Ecommerce Content Marketing: 7 Tips for an Effective Strategy

An effective ecommerce content marketing strategy is one of the most valuable tools you can leverage as a business owner. Creating powerful content, from insightful blog posts, to product demo videos and how-to guides does more for your brand than you might think.

Aside from helping you to rank higher on the search engine result pages when customers search for words and phrases related to your company, content marketing also helps you increase brand awareness, improve relationships with customers, and distinguish your company from the competition.

Notably, while there’s no one-size-fits-all method for developing the perfect ecommerce content marketing plan, there are steps you can follow to boost your chances of success. Today, we’re sharing our top tips for ecommerce marketing teams and business owners, inspired by insights from market reports, and our own community of Shopify experts.

1. Conduct Extensive Market Research

Content comes in many forms, from videos, to blog posts, news reports, and social media posts. However, no matter which format you choose for your ecommerce content marketing strategy, you should always ensure that your pieces are tailored to the needs of your target audience.

With platforms like Shopify, companies can take advantage of tools like “Shopify Audiences”, to help them target specific audience segments at the right time, with the right content. However, it’s also worth conducting your own market research. 

Use surveys, and gather feedback from customers to learn more about the kind of content that’s most beneficial to your target audience. Conduct research into your competitors to find out what kind of content they’re promoting, and generate ideas for your own campaigns.

Additionally, make sure you integrate your Shopify store with Google Analytics, so can track which pages get the most attention from your target audience. Your research will help you not only create more powerful content, but also invest in strategies to personalize your marketing strategy.

For instance, based on your findings, you might create dynamic content for your website that changes based on a customer’s location, or purchasing history. 

2. Invest in a Comprehensive SEO Strategy

Effective ecommerce content marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) are two closely connected concepts. After all, 93% of internet users initiate their online experiences by searching for something on a search engine like Google. Making sure your content is optimized with the right keywords and phrases will help you to capture the attention of your target audience. 

Notably, remember that great SEO does depend on more than just searching for high-volume, low competition keywords to target with tools like SEMRush and Ahrefs. 

You’ll also need to use strong internal linking strategies, constantly showcase expertise, experience, and authority in your posts, and make sure you’re taking advantage of technical SEO strategies, like optimizing your pages to load quickly, and using alt titles, tags, and meta descriptions.

Here’s a great example of a well-optimized blog from Colour Mill to help inspire you. 

The good news for companies using Shopify for ecommerce, is that the platform is already SEO-friendly. You can create your own blog on the platform, add descriptions to images, and even customize your URLs for the best search results. 

Plus, you can even use Shopify apps to help boost your SEO strategy. There are plenty of add-ons for Shopify that can suggest keywords to target, and even help you generate content using AI. 

3. Experiment with Content Distribution Methods

One of the biggest mistakes business leaders make when investing in an ecommerce content marketing strategy, is failing to effectively promote their content. Simply designing great blog posts and videos and optimizing them for the search engines will only take you so far. 

You also need to actively search for ways to draw attention to your content, and engage your audience. To boost your chances of the best possible brand reach, experiment with:

• Social media marketing: Keep customers up-to-date on your latest content by sharing snippets on your social media pages. You can promote blogs, news stories, videos, and more on social media, to drive customers back to your website. 
• Email marketing: Email marketing is an excellent way to nurture and retain your target audience. Work with an expert to create a professional lead capture form for your website, to collect contact details for your email list. Then, use email automation apps that integrate with Shopify to design engaging newsletters, personalized to suit your audience segments. 
• Work with partners: Consider distributing your content on other well-known websites in your industry. You can publish press releases on news websites, or create guest blogs for complementary organizations, to boost your reach.  

4.  Create Content for Every Stage of the Buyer Journey

Ecommerce content marketing strategies are great for drawing attention to your brand and products, but you shouldn’t focus just on “creating awareness”. The best content marketing strategies should address every stage of the buyer journey.

