Mastering content marketing can be challenging, but if done right, the rewards can be extraordinary, especially for E-commerce brands. Well,
- Traffic surge from Google? Check.
- More leads in the pipeline? Absolutely.
- More trusting customers? Double-check.
That's what all E-commerce brand wants. Unfortunately, according to Ahefs, a staggering 96.55% of web pages receive zero traffic from Google as a result of merely tossing random blog posts onto the internet.
But your brand won't be among them. For that, you just need to have a well-defined content marketing strategy that sets you apart from the sea of mediocre ones flooding the web. To help you achieve that, let's learn what all E-commerce brands need to know about content marketing to devise or refresh an existing one.
What Is E-commerce Content Marketing?
As potential customers find a piece of relevant information about their search query through your blogs or articles, they engage with it and come back to you when they need more. As a result, they discover your products that may solve their issues and purchase them. That's how content marketing basically works for E-commerce websites.
Without resorting to hard-selling tactics, addressing the queries and needs of customers through various formats like SEO blogs, video guides, and product descriptions, brands can engage and educate their audience and encourage them to make further purchases.
It's very effective in boosting conversion rates and increasing sales and does not require heavy investments like paid ads, yet it generates more leads at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing methods.
What Are The Types Of Content Marketing?
Content marketing for e-commerce comes in various forms, each catering to different preferences and consumption habits of online shoppers. Some common types include:
1. Online Content Marketing
Online content marketing encompasses all forms of content created and distributed online, including web pages, landing pages, email newsletters, digital publications, social media, blogs, emails, videos, and podcasts. An effective online content marketing strategy can achieve higher SEO rankings and attract, engage, and convert the right audiences into potential customers. Relax the Back's home page is a good example of engaging visitors with specific content about their products.
2. Social Media Content Marketing
Probably one of the most popular and sought content marketing types, this entails utilizing social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Snapchat, WhatsApp, and Pinterest to create and promote content to grow and engage audiences. In fact, 52% of brand discovery from online sources comes through social media. You can leverage these platforms in several ways through (posts, stories, videos, and live streams) to increase brand visibility. Here’s how Glossier’s Instagram account shows its product line and how each product can be used.
3. Infographic Content Marketing
Infographics are great visual representations of data, information, or knowledge designed to present complex information quickly and clearly. They can easily simplify complex concepts and present statistics in a visually appealing format of graphs, charts, diagrams, etc. If you want to showcase your product features, you can share them in a story format with simple wording, short statements, and clear images.
4. Blog Content Marketing
Blogging involves creating and publishing articles, guides, case studies, or opinion pieces on a company's website or other blogging platforms. It basically promotes a brand, website, product, or service to educate readers on the workings of the same. Blog content marketing allows you a lot of creative freedom by collaborating with guest bloggers, writing third-party blogs, or promoting other internal and external content with links, adding social share buttons, and incorporating product information. Here’s how Andie, an E-commerce brand, shares knowledge through their blog resources.
5. Podcast Content Marketing
Over 50% of marketers are already using podcasts to reach their target audience, and it won’t be long before this industry becomes even more competitive. This is the reason why businesses are becoming so keen on starting their own podcasts. Podcast content marketing involves creating audio content in the form of episodes or series on specific topics relevant to the brand's niche. You can be extremely creative in sharing stories, interviews, discussions, or expert insights, offering audiences a convenient and engaging way to consume content. For instance, Harvard Business Review (HBR) has a weekly podcast called HBR IdeaCast that talks about business and management.
6. Video Content Marketing
With people spending at least 1 hour and 40 minutes watching videos daily, 88% of video marketers say video has helped them increase user understanding of their product or service. Besides any other form of content marketing, the main benefit of video content marketing is producing and distributing content in the form of product demos, tutorials, testimonials, advertisements, service reviews, behind-the-scenes footage, or storytelling content to engage and connect with audiences visually. It can significantly improve ROI and boost conversions by sharing videos across various platforms, including websites, social media, and video hosting sites like YouTube. Here’s one from Myntra.
7. Paid Ad Content Marketing
When paired with inbound marketing, paid advertising content marketing can actually become beneficial for you to position yourselves in places or channels where you want to promote your brand. Paid ads can help increase brand visibility, reach new audiences, and drive traffic, leads, or sales through targeted campaigns. It can include promoting content through paid channels such as Google Ads, Facebook Ads, sponsored content, influencer partnerships, or native advertising on socials, landing pages, banners, etc. Here’s how Tira, a beauty E-commerce platform, uses paid and sponsored ads on social media (like this one on Facebook) to reach its target audience.
Why Does E-commerce Brand Need A Solid Content Marketing Strategy?
In 2024, the HubSpot State of Marketing Report says 29% of marketers actively use content marketing. Moving on to its importance, in comparison to other digital marketing forms, content marketing offers a greater return on investment (ROI) in the long run only when you leverage it correctly for what it offers.
Here’s why your E-commerce brand needs to have a solid one as:
- 87% of video marketers say that content videos have increased traffic to their websites.
- Personalized Content Creates a 20% Increase in Sales Opportunities.
