Best eCommerce Content Strategy for Marketing Growth

Nowadays, simply creating blogs related to your products may not be enough of a content strategy. Ironic, isn’t it? But it’s true. You need much more. A comprehensive content marketing strategy attracts potential customers, builds brand authority, and ultimately fuels those all-important sales.

From informative blog posts and captivating product descriptions to engaging videos and eye-catching infographics, there are several key elements to take care of.

So in this blog, I’ll tell you what the eCommerce experts do when creating a content strategy. Let’s begin.

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is a digital marketing strategy that focuses on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract the target customer base to your website.

Like other eCommerce marketing strategies, the ultimate goal is to drive profitable customer action. Instead of directly pitching your products or services, this strategy involves providing truly relevant and useful content to your customers and trying to solve their issues.

Here’s an example of a comprehensive content strategy.

Let’s say you have an online store for selling hiking gear. Instead of just doing endless ads for your latest winter boots, create:

• Blog posts: “Top 10 Hiking Trails for Beginners”, “How to Choose the Right Hiking Backpack”, “Essential Gear for a Weekend Hiking Trip”   
• Videos: Gear reviews, hiking tutorials, beautiful footage of scenic hikes
• Infographics: Illustrating how to pack a backpack, layering for different weather conditions
• Buyer’s guides: Helping customers choose the right boots, tent, or sleeping bag for their needs

With this variety of content, you are providing valuable info that helps your target audience and establish you as an authority in your business niche. And of course, it gently guides them to your products rather than pushing them head on.

Importance of a Successful eCommerce Content Strategy

Beyond the information aspect of it, a good content strategy is incredibly significant for an eCommerce website. Here are a few reasons.

Drive Organic Traffic & Boost Search Visibility

Quality content, rich with relevant keywords, acts as a magnet for search engines. This leads to better visibility and higher rankings in search results, driving more organic traffic to your online store.

Informative and engaging content gets shared. The more eyes on your content, the greater your brand’s reach and recognition.

Build Trust and Relationships with the Customers

Content allows you to address your audience’s needs, answer their questions, and guide them through their buying journey. By consistently delivering valuable content, you position your brand as an expert in your industry, fostering trust and credibility.

Increases Conversions and Drives Sales

Content like product reviews, comparisons, and buying guides provide valuable information that helps customers make informed choices. Addressing concerns and offering detailed information builds confidence in your products and brand, encouraging customers to complete their purchase.

Better Customer Loyalty and Retention

When you regularly publish fresh, engaging content, it gives customers a reason to keep coming back for more. Good content sparks conversations and fosters a sense of community around your brand and strengthens customer relationships.

Provides Measurable Results

With tools like Google Analytics, you can monitor key metrics like website traffic, engagement, and conversions to measure the effectiveness of your content strategy and make data-driven adjustments.

All-in-all, a good content strategy is key to attracting customers, building relationships, and driving sales in the competitive digital landscape. That’s why you need to hire our professional eCommerce development company for the best results.

How to Create the Best eCommerce Content Strategy?

A good strategy is all about providing valuable, engaging content that resonates with your target audience and guides them through their buying journey. It starts with understanding your audience – their needs, preferences, and pain points. Here’s how the best strategy is created:

Define Your Goals and Objectives

First off, you need to define what are your ultimate expectations from the content strategy. It provides direction and focus, ensuring your content works towards achieving your desired business outcomes.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Go beyond the eCommerce metrics: You need to focus on the key eCommerce metrics that directly impact your bottom line, like conversion rates, average order value (AOV), customer lifetime value (CLTV), Return on Investment (ROI), etc.
• Align with Business Objectives: Your content strategy shouldn’t exist in a vacuum. It should be tightly integrated with your overall business goals. Like, you want to launch a new product, expand into a new market, increase brand awareness, etc.
• Set SMART Goals: Make sure your goals are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.

Remember to regularly review and adjust your goals as your business evolves and your priorities shift.

Understand Your Target Audience

By understanding the target audience, you can tailor the content to their specific needs, interests, and preferences. That makes it far more likely they’ll engage with your brand and ultimately become customers.

While factors like age, gender, and location are important, they only scratch the surface. You can segment your customers based on the psychographics, motivations, pain points, and online behavior, along with the demographics.

Based on the customer segments, you can create a detailed eCommerce buyer persona with info like:

• A name and photo: This helps humanize the persona and make it more relatable.
• Demographic information: Age, gender, location, occupation, income level, etc.
• Psychographic information: Values, beliefs, interests, lifestyle, etc.
• Goals and challenges: What are they trying to achieve? What obstacles are they facing?
• Content preferences: What type of content do they consume? What are their preferred channels?

After that, you can create an eCommerce customer journey map, with stages Awareness, Considerations, Conversion, Retention, and Advocacy.

