It’s clear that E-commerce ventures in any industry should invest their resources heavily in content marketing when you consider the fact that content marketing costs 62% less than traditional marketing tools, but generates three times the leads.
Yet, despite these undeniable statistics only 42% of marketers currently consider their digital content strategies to be effective.
Let’s be clear, it’s not that brands aren’t developing content to attract target audiences, in fact 60% of businesses create at least one piece of new digital content every day. Unfortunately, these companies are only focusing their efforts on external delivery channels such as blogs and social networks.
To implement a truly effective content marketing strategy for E-commerce websites a more holistic approach to content publication and management is required in order to generate an ROI that’s in line with their efforts.
This means publishing targeted content for your online store. This includes videos, articles, and posts that are curated for your brand.
Just in case you’re struggling to strike the right balance when it comes to your content marketing strategy, we’ve put together a complete guide to take you through every step in the process.
Study the Competition
Competitive analysis forms the foundation for any optimized content marketing strategy. Online tools like Quicksprout and Google Alerts can help you build a fairly accurate picture of how digital content from your rivals is faring, they’ll also help you keep track of how often competitors are being searched for online.
Similarly Monitor Backlinks is great software that allows you to monitor the links and referrals competing websites are earning. Taken together, the data provided by these tools will contribute directly to the direction, tone, and subject matter of your future content.
If you’re looking to optimize product and service descriptions on your own website, a thorough review of your competitors’ products product catalogues should yield a wealth of information about the terms that other brands within the industry are focusing on. By the same token, this market research will help you identify unique keywords that can set your offering apart, and help you appeal to more niche market segments.
Understand Your Target Audience
Every transaction taking place on your E-commerce portal and every customer interaction occurring on your social media profile provides an opportunity to derive real insights about the preferences, attitudes, and interests of your customers. Your marketing department should be looking to leverage this data to develop detailed customer profiles.
After all, the more accurate you are at determining your target audience, the more likely you’ll be to create engagement and interest within prospective customers. Whether you’re creating content for 50-word social media posts, or you’re writing detailed 1000-word instructional articles, your focus should always be on delivering the type of content your customers want to connect to.
Remember, no detail is too specific. The more detail you can add to your buyer personas the better you’ll be able to match content with the products.
While these strategies may generate fewer leads, the attention you do get will be from interested customers that are ready to buy your products and services.
Create Connections
If all that market research has your head spinning, then maybe it’s time to go directly to the source.
Place a renewed focus on providing excellent customer service interactions on your website and social media profiles. Answer questions from visitors, respond directly to product reviews, and get into the mix when you notice an interesting discussion developing in the comments section.
If you notice any queries or concerns that are consistently brought up, then write up detailed responses and post them to your website to add consistent value you the customer experience.
If you’re looking to generate better connections with your long-form content, then check out the social media profiles of your followers. See if you can identify any commonly repeated themes, interests, or mentions. Incorporate these ideas into your future content.
Trigger Positive Vibes in Your Customers with On-Page Content
According to a study by Demand Metric, 82% of consumers say that they have positive feelings about a brand after reading the content offered on their website. These lasting impressions can be an excellent tool for effectively telling your brand’s story.
Think carefully about the place you want to occupy in your customers’ head. Do you want your brand to be seen as a premium service provider, a trendy, youth-oriented business or a no-nonsense brand focused on athletic performance?
The best way to concentrate your efforts is to take some time to determine and choose a handful of terms that guide you when you are going with the content.
On-Page Content Organization
The organization of content directly affects the user experience. If your website is characterized by a clutter of unfocused content then your visitors will have difficulty understanding where they need to navigate to next.
According to most industry analysts, you only have 7 seconds to grab the attention of your audience, and with a muddled landing page you’re likely to see users click away even faster.
Every aspect of your website needs to be engineered to guide clients towards a buying proposition.
Upon landing on your website, customers should receive a concise, eye-catching introduction to your services and offerings. They should then be provided with clear navigation cues that can direct them towards purchase options.
Catchy Content Headlines
A magnetic headline can be the difference between an interested user and an early exit. Internet users don’t read web content, they scan it in search of useful information. That means you can’t afford to bury the lede. Your headlines should deliver an enticing statement, or value-adding proposition within the first few words.
Writing an attractive headline requires a slow process of refinement. You should start with a headline draft and then keep whittling down the text until you arrive at a precise, snappy heading that delivers a can’t-pass up promise to your prospective customer.
Add power words and emotive terms to provoke the emotions and senses of your visitors.
For more details about writing the headlines that sell, visit this post on our blog.
