get more engagement.
Create Goals That Measure the Marketing Campaign’s Impact
Setting goals for the marketing campaign helps online store owners identify if the e-commerce content strategy works.
Tracking key metrics (user behavior and engagement levels) shows whether the e-commerce content strategy meets those goals. Google Analytics is the most common tool. However, certain CRM (customer relationship management) tools feature in-built analytics, as well.
With the tracking in place, decide which metrics to measure for the strategy’s success. If the overall goal is to create an email newsletter, it’s best to focus on how many subscribers come from specific content pieces that promote the list. It’s best to avoid vanity metrics when focused on e-commerce content marketing, such as traffic volume and the number of likes on social media. The goal is to empower the audience to achieve their objectives by buying the brand’s products. Vanity metrics might look good, but they don’t show the impact of the strategy and only seek to boost the person’s ego for a short period.
Create Excellent Content
With the topics to write about, goals in mind, and a publishing schedule, it’s time to create the content. During the production process, it’s important to remember that one must create valuable content for the audience. The copy helps the reader progress through the customer journey and achieve their goals.
Generally, e-commerce content marketing educates the audience by showing them how to be successful. Copy that focuses on the brand or its products doesn’t have the best effect. People rarely care about why the item is great; they need to understand how it helps them. Improve engagement by telling a story throughout the copy. Testimonials and case studies are natural ways to do that without overselling the brand. The customer shares their pain points in their own words and explains that the company’s product helped in some way.
Use every area of the content to help the customer visualize their success. This includes text in images and email subject lines. Conversion rates are sure to increase if the content indicates a positive outcome for the reader.
Create a Distribution Strategy
The distribution strategy increases the brand’s reach and the content’s effectiveness. Generally, the best place to distribute content depends on where the target audience hangs out. If they use Pinterest frequently, one gets more engagement when posting links and quotes there with relevant hashtags.
When deciding on a distribution strategy, it’s best to own one channel before experimenting with others. Many entrepreneurs try to grow several channels at once and end up burning out. Become competent on one or two before adding more.
Review the Strategy
Reviewing the e-commerce content marketing strategy and processes regularly helps build a sturdy creation system that generates more benefits and requires less effort. These factors are crucial for sustainability. Whether producing written, audio, or video content, processes help brands avoid the burnout that results from inefficiently creating content.
The Best Content Platform
With the e-commerce content strategy in place, the next step is determining where to produce content. The best channels are where the target audience lives. Market research can reveal this. Here are a few content types that work well for certain platforms:
E-Commerce Websites
The e-commerce site can help create solutions to the audience’s problem by adding videos and blogs. However, most entrepreneurs limit their websites by using landing pages that only direct to the storefront. Overall, one must optimize the blog and online store for search engines.
One can use these tips to improve website SEO:
Search engines can quickly discover SEO-friendly websites, so it’s easier for that target audience to find the content.
Video Content
Video content puts the customer in the middle of the story, helping them visualize goals. Engaging images make it easier to show how products can assist with pain points. If one can create content that showcases their products used in daily settings organically, they are far more effective.
It’s easy to add video content to the website blog and social media accounts. However, don’t forget to include them on the product listing pages. Such valuable content shows the audience a solution to the problem while they’re interested and engaged on the page.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is crucial because brands can build an audience to contact when new products arrive. The email list isn’t part of the search engine algorithm. Subscribers freely give their email addresses, allowing companies to share whatever content is necessary without SERP influence.
It takes time to build a list because one must figure out what the audience wants. Use A/B split testing to reveal changes the readers respond positively to and increase click-through rates.
Create an E-Commerce Content Marketing Strategy with Webmix Networks SEO
Being an e-commerce entrepreneur isn’t easy. Up to 90% of all e-commerce startups fail within the first 120 days. E-commerce content marketing can help you succeed, but you probably can’t do it alone. Webmix Networks SEO can help brands build an e-commerce content strategy that meets their needs. With time, patience, and the will to succeed, it’s possible to bring more customers to your brand!