So, you’ve just launched your new ecommerce business? Congratulations!
If you haven’t already started working on a content marketing strategy for your online store, you’ll want to make this a priority sooner rather than later.
Maybe you’ve heard the term “content marketing” discussed in the past but haven’t given it much thought up until now. Perhaps you’re not quite sure how content marketing works or if it’s really that helpful for selling online.
If you’re trying to decide if it’s something worth tackling for your business, I’m here to tell you that the answer is 100% yes!
In this article, we’ll explore some of the many reasons why it’s absolutely essential that you focus on creating high-quality, consistent content for your brand to make the most of ecommerce content marketing.
What are the benefits of content marketing?
It’s been shown that content marketing is an effective way to increase sales and boost audience engagement for ecommerce businesses.
When you invest your time and other resources in creating great content, you demonstrate your belief in your brand and interest in your customers.
Here are just a few of the benefits that content marketing can bring to your business!
1. Helps retain your target audience
In today’s world, consumers’ attention spans are shorter than ever. Brands must continually make an effort to keep people engaged and curious about what they have to offer.
If potential customers aren’t interested in what you have to say or start to become bored with your content, they won’t hesitate to leave your site and head to a competitor’s.
Providing compelling content across various platforms helps to maintain and even build the interest of your audience. Offering content that’s valuable to your audience can also lead to higher engagement.
Visitors will want to stay on your website for longer periods of time, comment on your blog or social media posts, and even share those posts with others!
2. Builds customer trust
With so many online shopping options available to consumers, you’ll want to be sure that your business stands out from the competition.
If you’re relatively new to the ecommerce scene, it may take some time for your store to start generating sales. Shoppers may be wary of purchasing your products until they get to know your business a little better.
When you create top-notch content that provides helpful information, you’re able to strengthen your brand’s relationship with potential customers. In addition to offering informative content, take the time to answer any questions that your audience may have.
By supplying your audience with something without asking for anything in return yourself, you’ll gradually increase trust in your brand.
3. Produces sales leads
Providing potential customers with content that benefits them will naturally make it more likely that they’ll want to buy from you later. However, you can also supplement your excellent content with a call-to-action (CTA) to boost the likelihood of getting your audience to visit your website.
Including CTAs in your posts means giving people clear directions to help guide them through the sales funnel, leading to a more enjoyable user experience and an increase in sales!
Remember that you can place your CTAs anywhere in your content, such as in the heading, on the side panel, at the end of the post, or elsewhere.
If your readers appreciate the content you’re sharing, there’s a much better chance of them following your CTA and heading to one of your site’s landing pages. As long as the CTA makes sense for the content in the post, you have the freedom to include it where it fits most naturally.
4. Increases conversion rate
Converting site visitors into loyal customers can take a bit of time and strategy, but it’s one of the most important goals for any business in the ecommerce industry.
Some members of your target market may need just a little more convincing before they’re ready to click that “Buy now” button on your website. Great content on your website, social media, and other channels can give people that extra push they need to check out your store and complete a purchase.
By consistently providing your audience with content that educates them and answers their questions, you can better equip them with the knowledge needed for their purchasing decisions.
Don’t forget to add a CTA to your content to help your soon-to-be customers know what step to take next!
5. Bolsters search engine optimization (SEO)
Ever wondered how websites are able to make their way to the top of Google’s search engine results page (SERP)?
Google actually uses a complicated algorithm involving factors like page loading speed, website structure, keywords, and more in their rankings. Those websites deemed as the most relevant and useful to the search request are then listed at the top of the SERP.
Because most shoppers won’t go further than the first page of results when looking for something on the internet, it’s essential that you give SEO some attention.
Google loves when you supply excellent content on a consistent basis and will applaud your efforts by ranking your site higher. This can then start to lead to an increase in organic traffic to your store.
6. Indicates that you’re an expert in your field
Even if you’re launching a brand-new online store, you want potential customers to know that you’re a trustworthy, reliable source of information.