Conduct a Content Audit (including Competitor Research)

A content audit, coupled with competitor research, is like taking inventory of your content marketing efforts with respect to what your competitors are doing. You get valuable insights into what’s working, what’s not, and where the opportunities lie.

Here’s what you do:

• Check your own content: List everything you have, see what’s working, check for problems, and cover the missing topics.
• Explore your competitors: Who are they? What are they doing differently? What are they good at? Can you offer something unique?
• Use helpful tools: Choose plugins and tools like Google Analytics, SEMrush, Ahrefs, etc.
• Make a plan: Create a plan with respect to your existing content (if any), competitor contents, and results from the analytics tools.

Basically, it’s about knowing what you have and seeing what works.

Choose the Right Content Types

You need to include the right content types in your eCommerce content strategy to effectively reach your audience and achieve your goals. Here are a few common types of content for your eCommerce business and website.

• Blog posts: Versatile for sharing information, educating your audience, and improving SEO.
• Videos: Engaging and effective for product demos, tutorials, and behind-the-scenes glimpses.
• Infographics: Visually appealing way to present data, statistics, and complex information.
• Case studies: Showcasing real-world examples of how your products or services have helped customers.
• Social media updates: Short, engaging posts to connect with your audience and promote your content.
• Email newsletters: Delivering valuable content directly to your subscribers’ inboxes.
• Interactive content: Quizzes, polls, and calculators for increased engagement and lead generation.
• User-generated content: Leveraging customer reviews, photos, and testimonials to build trust.

Choose from these content (or all of them) based on the content audit. And make sure to try new things, do A/B testing, and see what resonates best with your audience.

Create a Content Calendar

A content calendar is where you organize and schedule all your content creation and promotion activities, ensuring consistency and maximizing impact. Here’s what you need to include:

• Content Title/Topic: Clear and concise description of the content piece.
• Content Type: Blog post, video, infographic, etc.
• Target Audience: Specify which buyer persona(s) this content is aimed at.
• Keywords: Include relevant keywords for SEO purposes.
• Author/Creator: Assign responsibility for content creation.
• Deadline: Set a due date for completion.
• Publishing Date: Schedule the date and time for publishing.
• Promotion Channels: Specify where the content will be promoted (e.g., social media, email, website).
• Call to Action (CTA): Define the desired action you want the audience to take (e.g., make a purchase, sign up for a newsletter).
• Status: Track the progress of each content piece (e.g., in progress, completed, published).

Determine how often you can realistically create and publish high-quality content. Start with a manageable schedule and gradually increase frequency as your resources allow. Moreover, be prepared to adjust your content calendar based on unforeseen circumstances or changes in your business priorities.

Optimize for Better Search Visibility (SEO)

After creating quality content, you need it to be visible to the target audience. That’s where eCommerce SEO comes in. It helps you get noticed by the right people when they’re searching for products or information related to your business.

Here’s what you need to do:

• Think like your customer: What words would they use to find your products?
• Use tools to help: Free tools like Google Keyword Planner can show you what people are searching for.
• Use clear titles: Each page should have a title that tells people and Google what it’s about.
• Use headings: Break up your text with headings to make it easier to read.
• Use alt texts: Use words to describe your pictures so Google knows what they are.
• Guest blogging: Write articles for other websites and link back to your store.
• Be social: Share your content on social media.
• Join conversations: Participate in online groups related to your products.
• Clear navigation menus: Make it easy for people (and Google) to find things on your site.
• Update regularly: Add new content to your website often.
• Write helpful, interesting stuff: Provide information people are looking for.

Search algorithms are continuously evolving, so you need to regularly optimize your content if you want to stay relevant to your customers and pull traffic.

Promote the Content

Now that you have carefully created and optimized the content, it’s time to promote it and have your target audience visit your eStore. To that end, you can use email as well as social media platforms. Here’s what you need to focus on:

• Tailor to each platform: Instagram loves visuals, Twitter loves quick updates, LinkedIn loves professional content, emails and newsletters can be more focused, etc. Adjust your message and format accordingly.
• Use eye-catching visuals: Images and videos grab attention. Use high-quality visuals that are relevant to your content.
• Write compelling content and captions: Spark curiosity and encourage clicks with engaging pieces of content and captions that highlight the value of your business and products.
• Use relevant hashtags: Increase your reach by using hashtags that your target audience is likely to follow.
• Engage with your audience: Respond to comments, answer questions, and participate in discussions to keep the conversation going.
• Run contests and giveaways: Encourage social sharing by offering incentives like discounts or exclusive access to content.

You can also leverage others’ channels and promote your content through guest blogging, community participations, influencer marketing, and paid advertising.

