• Content Marketing

Ecommerce sites have been growing majorly in recent times. Websites now progressively set their mind on the overall buying experience, rather than just the selling point of view. Unlike usual local stores, online websites offer the convenience, variety/range of products and better price.

Today let’s dig in about what is content marketing, and how it is beneficial for your ecommerce website and how do we create effective strategies for ecommerce websites. 

What is content marketing for ecommerce? 

Content marketing is a strategic approach focused on making and giving out relevant, and valuable  content to attract, engage, entertainment & inform the audience and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action. Effective Content Marketing not only  builds brand trust but also increases customer retention and customer loyalty. It brings more market through organic results. It creates an authority with search engines and improves your traffic & rankings.

Content marketing majorly includes – blogs, newsletters, white papers, social media posts, emails, videos, that help current users to understand your website better. As we know User Experience (UX) plays an important role for your website, is it necessary that your users are fully convinced that your website not only has a product to sell but also the right & useful information. When it’s done right, this content conveys expertise and makes it clear that a company values the people to whom it sells.

Why is content marketing important for ecommerce websites?

Content plays a vital role in your marketing strategy. For any niche, providing relevant and valuable content is non-negotiable. Here are some of the reasons why. 

1.The audience will stick longer to your website:

An ecommerce website’s goal is to attract as much traffic as it can and persuade users to buy something from your website. However, it is very common where websites can’t deliver results as expected. One of the major reasons is content. Content is the key to attracting an audience and convincing them to stay on your website. Content strengthens your website’s credibility and encourages users to stay longer on your website.

2. It builds brand awareness:

Powerful content is a perfect way to show knowledge and expertise and build trust with your audience. The more content you post, the more exposure it gives to your brand. Every piece of content can widen your audience. Your content is a crucial part of your overall brand and can be used to boost your brand voice and strengthen your commitment to your brand values. 

3. Improve conversion and revenue:

Revenue is the end goal of the ecommerce business. Therefore, it is very important for you to have appealing content that not only helps you engage your users but also persuades users to buy something from your website. These can only happen when the right keywords and strong content is written on your website. Better content helps you rank higher in search engines and improve your conversion rate.

What kind of content works for an eCommerce site?

1. Create tutorials and how to do videos:

Videos allow users to learn more effectively about your services and products. Since videos are substantially more engaging than text, it is more profitable and a better choice to have videos on your websites rather than chunky content. When selling a specialised product, videos are a great way to demonstrate how to use the product and spell out various features and benefits. 

2. Blogging:

Blogging is an essential aspect of any content marketing strategy because it is the part of your site that will be updated frequently with new content to keep users engaged. It also improves your SEO marketing strategy and search engine rankings. Blogs keep users engaged with the website hence helping websites build credibility. When users find your website legitimate, your conversion rate increases, and the bounce rate decreases which overall impacts the revenue generated

3. Include images and descriptions of your products:

A survey found that about 80 percent of online surfers tend to remember what they have seen visually, compared to the 10 &20 percent people who remember what they hear and read. Creating visuals attracts a higher number of users. It also makes users stay longer than the average website which lacks images and visuals. In addition to this, product description is another type of content that helps you build strong credibility. Users usually need descriptions for better understanding of the product, thus when making an ecommerce website, remember to always have a product description. 

4. Share real life customer stories:

About 54% of the people read at least four reviews prior to buying something online. Online reviews help users since they are going through the same buying process, and guides them along their journey of buy. Customer reviews also provide credibility and social proof.

5. Leverage social media:

Leveraging social media allows you to use the ability of social media to reach your customers better. This strategy will help you be a part of the online discussion and engage consumers. Social Media has one of the majority audiences you can target. All and about around 4.6 Billion people use some form of social media. This means that a higher number of people will come across your content and if they like it, they can be redirected to your website Thus it creates a higher number of possibilities of conversion, helping generate a much better revenue. 

How to create effective content strategies for ecommerce sites?  

1. Identify who is your target audience:

Creating ecommerce website content created specially for the user needs, you need to know who your audience is. Developing a constructed representation of buyers will provide a clearer and more focused direction that helps you customise your content you are creating. If done correctly, this might result in a higher marketing ROI and a better relationship with your customers.

2. Learn how users consume your content: 

It is really important to keep a track of how users are reacting towards your content and what they are thinking about it. By using google analytics tool, you will figure out how your target audience likes to consume content. It might  answer some questions that will help you get a broader perspective of the need for content.

1. Is there a specific type of content users like to read?
2. Does the target audience prefer phones for their purchases or what other device do they have?
3. How long does the target audience spend their time on your website?
4. Which is the social media platform where users are most active?

3. Create content based on buyer’s journey: 

The buyer’s journey is divided into three parts, Awareness, Consideration and Decision. It is important to create content accordingly. Here is a brief explanation about the three:   

1. Awareness – The first part of the buyer’s journey is awareness.This is the stage where users find your content and explore it, whereas you showcase to the users that you’re aware of their problems and highlight their pain points when they’re going through your website. Your content is key here since that is what solves customers’ problems without evening selling your services or goods.

2. Consideration – This is the stage where you guide your customers to solutions that you will only provide. You indicate that you not only know what problems users face but also have the right solution for each pain point. In this stage, users compare websites, products and services of different companies and filter the choice to their optimum need. Case studies, user reviews, offers and free supplements play an important role to build the trust of your users. 

3. Decision – This is the final part of the buyer’s journey. At this stage the user is aware of the content you offer, has considered all of his options and has chosen to purchase his interest. This is the stage where you have to showcase your skills and prove why your service/product stand out from your competitors. This can be done by emails and messages. You keep redirecting all your sources towards them while there at the edge of the finish line until they finally complete their journey with a purchase.

4. Measure results and perform it repetitively:

The final process of content marketing is measuring the results. After you have used all your tools and strategies, it is really necessary that you examine how it is working out and identify the areas where you lacked.   

Results can be measured through various aspects such as. 

• Website Traffic : Total no of visitors, source of traffic, duration of session, and their engagement with website 
• Bounce rate :  The bounce rate shows the percentage of visitors who stay on the page for a short period on your website. 
• Conversion Rate and Sales Tracking : How many visitors become leads, and how many leads become paying customers?

Conclusion –  

Now that we have understood about content marketing and why it is so important ecommerce websites, the last thing that people usually want to know is where to find someone who not just has the knowledge about content but also has relevant skills to execute them and help websites with SEO rankings and Content Marketing Services. Indian Marketers provide a data-driven content strategy using competitor scan, NLP algorithms & data entities. It acts as a ladder that helps you climb up the search engine ranking and reach beyond your expectations.