If you only share content a few times a year, with posts that contain outdated or unhelpful material, your audience may start to distrust your brand and your products.
Supplying well-informed, helpful content regularly demonstrates that you know what you’re talking about and that you have your customers in mind. This not only gives your brand more credence with your audience but improves your rankings with search engines.
7. Allows you to offer better customer service
When you have a relatively new ecommerce business, a comprehensive customer service team may be beyond your budget. This means that managing customer queries and concerns will probably be left for you to handle on your own.
Why not use your content marketing to take a proactive approach to any questions that site visitors might have about your products or business?
For example, you can create articles, videos, and other content that educates your audience and answers some of the questions they’re most likely to ask.
In addition, your store’s product pages should contain detailed information to avoid or at least limit confusion that site visitors could have concerning the products you’re selling.
The better you inform your audience, the fewer emails and questions on social media you’ll receive and need to answer. This then lets you answer the queries that do arrive in a shorter amount of time and more thoughtfully, which your customers are definitely going to appreciate!
8. Is a cost-effective strategy
If you’re currently working with a relatively small budget to spend on marketing with your new ecommerce business, you might be concerned about how you’re going to get visitors to your site.
Fortunately, content marketing is an economical method that’s very useful for attracting more traffic to your online store.
In fact, according to DemandMetric, content marketing is 62% less expensive than traditional marketing yet brings in approximately three times as many leads!
The trade-off is the time and effort required to produce excellent, high-performing content, though.
Furthermore, it can take a while for you to see the results of your efforts, especially regarding SEO, which can be frustrating. Consider that if you’re paying somebody else to create content for you, this is also something that you’ll need to factor into your budget.
Nevertheless, as you experiment with different types of content marketing, you’ll find that creating high-quality content will be beneficial for your brand. This is true even if you’re only able to devote a small amount of time each week to your efforts initially.
9. Satisfies today’s shoppers’ desire for content
There’s a fairly good chance that checking your phone and scrolling through social media or other websites were some of the first things you did after waking up this morning.
You’re not alone. The hunger for consuming online content is at an all-time high these days, especially with the younger generation.
A March 2020 study by Statista found that 57% of surveyed millennials in the US check social media at least once a day as a news source.
Why not use this constant craving for content to your advantage? Give the people what they want!
When you provide your audience with fresh, useful information not just regarding your product but also on topics related to your product and niche, you’re fulfilling an important consumer need.
Remember that many of your target customers may not yet be quite ready to make a purchase and could still be in the “researching” phase. They might not yet know which company or product is best going to suit their needs.
Building authority and trust through the consistent content you provide can help demonstrate to these shoppers that you’ve got a truly worthwhile product for sale.
10. Offers a great return on investment (ROI)
I’ve already touched on the amazing cost effectiveness of well-done content marketing. With the increase in leads and site traffic that you’ll see, you also have the opportunity to increase your conversions by implementing the right conversion strategy.
A consistent flow of thoughtfully crafted content can lead to a huge boost in sales for your online store as your audience expands.
Though you may not reap the rewards of your content marketing immediately, over time, you should see a pretty remarkable ROI from your efforts. This is especially true if you give customers valuable content during each stage of the shopping cycle.
Of course, the key to getting the highest ROI possible is ensuring that the content that you share is truly intended for your target market.
Every blog article, video, photo, etc. that you share should have the purpose of providing your audience with some kind of value while presenting your brand in a favorable light.
11. Assists in creating an optimized marketing funnel
Sharing high-quality content can do wonders for nurturing prospective customers during the shopping experience. To maximize your content marketing efforts, be sure to provide useful content throughout every stage of the marketing funnel.
The marketing funnel includes three important parts that you’ll need to consider when creating content for your audience.
First, there’s the top-of-funnel stage, where your business’s potential customers are becoming aware of issues that they need to solve. They’re also starting to take note of possible solutions for these problems.
Here, you’ll want to supply content intended to educate your target market so that they’re better equipped to determine which solution best fits their needs.
