eCommerce content marketing is a form of inbound marketing that is created with the purpose of bringing an audience to you, from people who are already actively searching out answers online to relevant topics your brand can help solve.
The strategy supports consumers in their buying journey, with the ultimate goal of winning sales through integrating valuable and informative content for the consumer.
While it is a long-term commitment, an eCommerce content marketing strategy helps brands to build relationships with their audience, improve brand image and credibility and increase awareness through website traffic. Ultimately, this will lead to more conversions and a credible reputation as industry leaders.
Crafting a successful content strategy for eCommerce revolves around understanding and addressing your target audience's biggest challenges, concerns and questions. Your content should be designed to meet those needs in formats they prefer and on channels they use most.
The type of content you create — whether an eBook, a downloadable guide, a social media post, a blog post or an assessment tool — will depend on your specific business goals. For example, blog content might aim to boost brand awareness, increase organic or referral traffic or improve conversions and customer retention.
A consistent content strategy aligns your brand with its target audience, addresses their pain points and adds value over time. Without it, your messaging can become ineffective and even contradictory, resulting in minimal tangible outcomes.
Let's explore some of the essential considerations B2C marketers should keep in mind for impactful eCommerce content marketing:
Your website content needs to engage your audience and drive conversions, so you must position your brand to stand out from the competition. Engaging product descriptions are crucial. Highlight how your products are made, the technology and materials used, customer success stories, FAQs and video content to engage your audience and increase opportunities for sales conversions.
Example: Hubspot’s content is a great example of this. From the top of the funnel to the bottom, Hubspot delivers relevant content at each step of the consumer journey. Here’s their formula:
Storytelling is a powerful eCommerce content marketing strategy that builds brand appeal by offering a deep understanding of your brand’s DNA. Share the stories of your founders, achievements, values and culture to connect emotionally with your audience. Customer stories that reflect their challenges and how your products helped them can also be very effective. Another strategy is taking an informative approach to educate your audience, which builds credibility and trust.
Example: Patagonia has long been regarded for engaging storytelling. One of their guiding values is activism for climate change and you can tell from their content that they truly live and breathe these values. “Underconsumption Core” and “De-Influencing” trends have recently come to the mainstream on social media, but Patagonia has long been sharing these values in an effort to save the planet.
Social proof, such as reviews and ratings from your current customers, statistics or awards can be just what the prospective customer needed to make the purchase. Social proof is a crucial trust signal. Feedback on product quality, delivery times, returns and refunds adds authenticity to your website and products, while awards, statistics and testimonials can add that little bit extra to your credibility.
Customer success stories can also motivate potential customers. Interview satisfied customers and use their stories to create engaging images and interactive videos for your site. This type of content is highly engaging and often outperforms text alone.
Guest posting is another effective strategy. Collaborate with influential bloggers in your niche to share authentic reviews of your products. Ensure these bloggers have a solid reputation for authenticity and a significant following for maximum visibility.
Example: A simple, yet effective example is SEMRush’s landing page. Above the fold, we see household name brands that use the product and as we scroll down, there are more social proofs on statistics like SEMRush’s 10 million users, 21 awards and that 30% of Fortune 500 companies use Semrush.
Educational content about how to use your products positions your brand as an educator rather than just a seller. This strategy, common among B2B marketers, can also benefit eCommerce sites by driving more organic traffic. Evergreen content marketing is meant to attract traffic over time, often for months or even years, with informational posts, how-to articles and shopping guides playing key roles.
Take your content one step further by including eCommerce search terms, which can significantly improve your SEO ranking. Another thing to keep in mind is that evergreen content should be living and breathing - meaning you can update it over time to ensure it is still relevant and offering the most up to date recommendations and trends.
Example: The Etsy Journal has plenty of rich evergreen content that align with the brand’s mission and values. With content like Father's Day: 23 amazing gift ideas for every kind of dad and DIY: Make Your Own Temporary Tattoos, Etsy is appealing to their target audience: artisans, creators, small business owners and supporters/customers of their goods and products.
Ensuring your content ranks well on search engines can be a powerful source of website traffic for your brand. This involves both on-page and off-page optimisation.
- On-page SEO is about optimising your website content, including thorough keyword research, optimising site speed (consider Google’s Core Web Vitals) and enhancing your top content. Focus on creating content that addresses customer pain points and answers their questions.
- Off-page SEO includes external promotions of your website. While this can only be done through independent readers, you must focus on getting the content so engaging that the reader will feel compelled to share with others. This builds credibility as others can vouch for your content.
Example: Apple’s SEO strategy is very strong with several keywords on the page. Their product description copy is concise and easy to digest, yet still provides users with all the necessary information about each product. It appeals to an audience who may still be weighing their options on which product is the right fit for them.
You can implement these strategies to create a robust eCommerce content marketing plan that resonates with your audience, drives traffic and boosts conversions.
A great place to start when looking for content ideas is by auditing competitors and analysing their content and strategies. This method provides valuable insights into the content landscape and helps you understand how other companies in your niche are engaging their audiences.
Competitive analysis gives you the key information on how competitors position themselves, what their channel presence looks like and then allows you to decide how to proceed in how you want to position your brand and channels for content. This is useful in that it will help you to get acclimated to the market’s types of content and what is important to other companies similar to yours.
By leveraging the insights gained from your competitive analysis, you can better position your own content to meet market demands and stand out from the competition.
After auditing your competitors, the next step is to dive into search engine results to identify top-ranking content. This approach provides a broader perspective on what content is resonating with audiences across the web. Analyse the pages that are ranking well for your targeted keywords and phrases. Look at their content length, structure and style. What can you learn from these high-ranking pages that can be applied to your own content strategy?
A great (and free) tool to get started is the Google Keyword Planner, although you will need to set up a Google Ads account to utilise this feature. This will allow you to get an idea of what keywords people are searching for, how often and their competition ranking. Another tool to assess where your website currently ranks is Google Search Console, which shows how your website and blogs rank on certain search terms.
If you have the budget, tools like Ahrefs and SEMRush are also helpful and probably more accurate than Google’s free tools.
Finally, to refine your content ideas and ensure they meet the needs of your audience, gather input directly from them. Conduct surveys, engage with your social media followers or analyse customer feedback and reviews. Understanding your audience’s preferences, pain points and interests will help you tailor your content to better address their needs and preferences. Combining these insights with your competitive analysis will enable you to create content that not only stands out but also resonates deeply with your target audience.
A well thought out eCommerce content marketing strategy is key to connecting with your audience and driving real results. By consistently creating content that speaks to their needs and interests, you can guide them through their buying journey and boost your brand's visibility. Remember, content marketing is a long game, but with the right focus, you’ll build trust, increase traffic and turn your audience into loyal customers.
