The most successful ecommerce companies already know the simple truth – sassy product descriptions and big juicy product images are not enough to land a sale.
Ecommerce websites no longer just sell products. They sell a related lifestyle, ideas and inspiration.
With ecommerce giants like Amazon, Wal-Mart and Costco dominating the web, product discovery and promotion gets tough for small to medium sized sellers.
So, enter content marketing – the buzzing trick business of all size and shape use to drive traffic to their stores and land sales.
But what if I’m not a good writer? What if I don’t have enough creativity to blog, tweet and fill my Instagram feed on a regular basis?
Fret not. In this post I’d like to share some of the simple, yet effective content marketing strategies backed up with examples and all sort of practicalities!
Video Marketing: You don’t need to be a pro or break the bank.
Visual marketing and video marketing in particular are among the top trends leading the content marketing game in 2015 and onward.
With 1 billion active users and people now spending over 40 minutes per session, YouTube is definitely the platform to be for an ecommerce business.
The good news is – you don’t enormous budgets and celebrity speakers to capture your audience attention.
All you need is good natural lighting, an iPhone or a digital camera shooting in decent quality and a few good ideas. I’ve got you covered with the latter.
Make a video tutorial showing what awesome things can be done with your product. According to Social Media Today at least 64% of users are making a purchase after watching a video. A rather impressive conversion rate, compared to other marketing channels, right?
Show how your product is made or behind the scene snaps. People are always curious how things are made and never miss a peek inside the personal side of any business. Show your production process if it’s curious enough or shoot a video of your team at work or at play.
Invite a popular vlogger for collaboration offering them to shoot your tutorial video or showcase your product in a certain way. However, the more popular the person is, the bigger your budgets will stretch.
Newsjack and/or capitalize on a popular social trend. Something major just happened in your industry? Be fast and shoot a video offering your opinion and commentary on the matter. Your video, if properly optimized, is likely to rank well next to the original news posting.
Share your company’s story. Authentic stories win hearts and minds, especially when it comes to millennial consumers. Share how you’ve came up with the idea of launching your business, talk about the challenges you’ve faced, be vocal about your brand values and ethos. At the end of the day, everyone loves a good story more than a glossy promo video.
Blogging: Bring value and educate your audience
If you want people to read about your product, answer the questions they have.
The strategy works great as:
You bring value and help to your potential customers and establish your brand credibility. Isn’t it nice to be spoken of as “that amazing retailer from Twitter”?
You have a fresh stock of blog ideas all the time. Start entering “how-to” in Google and you’ll get swiped away with thousands of answers people are looking for. To find the burning questions people in your industry have browse Quora; check your competitors FAQ sections and relevant support forums and desk; find a relevant SkillShare class and see what topics they are covering in the course plan; use Ubersuggest to discover new how-to keyword suggestions.
You gradually build your expertise as the niche authority and a one-shop stop for everyone looking for answers in your niche, journalists seeking expert opinions and buyers looking for additional information before making a purchase.
River Pools and Spa were among the first to use the “answering questions strategy” and now land loads of sales from users that came in search for the answer e.g. “How much does a fiberglass pool cost?” an so on. In fact, this strategy also landed Marcus Sheridan an interview on The New York Times.
Social Media Marketing: Take advantage of user-generate content
As visual social media and in-the-moment updates now prevail in social media, a lot of ecommerce businesses struggle to stay consistent with their social media marketing.
Simply posting images of your products no longer does the trick on Instagram and Facebook. Pinterest is leading the product purchasing game with 87% of users saying they made a purchase through it, however it’s the certain type of content that performs particularly well there.
If you are struggling to fill in your social feeds with consistent content, here are some strategies to help:
Instagram: Create a business hashtag and encourage users to share images with your product. The initial decent following is required, however.
Snapchat: Share special promo codes (time-sensitive) to amass the initial following. Share behind the scenes snaps and product sneak peeks to gauge the interest further.
Pinterest: Create relevant graphics with Canva for your blog posts, esp. how-tos + products. Product collages also work great.
Facebook: Curating user-generated content works great for the platform as well. Check out how GoPro is nailing it. On top, upload your videos directly to Facebook, rather than sharing YouTube links for bigger impact.
Twitter: As the platform has gone visual recently, the stats say that tweets with visuals receive 150% more re-tweets and 18% more click-through. Tweet blog graphics, share visual discount coupons, parts of infographics and charts used in your blog post.
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