Make a Content Calendar
Making a content calendar for marketing may sound tedious and restrictive contrary to the organic nature of most content creation, but online audiences have been proven to respond strongly to consistent, regularly updated posting.
A well put-together content calendar can create anticipation amongst regular visitors and create long lasting connections which generate far greater customer loyalty.
While it isn’t necessary to fill every date on your calendar, you should look to post frequently enough to stay connected with your target audience.
Initiate & Maintain Contact with Your Customers and Prospects
Content marketing should not be used to force an immediate sale, but to build familiarity and trust. Ideally, you want your brand to be placed as high as possible in the preferences of the target audience. When a netizen finds your online store in a highly ranked position on a Google search, this placement inspires confidence in the mind of the reader regarding the value you have to offer; ultimately that’s why they choose to navigate to your website.
Once they do find themselves on your social media profiles or on your website; it’s your job to retain their interest. That means it’s up to you to start the conversation and keep up the interaction. Constant communication with your audience brings the added benefit of constantly generating content on your online store, in the form of comments and reviews on product pages. This sort of social media influence is extremely persuasive for potential buyers.
Incorporate Videos
Visual content has been gaining ground and has now become one of the most effective trends of content marketing techniques for e-commerce; and videos top this list by far.
Online stores incorporate own content made in video format since it gives them many advantages when it comes to attracting consumers. Videos allow you to create content with which you can present the products that cannot be touched in online purchases, and clearly show the operation or assembly of a product.
Infographics and memes should also form a regular part of your visual content creation. In these cases, manage the services of a professional agency for high-quality infographics and images won’t go amiss. Poor quality image content can easily sour viewers on your offerings and create an overall unprofessional brand image so please don’t compromise on quality here.
Attach a Blog
Blogging is an evergreen part of content marketing and will remain highly effective moving into 2018 as well. With the inclusion of text, images, and videos; blogs offers a multi-functional delivery platform for optimized content that can really create an impression in the minds of readers.
A business blog will also let you develop content that goes into far more depth, allowing you to share relevant information that often cannot be included in product descriptions. To receive benefits of content generation, you must include a blog within the same domain as your website, although you may also go for external blogs for additional exposure too.
Measure the Results
The trial-and-error method only works when you are able to detect where the error is. You need to know your marketing goals are being met and that you are not going away on a tangent. You can make a spreadsheet that can serve as a model to collect your own data based on essential content marketing measurement and KPIs.
The personalization of the analysis has the great advantage of allowing you to evaluate, based on your marketing objectives. For example, you can see how traffic is acquired over time and how it is distributed. You can then compare these statistics against your pre-set benchmarks.
The research and analysis of appropriate keywords is an essential tool for any truly optimized content strategy. However, please don’t become obsessed with stuffing keywords with a lot of search volume in headings, URLs, and tags. Ideally you want to maintain a 2.5% density for targeted keywords on on-page text. In content marketing, there is no way to calculate success without applying it in strictly a professional manner.
Search engines, particularly Google, aim to deliver the most utility to the most active internet users with its search results. So instead of focusing on content which you think can please search engines algorithms, look to satisfy readers first; as the old maxim goes content is king.
Come up with quality content and you will be rewarded.
Take care of the content of your online store and your social media profiles and you’ll see how far your Ecommerce website will come in just a short period of time.
Content Development Pros – The Best Solution for Successful Content Marketing for Ecommerce Sites
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Exclusive Teams for Each Department
Ecommerce content marketing is a colossal task that demands a team that can deliver up to those stringent requirements. A small, localized team won’t find much success since there are multiple types of content that need to be produced and published on different platforms.
Content Development Pros employs proficient individuals in several teams to handle all tasks with perfection. Whether you need designing, development, blog posts, social media content, or general digital marketing materials, we have the competencies to deliver every time. With our content marketing services, we ensure the best results.
We never miss deadlines!
At Content Development Pros, we simply don’t miss deadlines. Our teams are dedicated and hardworking and leave no stone unturned when it comes to serving the needs of our clients in a timely manner. Work with us and you can be assured of consistent online project completion.
Exclusive Client Dashboard
We have designed and developed an exclusive Dashboard for our esteemed clients. Our Client Dashboard lets you see the overall progress of your projects and share your feedback and concerns in real-time. Quick responses, transparent communication, and speedy revisions are all part of the package!
Affordable Packages
Our ecommerce content marketing packages are reasonably priced and well within the budget of small businesses.
So what are you waiting for? Start boosting your sales by getting in touch with us on the channel of your choice, today!