- 79% of marketers say that blog posts are an effective channel to distribute content, reach customers, and build brand awareness.
- 63% of content marketers report that content marketing has helped them to build loyalty with customers.
- 81% of respondents said that content marketing helped them to create brand awareness.
- 63% of respondents reported the success of content marketing in building a growing loyalty with existing clients and customers.
- 64% of B2B buyers report that podcasts were helpful at the beginning of their buying journey.
- 40% of B2B buyers said they engaged with at least 3 pieces of content before they contacted a sales rep.
- 52% of B2B buyers are "definitely" more inclined to make a purchase after viewing content.
- 40% of shoppers say UGC makes them more likely to buy a product from an ad.
Best Content Marketing Strategies For E-commerce Brands In 2024
In 2024, E-commerce content marketing will be more crucial than ever as consumer's demand for high-quality, engaging content to guide their purchasing decisions increases. With this in mind, let's explore some of the trending and top content marketing strategies you must incorporate if you want to be better positioned to attract and convert customers.
1. Build A Content Hub on Your Website
Source: agilitycms.com
Creating a content hub on your website serves as a central repository for valuable and relevant content that can help your customers navigate what they are looking for in one place. This content hub can include everything ranging from blog posts and articles to videos and infographics, or you can organize them into broad categories and topics for a clear distinction. Over time, this hub will help you:
- Enhances the user experience.
- Improves search engine visibility.
- Drives organic traffic.
- Establish your brand as an authority.
- Foster trust with your audience.
- Encourage them to return for valuable insights and information.
2. Include Storytelling And Brand Narratives
In 2024, take your content marketing strategy a notch up, and instead of just doing it in a cliche manner like every other brand, find your individuality. We’d recommend being as authentic as you can because it sells. As the competition increases higher than ever before, customers have become more demanding and more difficult to persuade.
To deal with that, start incorporating storytelling and brand narratives into your content marketing strategy to connect with your audience on a personal level. Shift your content approach to an absolutely personalized one where you will have to share anecdotes, user-generated stories, testimonials, or behind-the-scenes glimpses that demonstrate how your brand has served its purpose. The tendency is very simple. Customers are drawn to brands that share their own reviews so that they don't have to face the hassle of finding the same themselves.
Here’s how we share our customer testimonials at Statusbrew.
3. Incorporate Social Commerce Integration
If you are wise enough to follow trends, then you probably already know the importance and benefit of integrating social commerce into your content marketing strategy. In 2024, these will become even more vital for online businesses. Platforms like Facebook Shops, Instagram Shopping, and Pinterest Shopping allow your customers to navigate and purchase without having the hassle of leaving the app. This not only streamlines the entire checkout process for your customers but also strengthens your online presence.
To make it even better, use high-quality images, detailed product descriptions, influencer marketing partnerships, and paid advertising for better reach.
4. Leverage User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) must be an important part of your content marketing strategy in 2024 if you want to build customer trust in your brand. Encourage your customers to share their experiences, photos, and reviews of your products on social media platforms and your website and curate them as UGC to provide social proof and inspire confidence in potential buyers. You can do the same for product pages, social channels, blog posts, and email newsletters to illustrate real-world usage and foster a sense of community around your brand.
Let's appreciate how Starbucks leverages UGC contests and influencer campaigns to create and share content related to their brand. They have a strong online community and a fresh flow of relatable content.
5. Integrated Augmented Reality (AR) Experiences
Integrating augmented reality (AR) is one strategy you should closely follow in 2024, especially with people preferring online shopping more than ever before. It has revolutionized the way customers interact with your products online. For instance, check out how glasses.com allows customers to virtually try on their products and see what they would look like on their physical selves.
By allowing users to visualize products in their own space through AR technology, you provide an immersive and personalized shopping experience. From trying on virtual clothing to placing virtual furniture in their homes to trying makeup products on their skin, AR has reduced purchase hesitation by bridging the gap between the digital and physical worlds. Incorporating AR integration into your E-commerce content marketing strategy will differentiate your brand from your competitors.
6. Choose The Right Content Marketing Channels
Targeting the right channels will fetch the right leads and engagement for your E-commerce brand. Simply curating content and putting it out anymore won't crack the deal. However, channel selection will solely depend upon who your brand targets. So before you figure out your channels, do thorough research on your audience, their preferred platforms, active duration, and definitely demographics for maximum visibility.
For instance, if your target audience is between the age group of (40 and 55) then targeting channels like Snapchat could be a really bad idea.
7. Set A Budget
Now, the most important part of your content marketing strategy is budget allocation. While most of the budget calculation will depend on the type of content you’re creating and which channels you’re investing in, there are other important factors to consider as well. You need to:
- Assess whether you need to invest in social media management tools.
- Do you need to hire content marketers or designers?
- Do you need to pay for ad space?
Answer these questions and make a note from a prioritization standpoint. What are your objectives? What do you need the most? While most B2B businesses devote an average of 33% of their marketing budget to content marketing, prioritize your goals and consider reverse-engineering your budget based on specific objectives, such as acquiring a certain number of new customers. A well-planned budget facilitates content planning, ensures cost-effectiveness, and prevents overspending or underspending on marketing efforts.