Next, we have the middle-of-funnel stage, where potential customers are beginning to assess the different solutions available to them. Provide them with informative content that can help them to further narrow down their choices as they approach making a final decision on what to purchase.
Finally, we end with the bottom-of-funnel stage, where shoppers are prime for conversion.
To give them the extra push they need to become paying customers, ensure that your content is in line with whatever they need to give them the confidence that your business is their best option.
You might also want to include a special discount or promotion here for shoppers who need an extra bit of encouragement!
12. Helps you to stand out from the competition
With the plethora of ecommerce websites available to consumers nowadays, you’ll need to find a way to make yours shine.
Content marketing has proven to be a powerful method for helping small businesses to differentiate themselves from their many competitors on the market.
Although you’ll be basing your content on the needs of your target customers, you get to choose how you present that information along with your tone and style. Don’t be afraid to highlight your one-of-a-kind personality and demonstrate that there’s an individual behind your brand.
When you create content to share across your various platforms, be sure to show the unique value that your business brings.
It’s true that you might not have the advertising budget of big-name competitors. However, with superior content marketing, you can still be quite successful with your chosen niche by demonstrating what makes your online store special.
13. Allows you to better understand your target market
To put it simply, content marketing is a marathon, not a sprint.
The effort you put into your strategy today may not have immediate effects, but it can provide many benefits in the long run. Furthermore, you’ll need to be adaptable and adjust your strategy as your ideal customers’ needs change.
Before you even create your content, you’ll want to do plenty of research to determine what information is going to be most helpful and relevant to your audience. This will assist you in getting to know various aspects related to your target market.
Then, as you begin to share content, you’ll see how your audience interacts with the different types that you supply.
Through careful analysis, you’ll be able to discover which methods your target customers prefer. By tracking engagement rate, conversion rate, and other statistics, you can improve your strategy and become more efficient in content creation for your ecommerce business.
14. Expands your reach
We live in a world where anything and everything can go viral on the internet.
Whether it’s a photo of a pancake that bears a striking resemblance to the face of a beloved celebrity or a video of a dog howling along to a dramatic Italian opera tune, compelling or entertaining content spreads like wildfire.
If the content you create strikes a chord with your audience, there’s an excellent chance that at least some of them are going to share your posts on their own social media channels.
This in turn allows your viewership to grow, further promoting your business and showing what you have to offer.
For this reason, you’ll want to be sure that every piece of content you post is crafted with your target market in mind. In addition, encourage your audience to share your content, as this builds your brand’s reputation and demonstrates your confidence in the information that you’re putting out there.
15. Reinforces other areas of your digital marketing strategy
A final argument for why you’ll want to make content marketing a major focus is that it can help support all other aspects of digital marketing for your store. As a new small business, you’ll want to incorporate a variety of tools to make the most out of digital marketing.
These different tactics are used in conjunction with each other, all with the aim of getting more visitors to your site and boosting conversions. When you create exceptional content, you can use it for social media, your email marketing campaigns, paid advertising, and more.
Potential customers may visit your store after viewing an intriguing Instagram post or pay-per-click (PPC) ad. Once they arrive on your website, you’ll want to be sure that the content you provide there entices them to stay on the page and return in the future.
Conclusion
Hopefully this extensive list has provided you with some clarity as to how content marketing can be incredibly advantageous for growing your ecommerce business. Remember that when you create content, you’ll want to make it not only high quality but consistent.
If you don’t have a lot of time to spend on content creation now, that’s okay!
You can opt to pay somebody else to do it for you or work on it when you have the freedom to do so. Just be sure that you’re intentional with whatever you share and try to stick to a regular posting schedule and use consistent messaging.
If you haven’t already created your ecommerce website or are looking to switch to the best ecommerce website builder on the market, you’ll definitely want to give WiziShop a try!
The English version of our platform will be available in the coming months, so be sure to visit our homepage and provide your email address to sign up for early access and email updates.
