The eCommerce market saw a boom with the popularity of mobile commerce and digital payments. In 2019, the global e-commerce market was valued at $9.09 trillion and was projected to expand at a CAGR of 147% between 2020 to 2027.
Such growth brings unavoidable competition between online retailers and businesses constantly looking to acquire a large share of customers. All this increases the emphasis on all digital avenues like content marketing, social media, email marketing, affiliate marketing, etc.
Ecommerce marketing helps promote products and services to reach potential customers, increase sales and profits, and build brand awareness. The goal is to reach more potential customers with targeted campaigns and drive visibility in the digital space.
This article provides three key tips for eCommerce businesses that help pivot efforts to content marketing for growth.
What is content marketing in eCommerce?
ECommerce content marketing involves content managers who contribute to creating, managing, and publishing content. Each piece of written content requires tagging, categorizing, scheduling, and editing for a better user experience.
Here, the WordPress editorial plugin, helps content managers ensure content on the eCommerce site is in sync, promptly reviewed, and rightly edited. This can significantly increase traffic and ultimately increase sales.
ECommerce content marketing includes creating digital assets like blog posts, videos, infographics, ebooks, etc. These can help you with the following:
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Building trust and credibility amongst customers by crafting valuable and informative content
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Educating customers about your products and services to help them make more informed purchasing decisions.
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Generating leads by providing a platform for customers to express their interest in a product or service
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Increasing website traffic and sales through engaging contingent that attracts, converts, and retains customers.
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Helping businesses build a brand by providing relevant content to the target audience.
Content Marketing Tips for E-commerce Business
A 2022 B2B Content Marketing report shares that 73% of B2B and 70% of B2C marketers use content marketing as their overall strategy. Also, a poll conducted by Semrush suggests that 91% of marketing professionals were successful with their content marketing efforts.
This shows why content marketing is becoming a key pillar of eCommerce marketing. And therefore, consider creating a content marketing strategy tailored to your eCommerce business.
Let's check out three key tips to streamline content marketing for eCommerce.
1. Optimize content for SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) is crucial in optimizing content with industry-specific keywords for related products and services you offer.
Use SEO best practices like placing keywords in the -
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Title
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Meta description
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The body of your content
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Header tags
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Image alt text
Consider the following when leveraging SEO for your eCommerce content marketing.
Research target keywords
Target keyword research involves identifying long-tail keywords (and phrases) relevant to your business with a high search volume. Once identified, incorporate keywords into copy, titles, and headings throughout your website, as well as in product descriptions and blog posts.
Create quality content
Leverage the efforts of SEO to create content targeted for a specific set of keywords, trends, and topics relevant to your products. It often needs impeccable writing in a tone that resonates with your target audience. Quality content should be aimed at different audiences at different purchase stages.
Leverage the efforts of SEO to create content targeted for a specific set of keywords, trends, and topics relevant to your products. It often needs impeccable writing in a tone that resonates with your target audience. Quality content should be aimed at different audiences at different purchase stages.
For instance, ToFu content is for audiences that have just discovered your eCommerce platform brand. Provide content to introduce your brand impressively that pushes users down the funnel to take actions like searching for product reviews, checking out videos, downloading eBooks, etc.
MoFU content is for audiences familiar with your brand but is in the process of making a purchase decision. They need to know more about your products and what your brand stands for here.
Lastly, BoFu content is where you engage users meaningfully to push towards purchase since they already know your products and brand. Try showcasing the value-addition that your products will provide to the users, and that will turn them into customers.
Optimize metadata and headings
Metadata and headings are important elements of SEO-friendly web pages. Include your metadata with a concise page description (along with keywords) that accurately reflects your eCommerce webpage content.
Similarly, headings should include keywords and be structured logically in an appropriate hierarchy (H1-H6).
Other aspects involve -
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Optimizing images
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Leveraging internal links
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Monitoring SEO performance by tracking top KPIs like organic traffic, conversion rates, mobile traffic, bounce rates, CTR, and page load time.
2. Use multiple content types
Marketing an eCommerce business effectively involves leveraging various content types to attract and engage customers while building brand authority.
Blog posts should provide valuable insights optimized for SEO. eBooks and guides offer in-depth resources behind sign-up forms to capture leads. High-quality images and graphics enhance product presentation, and using tools to sharpen images, adjust lighting, crop for better composition can help create more professional visuals.. Videos, especially demos and tutorials, boost engagement and conversion rates. Infographics condense complex information for easy sharing.
