As the entire world embraces digital customer experiences, content marketing has become key to success among E-commerce brands. The content marketing market is estimated to grow 16.37% between 2022 and 2027 with the size forecasted to increase by $584.02 billion.
E-commerce brands have realized over time that content marketing is one of the quickest and most cost-effective ways to increase brand loyalty, improve digital presence, and gain an edge over competitors.
Today, we will explore some of the most effective E-commerce content marketing strategies that can help you increase conversions. But before that, let’s look at the importance and meaning of E-commerce content marketing.
In simple terms, content marketing is an inbound digital strategy that involves creating high-quality and original content that attracts potential customers. It can take various forms like social media content, product reviews, infographics, videos, podcasts, and more.
The goal of content marketing is to educate, entertain and engage customers through useful content. Rather than hard-selling the products or services, the strategy delivers content to customers with the expectation that the readers will become loyal customers.
In a world where customers are constantly exposed to various marketing strategies, content forces them to stop, think and take action. But, why is it so valuable?
Irrespective of the product or service, content should be an integral part of the E-commerce marketing strategy.
Content marketing helps brands connect with customers emotionally– giving them a chance to relay their brand story along with values in an engaging yet meaningful manner. This can, ultimately, help drive sales and traffic for the brands–attracting and converting potential customers into loyal customers.
Here are some benefits of content marketing:
With compelling and original content in the form of product descriptions, blogs, infographics, and more that are optimized with keywords, brands can climb higher in search engine results. It is essentially an amalgamation of distinctive content with a successful SEO strategy that provides value to customers.
By constantly providing helpful information using engaging content like videos and social media posts, customers can learn about the brand, products, and services. This helps build a long-term relationship with customers and ensures that your brand stays at the top of their minds during their search for a product from your industry.
E-commerce shopping comes with a lot of doubts for customers, as there is a multitude of fake products and services. However, by delivering informative content, brands can remove these doubts from the minds of customers. Text descriptions, videos, and product images can inform them about the quality and benefits of the products/services and push the leads toward purchases.
So, how do brands create content that appeals to customers and increase conversion rates? Here are some ways to come up with content ideas:
What better way to know what your customer wants than getting your customers to tell you directly? Asking the audience offers a first-hand account of their challenges, needs, aspirations, and more.
We understand that focus groups or one-on-one interviews with a large number of customers can be a time-consuming and costly process. Therefore, start with a simple survey using tools like Typeform or SurveyMonkey to create online questionnaires. Share these with your email lists.
Once you have the data, dig deeper into these answers to come up with content ideas for your blog posts, social media, or videos.
Competitors can help you understand what is working and not working in the industry. Go through their digital media to gauge topics that are gaining the most traction and those that are being shared further.
Dive into their channels and content formats for a better understanding. However, do not just blindly copy all of it. Instead, use that information to come up with a list of curated topics that would work well for your target audience.
A common mistake that E-commerce brands make is using content marketing to target and cater to everyone. But that is not how it works.
You need to consider the content format that your target audience prefers and the social media networks they often frequent and engage in. Use this data to create something valuable and unique exclusively for your customers.
Let’s dive into the E-commerce content marketing strategies that you can use for your brand.
Blog posts are an effective way to share stories of your business, answer common questions of your customers, and notify them of new product launches: basically, anything that offers a deeper understanding of your brand’s DNA.
It is the best strategy to captivate and emotionally engage your audience while keeping an open and free-flowing communication channel with them. Also, blog posts can help with increasing organic traffic, and converting them without taking a hit on your marketing budget.
For example, Mcaffeine, a personal care brand, shares a wide variety of blogs to keep their customers informed, ranging from skincare tips and benefits to product information. The best part of their blogs is that they subtly explain the benefits of their product whilst educating their customers.
Source: Mcaffeine Website
When people switch from traditional shopping to E-commerce shopping, they are devoid of the touch and feel of the product. They are not able to ask real-time questions about the product’s features and usage. So, how do you solve this problem? Buyer guides!
Buyer guides are an incredible E-commerce content marketing strategy that aims to bridge the gap between traditional and online shopping. It educates the customers on product features, assembly, usage and other in-depth details, aiding them into the purchase funnel.
Dell India’s product pages detail the features of laptops, desktops and other accessories helping potential customers learn about the features they offer.
Source: Dell India Website
In recent years, the popularity of tutorial videos has increased with customers constantly venturing to YouTube and Instagram to watch them. Capitalize on this trend by creating video content that shows customers how to use the products or how to solve problems.
This video marketing strategy works very well to educate potential buyers, retain existing customers, and build overall trust with the audience. One brand that has been successfully utilizing this strategy is Nykaa.
