The eCommerce industry continues to develop, bringing more and more shops and brands to the business table. Yet, how can a brand show its value and attract some leads in terms of rising competition?
It can engage with customers on social media via posts, write blog articles, and create videos. These are only some of the tactics used in content marketing for businesses. Why? Digital content marketing strategies have proved that they can raise awareness, generate leads, and add to the loyalty of a small brand.
Read on if you wonder what eCommerce content marketing strategy is about and what elements to consider when creating one.
What is Content Strategy in eCommerce
The simplest definition of the content strategy is concerned with creating and managing the content pieces to reach specific business goals. In large companies, it involves a greater application, touching the concepts of user experience and content audit, and adding to the other strategies.
The eCommerce content marketing strategy is about producing high-quality content that would appeal to the audience, resulting in higher engagement and conversion. In particular, the eCommerce content strategy aims to offer valuable insights, become an authority for content consumers, and develop relationships. With the development of the bond, the chances to gain the customer increases.
So, how can an eCommerce content marketing strategy add to the business? If implemented right, the content strategy would result in more visits to the website, greater trust in the brand, a more structured sales funnel, and more conversions.
How to Create a Content Marketing Strategy?
Not paying attention to the content strategy would mean the loss of focus, bringing confusion instead of engagement. Thus, a marketer within the e-commerce organization should know how to do it right. The following steps can help you create a successful strategy:
Define your eCommerce business goals
The first thing to think of is why you are producing content. Is it aimed at awareness, quality, readability, follower’s increase, or conversion? Look at your sales funnel and reflect on the issues you have. In the end, make sure your goal is specific, measurable, and relevant.
Try to research and understand your buyer’s persona
Finding the right words when talking to your audience is crucial for the success of an eCommerce content marketing strategy. The appropriate tactic derives from examining your customers’ demographics, habits, motivation, pain points, and personality.
In this regard, before writing some content, you can send people a survey or ask for a report from a firm. Ask your customers questions and be ready to reward them. Besides, examine the professional communities you are targeting.
Pick a channel for distribution
The research on the buyer’s persona is likely to give you an understanding of how to promote your brand and where to. In this regard, e-commerce companies have different options: blog posts, email newsletters, podcasts, or social media.
Yet, the standard way is to build a blog that can be promoted via newsletters and social platforms. For instance, LinkedIn is great for B2B marketing. On the other hand, TikTok is a fit for engagement with younger audiences, while Facebook is favored by the older generation.
Create an appropriate content
Well, depending on the buyer’s persona, you should decide on the format and insights of your content. They should reflect the pain points of the customer and provide expertise. How to achieve the latter?
You can hire an inbound specialist or freelancer to write a post for you or collaborate with the decision-makers for some insights. For instance, you can use the email finder chrome extension to contact the decision-makers or experts. The works by them are likely to contribute to the trust development and reputation of your brand.
Stick to the developed plan
Creating a content strategy requires a plan. The good one would involve the insertion of the different formats and topics. Your content should be informational, entertaining, or educational. Diversity brings engagement. Yet, all your pieces should come in line with your plan. In the end, it grants consistency, projecting your values and mission.
Measure and analyze the results
Tracking the results is essential for understanding at what development stage you are. If your goals are measurable, measure them after some time. The analysis will allow you to reevaluate the goals and possibly change the focus from one sphere to another.
For instance, at some point, you can see that people are aware of your brand. Yet, if you lack engagement, it is a sign to create an exciting rubric or start a new category on a blog.
Tips on How to Write Content for an eCommerce Website
You already know that blogging is one of the most common ways for eCommerce brands to promote their products. Content creation strategies contemplate developing a structured system that could add to different parts of the sales funnel. The following tips would help to set the proper flow for the maximization of the content marketers’ efforts:
Start a blog with the structure in mind
Before all, you should reflect on the goals and the buyer’s persona you defined in implementing an eCommerce content strategy. It will give a focus to your content. At the same time, determine the broad and specific topics to be covered. It will allow you to get traffic and simultaneously answer the pain points of the customers.
The extensive guides are likely to be interesting for the new visitors, while the specific articles are to satisfy the loyal customers. Besides, such an approach can contribute to the user experience, especially if you create a map of the website and interlink your articles.
Show your values and develop your tone of voice
The structured system refers not only to the content itself but the message and principles it conveys. Your blog has to have a single style and portray your values. Depending on the buyer’s persona, pick the right way to speak with your audience and share your experience. Your writing style can be formal, or you can use jargon. Yet, it doesn’t mean you would sound unexpert. Writing pieces in one manner will differentiate you from others and add to your reputation.
Do not forget about social media promotion
Nowadays, almost any digital content marketing strategies apply a cross-platform approach. Thus, when creating a content strategy, consider that you are likely to incorporate parts of the blogs in social media posts, and they may refer to the tips, data, case studies, quotes, pictures, and videos. Notably, infographics are an excellent way to keep the readers’ attention on the blog articles, while on social media, they can improve engagement.
At the same time, when you create a blog, think that there are chances that you would reuse the content. The content repurposing can save you efforts, improve the presence on other platforms and attract backlinks, bringing more traffic.
Close content gaps: Glossary or knowledge base
The particular tip is about identifying the gaps in your content. At the primary stages, you will focus on producing content that will reflect the needs of your target audience. However, your content may be too specific for some, as every niche has its terms and concepts.
Thus, consider creating a page or space, which would explain the terms to the beginners. Your readers will not need to google each new word as you will give them a link to your glossary or knowledge base.
Think of attention span and engagement
Engagement is vital for the attraction and retention of your customers. Therefore, try to incorporate interactive and engaging pieces into the blog. Some websites include GIFs or funny pictures. Another way to achieve high engagement rates is to add some video pieces due to its significance in recent years.
For instance, if you talk about a new product, a 30 seconds video within the article can be more suitable than a 6-minute read text. Do tests and check which format suits you better. The Google Analytics account offers the data on bounce rates and time spent on pages that are crucial for understanding the effect of your content.
Collaborate with SEO experts
For some niches, SEO appears to be the most efficient strategy for traffic attraction. Thus, try to optimize your articles with keywords and offer valuable information. You can cooperate with SEO specialists and ask them to develop a specific strategy for you, and SEO tools can help you find the right topic. However, do not sacrifice content quality when trying to achieve SEO goals.
Final Thoughts
As a result, eCommerce content marketing strategy requires a clear understanding of the business goals and buyer’s persona to develop quality pieces. That way, the business would be able to answer needs and offer value.
Moreover, considering the specifics of the business and reflecting them in the content creation strategies is to offer long-term benefits. The reason is that modern digital marketing has a cross-platform nature in it. When you start a blog, you will use SEO and social media for promotion, and thus, it is better to create content with this in mind.