Social media platforms are ideal for showcasing products and promotions. Email newsletters maintain regular communication with personalized content. User-generated content like reviews and testimonials builds trust. Consistency is key—use a content calendar and analytics to refine strategies.
By delivering valuable, diverse content tailored to audience preferences, eCommerce businesses can establish themselves as authorities and drive customer engagement and conversions.
Marketing an eCommerce business requires keeping a content repertoire in different forms like blog posts, eBooks, images, videos, etc. It simplifies content marketing to attract new customers, engage with existing ones, and build long-term relationships.
Moreover, your eCommerce content can help establish you as an authority in your field and build brand recognition. But what content types are available, and how can you best utilize them?
Let's explore a few.
Blog posts
Attract new customers and build trust among the existing ones by creating a blog for your eCommerce website. Assign different authors for different categories of blog posts like industry news, product features, customer success stories, and more.
A smarter approach involves leveraging collaborative editing, catching viral trends, and infusing thought leadership. For instance, collaborative editing in WordPress can enable authors to collaborate with each author having their user profile, while still being able to work together on a single post. Such an approach allows the editor to assign a post, review it, and provide feedback to a specific author who contributed the content.
Videos
Videos are a powerful tool for e-commerce businesses that help showcase products and highlight features engagingly. Use it to walk viewers through a product demonstration or explain a complicated concept for higher engagement.
Social media posts
Social media can engage customers and drive traffic to your website. Use social media posts to share snippets about your business, products, or services. Include visuals, such as images or videos in your posts to make them even more eye-catching and shareable.
Infographics
Infographics present complex information in an easy-to-understand visual format. They're highly shareable on social media platforms, making them an effective marketing tool for eCommerce businesses.
Ebooks & guides
Another comprehensive way of providing helpful information to your customers and potential customers is through ebooks and long-form guides. Offer such content to help customers dive deep into the topics related to your business and provide them with valuable insights.
3. Leverage user-generated content (UGC)
User-generated content is a powerful tool for an eCommerce business looking to up its content marketing game. Publishing such content is effective since it shows real people using the product and their views. An eCommerce agency can help you leverage user-generated content by implementing strategies that encourage customers to share their experiences and creating a system to collect, curate, and showcase the content on your website or social media channels.
Consider it as a good old word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing tactic for your brand, functioning as social proof for potential customers.
You can leverage UGC in various ways, as mentioned below:
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Conducting a competition that requires customers to submit videos, images, and other content.
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Asking customers to leave reviews once they have purchased and monetizing such actions with discounts on future purchases.
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Promoting a particular social media hashtag related to your brand or items, encouraging customers to engage.
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Posting UGC on your social media channels regularly.
Typically, UGC includes reviews, blog posts, photos, videos, and more. You'll leverage various channels like social media, email marketing, product pages, and more here.
UGC can help to drive more sales and build a more engaged community of customers. Additionally, UGC can be used to gain valuable insights into customer needs and preferences.
Here are a few examples of how eCommerce businesses leverage UGC.
Publicize your best reviews and other UGC on your brand’s Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter accounts to instill trust in your products and brand via social proof.
Leesa does this organically and through paid-social advertising across the board.
Leesa shares customer-submitted photographs on their Instagram page frequently.
On Facebook, Leesa features UGC through customer and third-party reviews. In addition, consumers invest 90% more time on a store's website if it includes UGC.
A dedicated reviews page containing user-generated content about your brand and product reviews is highly useful. Set up a hyperlink for this page with your company URL and reviews to help customers discover your reviews when searching online.
This makes it easier for customers to find and increases your chances of appearing at the top of Google search results. Such a UGC-driven page offers a great opportunity to highlight your brand and product reviews.
Further, you can drive more engagement and add a unique twist to your brand strategy by using customer photos in the carousel on the page, just like HelloMolly has done.
Make meaningful connections with prospective customers by introducing them to your brand through existing customers. Know about the general perception of your brand by looking at the top results of an online search.
Wrapping up
The eCommerce content marketing tips mentioned above can serve as a starter. Experiment with tips to empower your eCommerce business to compete in an ever-growing industry.
Finally, it is important to keep track of the top content performance metrics for a clear understanding of what works and what doesn't. Track and measure the success of your eCommerce content marketing strategy to make sure your efforts are paying off. Accordingly, you can refine your strategy for the best possible results.