For instance, after you create content for the “Awareness” stage, focusing on addressing core customer problems and pain points, look at how you can help them through the “Consideration” stage, with review posts and comparison posts. 

For instance, look at how Reframed helps customers make better purchasing decisions with their “ultimate” gift guides: 

Don’t forget to create content that helps your customers out after they make a purchase too. Educational content that shows customers how to use new features is great for earning customer loyalty and boosting retention rates. Additionally, thought leadership content, like expert insight posts about common trends, can help to strengthen the credibility of your brand.

5. Prioritize Visual Ecommerce Content Marketing

The value of search engine optimization for ecommerce content marketing means many companies focus a lot of their attention on creating written content, like blog posts and news. However, in ecommerce, it makes sense to prioritize visual content too. 

https://resources.storetasker.com/shopify-examples/nike-hero 

Videos, in particular, are excellent for sharing valuable insights with your audience. You can create videos for various stages of the customer journey, such as:

• Product explainer and description videos
• Customer testimonial videos
• How-to video guides
• Onboarding and customer success videos

Not only do videos boost your chances of engaging customers throughout the purchasing journey, but they open the door to new ways of promoting your brand and increasing awareness. For instance, BeardBrand, a leading ecommerce company, shares videos on their website, as well as a YouTube channel (with more than 2 million subscribers). 

https://www.youtube.com/c/beardbrand

You can even cross-promote your video content on various social media channels, like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and even LinkedIn (for B2B brands). 

6. Partner with Influencers and Experts

If you’ve been following ecommerce SEO strategies lately, you’ll know that “EEAT”, or Experience, Expertise, Authority, and Trust, is becoming increasingly crucial. If you want to differentiate yourself from the countless companies using AI to generate content, and boost your ranking potential, you need to constantly find ways of demonstrating your thought leadership.

One of the best ways to do this, and expand your brand’s reach at the same time, is to partner with influencers and industry experts. 

Partnering with influencers in your industry can be an excellent way to reach new customers who haven’t heard of your business already. Plus, it can give credibility to your brand, boosting your chances of converting customers when they arrive on your website.

You might partner with influencers on podcasts, videos, and social media posts that drive customers back to your site from external sources, or you can ask influencers to work with you on co-creating thought leadership content and blogs. 

Notably, if you do partner with influencers on social media campaigns, we recommend also adding a social feed to your website, so you can showcase your best promotions:

https://resources.storetasker.com/shopify-examples/surreal-insta-feature

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7. Leverage User Generated Content

Finally, influencers and thought leaders aren’t the only people who can contribute to your ecommerce content marketing strategy, and boost your brand’s credibility. Sourcing and sharing content created by your customers is another way to optimize your marketing results. 

Virtually every customer, in any industry will search for reviews and testimonials before making a purchase. In fact, studies show that 98% of shoppers believe reviews are essential to their purchasing decisions. Adding this content to your website helps to streamline the purchasing journey.

https://resources.storetasker.com/shopify-examples/flings-reviews-testimonials

With Shopify, you can access plenty of great apps that allow you to add star reviews, comments, and customer testimonials to your website, and product pages. 

Not only will this boost your chances of converting customers, but it’s also a great way to gain insights into your customers and what they want. The information you collect from reviews will help you to define which questions to answer in your blog posts, what to include in your product demo videos, and which keywords to target in future campaigns.

Upgrade your Ecommerce Content Marketing Strategy

No matter which niche you’re targeting, or what products you sell, an effective ecommerce content marketing strategy will be crucial to your success. The more you invest in creating powerful content that attracts, engages, and supports customers, the more your revenue will grow. 

The good news is that the Shopify platform is already perfectly tuned to the needs of content marketers. It makes it easy to create and share everything from blog posts, to powerful videos. You can even use 3D content and augmented reality content in your campaigns.

However, you might find yourself needing the help of an ecommerce expert to assist with the creation of powerful blogs, quizzes, interactive content and more. 

If you need help taking your ecommerce content marketing strategy to the next level, contact Storetasker today to be matched with a leading Shopify Expert. 

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