Content marketing is a form of digital marketing where you produce and promote relevant content for your product. Most people on the internet search for one form of content or another – and as a business owner, you can take advantage of this by establishing your content marketing strategy. If you can create blogs, videos, or infographics relevant to your business’s industry, more individuals can learn more about your ecommerce site.
While content marketing needs consistency, it is something that all ecommerce business owners should consider. From establishing your business as a credible authority to promoting buyer loyalty, it helps elevate your brand. It provides long-term and future-proof advantages that can make your store stand out from your competitors.
Benefits of Content Marketing for Ecommerce
When you perform content marketing, you can get significant development for your ecommerce business. This is because you are not only promoting your product, but you are also reaching out and forming a relationship with potential customers.
With a practical and solid plan, this digital marketing method can ultimately boost your business. While it might take time to show exponential results, it can provide long-term and organic growth for your online platform. When you create great content, you are not only selling your products. You are also establishing your business as a credible and knowledgeable individual for your current industry.
There are various benefits that you can get with a solid ecommerce marketing strategy. Here are some of them:
- Higher customer conversion rate
- Promote buyer loyalty
- Provide better SEO results
- Strengthen your shop’s branding
These are just a few of the advantages that you can get. With continuous and consistent content marketing, you can get even more perks for your ecommerce site.
5 Steps for Successful Ecommerce Content Marketing
Content marketing is a potent digital marketing strategy when done right. It can help boost not only the number of your customers but also your entire brand. It would be best if you planned before you do content marketing.
Here are five tried and tested steps that you can take. After doing one round of this plan, you can repeat it – while revising actions in every step that could have been done better.
Step 1: Research the Target Audience
For your content marketing to be successful and translate into customers and revenue, they need to be tailored content for the market interested in your products or services. No matter how good the raw content or its promotional attempts are, if your content marketing is made for people who do not fall under the category of your audience, it will fail.
Before creating the content you will publish, you should decide on your target audience and outline various information. Here are some things that you should take note of while researching your target audience.
Demographics
While it will be fantastic to offer products that every individual will accept, you should first create a target demographic. Find the age, location, financial budget, and other similar elements about people who use a competitor’s product. This way, your content will be tailored to fit the demographic’s preferences.
Motivation
There are various reasons why individuals purchase a product or two. Since you want to entice them with your content marketing, you need to learn their motivations – what aspect they are looking for when buying things. This way, you can integrate it into the content that you will make.
Preferred platform
Another thing that you should research is the preferred platform of your audience. This way, you can post content on sites where they are active. This element is crucial because it ensures that your content reaches them.
Preferred content
It is also important to note which contents are most preferred by your target market. No matter how good the content is, they might end up being ignored if people in your chosen demographic do not enjoy them.
Step 2: Choose the Content-Type
After you have determined the preferences and information of your target market, you can now start choosing which content you will use. While you can rely on the choices you have noted, you can also consider additional forms that you believe will work.
However, you must limit it to four types at most. This is because any more will be content overload – and instead of appreciating them, potential customers might get turned off. Listed below are short descriptions of some of the most popular forms of content that your ecommerce site can use:
Blogs and Ecommerce SEO
Blogs are posts that can either be informative, entertaining, persuasive or all of the above. When you decide on creating blog content, you can determine if it will be on your site or other people’s sites. However, it is recommended for online businesses to have separate blogs on their site. This will not only be for content marketing but also ecommerce SEO.
Emails
There are various ways that you can use emails. You can either provide newsletters to a subscription list. You can also offer unique campaigns for people who are part of the email list. Email contents are easy to do even for beginners because they can be automated.
Infographics
Infographics have become one of the most potent sources of information in recent days. If you want to catch the attention of your target customers, you can create visually appealing infographics that showcase your products or services in their best light.
Ebooks
Depending on what product or service you use, ebooks can be great content to give. These ebooks can be digital guidebooks or flyers. They can also be a list of tips related to your brand and business.
Videos
Videos come in various types. There are product reviews, tutorials, or random videos that you can come up with. When creating this content, it can be a mix of entertaining or informative. However, you should make sure that it can grab and retain the attention of its viewers.
Step 3: Create and Publish
The next step that you should do is to make the content. This will be the meat of your ecommerce content marketing strategy. You can have this done in two ways. You can do it on your own, or you can pay others to do it for you.
No matter which way you choose, here are things that you should keep in mind while creating your content:
- Examine competitor ecommerce sites.
- Brainstorm on relevant but valuable topics.
- Keep up with trends and topics preferred by your target audience.
- Integrate your products and services in the produced content.
Aside from that, you should also publish the finished content. You can use the research from the first step to identify which platforms are relevant for your business. You can post on various social media and content platforms. Here are the most popular sites where you can find potential audiences for your content.
- Youtube
- Blog sites
Step 4: Promote Content
When you have already published your blogs, videos, or infographics, there is still another step that you should take. This time, you should promote your content. While you might get a large amount of traffic at once if you are lucky, you will need to advertise your posts to expand your reach.
There are different ways for you to promote your content. You can opt to do it yourself or ask a digital marketing agency to take care of it for you. Here are the various promotional activities that you can consider:
Guest postings
In guest postings, you can ask for a blog website whose audience is the same as your target market. Some guest postings need payment, while others will be willing to do it for free in exchange for backlinks.
Influencer posts
You can also opt to tap influencers with large followings to repost or share your content. It would help if you kept in mind that a large following is not the most essential factor. They should be able to reach your preferred niche.
Social media advertising
There are various ways to do social media advertising. Depending on the platforms for your content, the approach changes. Popular social media promotion methods include ads, giveaways, and the like.
Step 5: Measure Performance
The last step you should take is to measure the performance of your content. This way, you will identify which types and platforms bring you the result you want. Depending on your ecommerce platform, there are different built-in analytics that can help you with measuring.
Here are some things that you can consider as a measuring factor:
- Website traffic
- Social media engagement
- Backlinks
- Sales
- New customers
- Content Marketing Goals for Your Business
When you perform ecommerce content marketing, you should have goals to aim for. This will increase the quality and focus of your content because you have things that you will need to reach. While each business owner has a different aim, here are some general goals that you should consider for your online business.
- Increase the number of your ecommerce site’s visitors
- Increase the number of sales and customers
- Promote and strengthen your brand
- Receive better ecommerce SEO results
- Get better engagements on social media
You can also opt to back up these goals with numbers. This way, you can have specific aims to reach. With these in mind, they can push you to make better and higher quality content for your ecommerce business.