8. Analyze And Improve
Once you have materialized all the above strategies and want to analyze what’s working and what's not working for your E-commerce, that's when the final step comes in. You can never hope to make progress without tracing and revisiting those goals and KPIs that you established at the beginning of your plan.
Yes, you can track your content marketing efforts through Google Analytics. But Statusbrew is a way more streamlined platform that lets you gauge more than just common metrics.
We give you a way more granular insight into your:
- Page performance
- Audience sentiment
- Store rating
- Audience demographics
- Engagement as per network
- Audience active hours
- Top post reach and impression
- Organic vs. paid reach
- Cross channel performance
- Competitor analysis
This will allow you to understand what changes need to be made in order to improve your content marketing efforts and attract more viewers. And if you want to know more about what's new in Statusbrew in 2024, sign up for a FREE trial today. Your audience awaits!
4 Examples Of Brilliant Content Marketing To Inspire You
If you are starting initially, it's difficult for you to keep up with all the ideas that we have presented. Hence, the purpose of this section is to inspire you with some examples of content marketing to get you started.
1. Boden
You will definitely learn a thing or two about content marketing from Boden, a British clothing retailer. It excels in content marketing through its engaging blog, featuring style guides, fashion tips, and behind-the-scenes glimpses across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. They actively post attractive images and live videos to engage with their audience and drive traffic to their e-commerce site.
2. Birchbox
Birchbox, a beauty subscription service, leverages content marketing with its informative blog, offering makeup tutorials, skincare advice, product reviews, and information on how to use each product. Their blog section educates and inspires its audience on beauty and wellness, driving brand loyalty and subscription sign-ups.
3. Northern Brewer
Northern Brewer, a homebrewing supplies retailer, excels in content marketing with its extensive library of brewing guides, recipe ideas, and instructional videos on homebrewing and winemaking. Its website also has a blog section for novice and experienced brewers alike that teaches them how to make beer in four simple steps and provides links to help readers find relevant products easily.
4. Lunya
Lastly, setting one of the best examples of content marketing, Lunya, a luxury sleepwear brand, captivates its audience with content marketing through its lifestyle blog and great product pages with detailed descriptions of sleep health, relaxation techniques, bedtime rituals, fabrics, and social proof in the form of reviews. The most interesting content marketing strategy of this E-commerce brand is to share customer stories embodying their brand seamlessly without being overly promotional.
5 Common Content Marketing Mistakes To Avoid
Avoiding common content marketing mistakes is crucial for the success of any E-commerce brand's strategy. While it might take a lot of trial and error for you to figure that out, here are some content marketing blunders you must steer clear of:
1. Curating Inconsistent Content
One of the common mistakes we make while crafting a content marketing strategy is mindlessly curating content that doesn't add value to our audience, nor does it inspire them. Consistency doesn't mean posting content every day for the next 4 weeks. It means being consistent in brand voice, tone, identity, etc. As an E-commerce, you should first learn what your best times to post are and have a properly targeted content strategy in place for a particular duration.
2. Not Updating Blog Content Regularly
It's not enough just to write a blog and share it with millions of people. If you really want the blog to fulfill its purpose, be regular in updating it. You will be surprised to see how a single change in a headline or inclusion of SEO keywords can spike up that traffic. More so if your aim is to increase sales of your E-commerce company, update product images, check analytics, create compelling CTAs, and, of course, share the same on social channels.
3. Too Much Commercialization
One word of advice to all E-commerce brands: sell differently. Sell helpfulness. In 2024, if you want your content marketing to do well, try something different from traditional advertising selling. Be subtle, as too much commercialization will have a reverse effect. People usually like to consume content to learn, not to be treated as a sales prospect. So, try focusing on gaining trust first, as E-commerce brands need to build a strong community since most of their consumers purchase products without seeing them in real life.
4. Ignoring Analytics
Neglecting to track and analyze key metrics such as traffic, engagement, and conversion rates makes it challenging to measure the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. It is a common mistake that most brands make, and they wonder why they do not see any results. Fortunately, analytics tools like Statusbrew can help you track and analyze what matters the most based on networks, locations, and performance.
5. Lack of Variety
We all get bored too easily nowadays! Blame the versatility we get to see now in everything. However, E-commerce businesses can be significantly affected if they rely solely on one type of content or format for a longer period of time. This is definitely going to limit their reach and engagement. If you don't want to be one of them, diversify your content strategy by experimenting with different formats such as videos, infographics, podcasts, and blog posts to cater to different audience preferences and consumption habits.
Boost Your E-commerce Business’s Sales With Content Marketing
Implementing an effective content marketing strategy for your E-commerce business requires dedication and careful planning, but the rewards can be significant. By following the strategies we have outlined in this guide, E-commerce brands like yours can achieve lasting benefits and improved return on investment (ROI).
Nevertheless, consistently managing and monitoring your content marketing efforts can seem to be a time-consuming affair. In such cases, seeking assistance from Statusbrew will be smart if you want to streamline your content management, optimize your social media presence, and boost sales through strategic content distribution.
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