Finally, make sure to track the key metrics regularly, so you can identify the content contributing to your business goals most effectively. Moreover, be prepared to adjust your content strategy based on new trends, algorithm updates, and audience feedback.

If you need help with setting up the best content strategy and ensuring the best results, hire our eCommerce development services. We have the finger on the pulse when it comes to industry-best marketing practices and ensure every little element is up to date.

Key Components of the Best eCommerce Content Strategy

As we mentioned in the process, the type of content to be included in your strategy depends on a variety of factors, including the target audience, business goals, buyer’s journey stage, platform, and your resources.

But, all set and done, there are some key components that you need to focus on for creating the best eCommerce content strategy.

Short-form Articles

These are your blog posts, news updates, and online articles that get straight to the point. They’re perfect for sharing quick tips, announcing new products, or highlighting a specific feature. Think of them as your bite-sized nuggets of information that keep customers engaged and coming back for more.

Ideal for: Social media posts, product descriptions, email newsletters, and website blurbs.   

Examples

“5 Must-Have Accessories for Your New Smartphone” – a short article highlighting essential accessories, linking to product pages for each.

Videos

Videos are incredibly engaging and versatile. Use them for product demos, behind-the-scenes looks at your company, customer testimonials, or how-to guides. They bring your products to life and create a more personal connection with your audience.

Ideal for: Product demos, tutorials, behind-the-scenes glimpses, customer testimonials, and social media stories.

Examples

A short, dynamic video showcasing the features of a new winter jacket, with close-ups on the fabric, zipper details, and someone wearing it in action.

Long-form Blog Posts

These are ideal for diving deep into topics relevant to your audience, establishing authority, and improving SEO. Think comprehensive guides (“The Ultimate Guide to Choosing a Hiking Backpack”), how-to articles (“How to Winterize Your Garden”), or thought leadership pieces (“The Future of Sustainable Fashion”).

Ideal for: Comprehensive guides, in-depth product reviews, thought leadership pieces, and answering common customer questions.   

Examples

“A Beginner’s Guide to Backpacking: Choosing Gear, Planning Your Trip, and Staying Safe” – a detailed blog post with sections on each aspect of backpacking.

Case Studies

Case studies tell the story of how your product or service helped a specific customer. They provide social proof and build trust by showcasing the positive impact you have on real people.

Ideal for: Demonstrating value, overcoming objections, and highlighting successful outcomes.   

Examples

“How Company X Increased Productivity by 20% with Our Software” – a case study detailing the challenges, solutions, and results achieved by a customer.

Infographics

Infographics present data, statistics, and complex information in a visually appealing and easy-to-understand way. They’re great for sharing on social media and attracting attention.

Ideal for: Simplifying complex topics, highlighting key data points, and increasing social media engagement.   

Examples

An infographic illustrating the “Anatomy of a Perfect Running Shoe”, labeling different parts and explaining their functions.

White Papers

White papers provide a persuasive and in-depth analysis of a specific topic. They’re often used for lead generation and establishing thought leadership.

Ideal for: Simplifying complex topics, highlighting key data points, and increasing social media engagement.   

Examples

“The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Fashion Industry” – a white paper exploring the trends and implications of AI in fashion.

Manuals/Guides

These provide detailed instructions or guidance on how to use your products or services. They’re essential for complex products and can improve customer satisfaction.

Ideal for: Improving customer satisfaction, reducing support inquiries, and showcasing your commitment to customer success.

Examples

A downloadable PDF guide on “How to Assemble Your New Garden Shed” with step-by-step instructions and diagrams.

Social Media Posts

These are your daily updates, quick tips, behind-the-scenes glimpses, and interactive polls that keep your audience engaged on social media.

Ideal for: Improving customer satisfaction, reducing support inquiries, and showcasing your commitment to customer success.

Examples

A visually appealing Instagram post featuring a customer wearing your new clothing line with a caption encouraging followers to shop the collection.

User-generated Content

Encourage customers to share their experiences with your products through reviews, photos, and videos. This builds trust and credibility, as people are more likely to believe other customers than your own marketing messages.

Ideal for: Showcasing product usage, highlighting customer satisfaction, and creating a sense of community.

Examples

Featuring customer photos on your website or social media showcasing how they use your products in their everyday lives.

Try to incorporate different content types into your eStore to cater to various audience preferences and create a dynamic, engaging content experience.

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FAQs on eCommerce Content Strategy

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To Summarize

eCommerce demands a strategic approach to content marketing that captivates your audience, builds brand authority, and drives conversions. From informative blog posts and engaging videos to compelling case studies and visually appealing infographics, the possibilities for content creation are endless.

Remember to consistently analyze your results and adapt your strategy as needed. The digital landscape is ever-evolving, and your content strategy should evolve with it. So, need help creating the best eCommerce content strategy? Then talk to our experts today!