Traditionally, a customer has nothing more than an advertisement or word of mouth to consider your products, services, or your brand. Customer has a need, she looks around for information (including asking friends or neighbors) and just walks into your store or approaches your business.
It’s need-based, quick, efficient, and has worked for centuries. Now that information is readily available on the Internet, the web is even more efficient in making information available for customers looking for solutions to their problems.
Looking for rentals in Chicago? Google It.
Need tools for DIY or for the garage? Check out Amazon.
The question still remains: If there are more than one businesses providing similar products and services, who will the customer go for?
This is where content marketing (with all the amazing benefits it has) comes in, playing the big, long game.
Content marketing is the complete process of turning information into your fuel for marketing. Leading with stories, information, inspiration, tutorials, and “How Tos”.
It’s a way for businesses to build familiarity, trust, and turn casual “readers or those who consume content” into lifelong customers.
Several aspects of content marketing include blogging, content assets (eBooks, whitepapers, reports, downloadables, PDF documents, videos, and even social updates).
As an eCommerce business, content marketing is all about playing the long game. How do you do it?
Here’s how:
Understand What Your Audience Needs
There’s no “content” in content marketing without knowing (really getting the feel for…) what your target audience wants.
What are the usual problems they face? How does your product or service solve this problem? What are some of the other issues that your target audience usually puts up with?
For an IT services provider specializing in Kubernetes, their target audience is IT managers, CIOs, and indie developers.
Problem: Finding a secure, fast, and efficient way to host and manage applications.
The specific group of audience members have issues, questions, and they need answers now.
As a part of your content mix, answer those questions. Show them how your products or services solve their issues.
Or maybe educate, inspire, teach, and “show me what’s in it for me”.
Create Relevant Content for Your Audience
Freshbooks is a popular invoicing and accounting software for freelancers and self-employed professionals. Their target audience? An ever-growing target audience of freelancers, consultants, and self-employed professionals.
Take our case in point: Panoramata is for individuals, businesses, and agencies looking for an efficient way to not only get inspired by email marketing, ads, and landing pages that eCommerce businesses use but also to help track competitors (along with their campaigns and eCommerce stores).
Our content then focuses on eCommerce, eCommerce marketing, email marketing, general digital marketing advice.
Notice what Freshbooks does with its content marketing: Regular blogs on advice for small business owners along with information on pricing, management, business incorporation, annual taxation, and more.
Get the idea?
Know what your target wants (.. a lot more beyond the exact issue that your product or service solves) and create content.
Share & Distribute Content
Several businesses (including agencies) focus on pumping out content like content mills do (which is actually the good part of the equation) so much that they forget to share and distribute.
Not every website, eCommerce store, or blog ranks on the top pages of Search (Google, Bing, and others). It’s your responsibility to “push” out content, maybe just as much as you’d push products and services.
Apart from publishing regularly, share and distribute content regularly on social media. Find ways to push content through social destinations such as Reddit, Quora, and other specific forums (where your target audience hangs out).
Even within regular social networks, take advantage of LinkedIn Groups, Facebook Groups, and more.
Use Email Marketing and Ads (Retain & Nurture)
Until this point, we now know what content marketing is all about, how it helps your potential customers discover your brand and your business, how they learn more about products, services (or other information centered around products), and then how they trust you enough to come back again and again.
Email marketing is the point where they “sign up” to hear more about your products and services. They’d sign up (or opt-in) to receive more information about your brand, on things you publish about, and more.
Email marketing is all about nurturing your “captive audience” -- groups of people who either subscribe to learn more, those who expressed interest in your products, or those who actually purchased something from you.
With email marketing, you nurture these relationships (depending on your segments or groups of subscribers). This nurturing leads to sales and revenue over a period of time.
There are smarter strategies and techniques such as email automation, shopping cart abandonment emails, win-back campaigns, personalization, and email retargeting that help you generate even more revenue.
Note: If you use paid advertising “on top of” your regular content marketing efforts, you are going to put your e-commerce marketing on steroids. More traffic, more leads, and more sales.
Build Your Plan & Measure Your Results
Once you get going with content marketing (+ ads, if you have the budget and the know-how for it), you are going to see plenty of traction on your e-commerce store. Regular visitors by the day, email sign ups, and a growing presence on social media.
Firing away on all fronts, you now have leads signing up, people checking your products out, and paying customers -- all aboard.
Continue working on your content marketing efforts, make your social media presence stronger, and build on your existing plan.
More importantly, measure your results with complete analytics. At this stage, you should be making decisions based on data (not on whim).
Is Facebook (Meta) or Instagram -- what’s working better for you? How much traffic does your e-commerce blog generate Vs how many leads sign up on a daily or weekly basis?
Of the leads generated -- which channels are giving you the maximum number of leads? Is it your content marketing? Or is it solely from social media? Or is your YouTube Channel doing all the hard work?
If you are also doing paid ads, how does this paid strategy compare with the organic strategy you already rolled out (content marketing + social media)?
Get data. Get the stories. Make data-driven decisions. Grow.
