Intro

Content when done right can be the lifeblood of your business. In this post, we will discuss different ways in which you can get content marketing right for your business.

The strategic advantage of eCommerce content marketing

Enterprise brands and online stores invest in digital marketing and prioritize paid advertising campaigns as well as social media.

But the actual metrics that drive ROI all branch out from content marketing.

Content can include newsletters, webinars, podcasts, templates, white papers, case studies, and more. You can also convert interviews or Zoom meetings into webinars.

Content marketing yields rich SEO dividends

Content marketing for eCommerce sites delivers a huge advantage for SEO.

When you create and optimize great content for relevant keywords, when you optimize your website speed, you start attracting organic traffic that you otherwise need to attract with PPC. Always use a rank tracker to understand which key terms you’re ranking for.

A well-executed SEO strategy compounds your organic traffic over time. This results in new customers and higher revenue for you. On paid media, the traffic drops to zero the minute you stop your ad spend.

Content marketing aids the customer journey

Content marketing should address all the different points in the customer’s journey map starting from the point the customer develops awareness of the problem, stepping to the purchase decision, and even retention. Content marketing can lead your prospects through different stages of the sales funnel and help the buying process.

Creating valuable content that solves a specific problem educates the prospect and offers valuable information that your brand can use to educate the customer at every stage of this journey.

If the content is simply limited to product pages as many eCommerce retailers would do then most of your customer touch points will be limited in the final stages of the customer journey.

This leaves major gaps in your funnel that competitors can sweep in to take advantage of.

Differentiate your brand with content marketing

Unless you’re selling a unique product, brand differentiation can be of real help.

Content strategy helps you show your brand’s personality and attract customers to your brand who may otherwise not be interested.

Red Bull doesn’t make a great-tasting energy drink. Most people often quip how bad they actually taste. But with great content, they have a gigantic moat around their brand.

Ecommerce marketing optimizes the conversion funnel

Ecommerce brands don’t have to keep their content separate from the main brand.

The best eCommerce marketing strategies seamlessly tie in with the customers and encourage them until they’re ready for the purchase.

Not everyone on the website wants to make a purchase.

So it’s important to strengthen your brand during each touch point.

You can ask them to download product guides or attend webinars. The micro-conversions move them along the purchase funnel.

Include CTAs to drive them to the purchase. In this manner, you can get higher engagement and encourage more purchases.

Content marketing improves brand loyalty

Consumers of today have tons of choices. That is great for customers but in turn, makes it harder for marketers to create loyalty. However, a study shows that over half of customers switched brands after having a better experience with another brand.

Content marketing is a great way to improve your relationship with your audience. It broadens and deepens the relationship you share. By creating valuable content that educates, and entertains them, you’re creating a connection with customers.

Now let’s talk about eCommerce content marketing strategies.

Ecommerce Content Strategies

Develop a content hub

Content hubs are a powerful eCommerce strategy.

Content hubs are a central point on your site that curates content around a specific subject. It can be around blog posts, videos, to social media content all going back to a single topic. A content hub refers to content in and around a central topic.

If you’re selling NFT art the content can be around NFT, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies.

Content hubs are valuable to both you and your customers.

The benefits are:

• Increased search traffic
• Increased audience engagement
• More social shares
• More thought leadership

Content hubs provide customers with a superior user experience on your website. They curate your best information about an important topic and make it easily digestible. Always conduct a web audit first to identify which topics you should build content hubs on.

Build SEO topic clusters

Topic clusters are a great way to increase organic traffic and conversions from them.

A topic cluster can be thought of as a hub-and-spoke model of content organized around a central theme. Its anchor is a pillar page, a long-form post that acts as the hub and the clusters are smaller blog posts that act as spokes.

The pillar post covers all topics in the cluster at a high level and links out to supporting posts in a topic cluster. It also includes internal links.

Blogging helps you dominate entire verticals of keyword clusters. On top of that, topic clusters help you with an ideal structure to improve your rankings online. They will help you earn backlinks and pass on value to other pages in the cluster.

This ranks even those pages better. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Next, use marketing automation software to send some of the content as email newsletters to your subscribers and get even more engagement.

Create user-generated content

In yet another content marketing strategy for eCommerce, user-generated content is really effective because it shows people actually using your products. It acts as word-of-mouth for your brand and generates marketing and social proof for your business.

People don’t always believe what you say about your products, but they’re more likely to believe statements and images put out by real customers, and their peers.

To encourage UGC here’s what to do:

• Conduct a contest where customers submit original content like videos and photos
• Encourage people to leave reviews after the purchase.
• Create a social media hashtag around your brand or specific products that encourage customers to use that hashtag and submit their photos with your product
• Post UGC content on social media feeds

A good example of a brand that regularly posts UGC content is Lush Cosmetics. They don’t waste their marketing budgets entirely on ads. They focus on creating user engagement. Lush encourages its customers dubbed Lushies to share their experiences with the brand.

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User-generated content is a good way to produce seemingly endless amounts of content that performs well and highly engages the community at large. It’s important to listen to customer needs and provide them with what they want.

Content marketing is great for educating customers

If you want to educate potential customers regarding both features and benefits of your product, publishing content is the first strategy to attempt.

Informative and useful content makes it easy for prospective customers to click on the buy button when they’re ready for you.

You can use different types of content to educate customers about your brand and your products.

Here’s what you can publish:

• Instructional videos
• Case studies
• Ebooks
• Whitepapers
• Checklists
• Blog content
• And more

Text-based content is great for catching your audience’s attention. But make sure you also add helpful images.

Canva is a great tool that can help with the process. Simply sign into the platform and from the dashboard pick from different templates for starting the design work.

Create New Brand Awareness

Creating a content strategy and being consistent with the sample helps you develop a positive connection with customers.

If you’re selling a gadget you can write content that teaches customers on how to maintain that gadget or how to clean that gadget.

You can add insights into maintenance and other aspects of the gadget that will sound very helpful for customers making it the go-to company for laptops.

The guide can have call-to-action buttons for selling the product or for selling the accessories with the product. You can establish your brand as an authority in your niche and also sell products.

Rank your pages in the search engines

One of the most significant advantages of content marketing is the SEO value it brings to the table.

When you create SEO-optimized content for search engine pages, you can rank your pages at the top of the search engine page results.

To understand what keywords you must use, use tools like UberSuggest to obtain loads of low-competition keywords.

You can find additional suggested keywords with search volumes and PPC competition.

This brings you additional traffic that potentially brings more sales.

Build a keyword glossary

If your products have terms that are not immediately familiar to your audience, a glossary can be an effective way to bridge the gap. A glossary provides users with a central location for customers to learn more about your products and the language associated with the product.

Best practices for content marketing

Now that you know of the several benefits of content marketing, you can try that service for yourself. However, content is much more complex than tapping out a few sentences online. You require both thought and preparation.

Set Your Goals

Do you want to increase sales or improve brand awareness? Do you want to convert more visitors into buyers? Knowing your goals helps you drive content creation and help you succeed with content.

Speak to Your Audience

When you create a store, you need to target your target demographics from the start. Find what they want. Marketing strategies must warn people against the assumption that all people tend to think alike.

Conclusion

What do you think of our post on eCommerce content marketing? Are you yet to jump on the content bandwagon?