Nykaa has created actionable video content and helped customers see them as a trustworthy brand. The YouTube content shows makeup tutorials, hacks, and tips along with celebrity makeup tutorials. It informs as well as educates the customers on the products and their usage. Additionally, they also create videos in languages apart from English like Hindi, Marathi and more. This strategy helps them reach a wider audience, specifically people who may not have a good grasp of the English language.
Source: Nykaa YouTube Channel
Another effective E-commerce content marketing strategy is User-Generated Content, which demonstrates real people using your products. People might not always believe your claims about the product. But they are more likely to believe if real customers are saying the same thing.
The strategy helps build greater trust in your brand and product and simultaneously serves as a word-of-mouth marketing technique.
A good example of a brand using a strong and interactive UGC strategy is Mamaearth, an Indian E-commerce brand. During Mother’s Day, it ran a contest for all new mothers, asking them to post a picture with their babies. The two winners would get a chance for a photo shoot with their little ones.
The brand used the emotional moment between the mothers’ and their babies to build a connection with their target audience.
Source: Mamaearth Instagram Page
The podcast has gained momentum, especially among the younger crowd, in the past few years. People listen to podcasts during their commute or while doing household chores. So, why not tap into this market?
Podcasts are a low-cost and high-rewarding content marketing strategy that works best if it aligns with your target audience’s interests. They help maximize reach and establish brand authority.
boAt is a great example of using podcasts as a content marketing strategy. Titled “Do What Floats Your boAt”, Danish Sait, an Indian comedian, speaks to inspiring creators who have pursued their dreams, irrespective of judgment, money, or rules. The podcast has been successfully informing and motivating its target audience by sharing these stories.
Source: boAt Website
Size charts and FAQ pages might not be the most glamorous E-commerce content marketing strategy, but they are useful in building trust with customers. Potential and existing customers will inevitably have questions about the products. And these can help answer the queries.
Size charts are not just for clothes and shoes related brands. It is also vital for brands selling furniture, tools, electronics, or other bulky products. Look at your product line and determine if the customers will have questions about the size. If yes, then you need a size chart.
A good example of a brand’s size chart is Myntra. It gives customers the option of seeing the size in both inches and centimeters. Additionally, they also have a section that tells customers how to measure their size, making it easier for each of them to check and walk through the purchase funnel.
Source: Myntra Website
The FAQ page answers the common questions that customers might have regarding shipping, returns, etc.
Another great medium of E-commerce content marketing is interactive quizzes and tools. It can help brands understand their audience better, as the data obtained from this method offers insight into the buyer persona.
Apart from that, interactive activity also improves the brand’s personality and authority in the long term. It increases the chance of content going viral through shares, comments, likes, and more, which generates greater SEO traffic to the website.
A brand that has actively been using quizzes and tools is Sugar Cosmetics, a skincare and makeup brand from India. It shares interactive quizzes like choose, build, pick something and we will reveal something else. The strategy has helped the brand captivate the audience, whilst driving traffic to their website.
Source: Sugar Cosmetics Website
Social media is an essential strategy for connecting and building relations with today’s audience. Sharing content on these platforms helps communicate with the audience, engage with them, generate new leads, and convert leads into sales.
Social media can serve as a diverse content platform, as you share pictures of new products, videos of the manufacturing process, links to blogs and press releases, and memes. Add captions to your content to communicate deeper information about your product or brand. The higher the engagement on these platforms, the greater will be your results. Therefore, listen to your customers carefully and give them what they want.
Zomato is a great example of social media marketing. The brand has used Instagram to share a wide variety of content. From using meme marketing to reels and engagement posts, it has nailed social media marketing as seen by thousands of likes and comments on the posts.
Source: Zomato Instagram Page
Product descriptions contain features and characteristics that help customers make informed purchase decisions. They provide all the information a customer might have regarding the product, which ensures that the product serves their needs. It can include size, weight, measurements, usage, precautions, and more.
Conduct keyword research around your industry and use them in your product descriptions for SEO-optimized content. It will help your products rank higher on search engines, which will direct customers straight to your website.
HomeTown, an E-commerce furniture seller, provides a detailed description of all their products, including materials, size, storage, brand, and more. This has helped build trust in the brand, helping customers get rid of any doubts regarding online purchases.
Source: HomeTown Website
Affiliate marketing is a process with which an affiliate can earn a commission by promoting other companies products or service. The strategy helps drive traffic to the brand’s website, and the affiliates are paid a share of the sales generated from it.
The strategy lends authenticity and credibility to the brand due to collaboration with trusted sources. You can create an affiliate program, join an affiliate network or use SaaS solutions that help affiliate programs succeed.
Flipkart runs an affiliate program for its website. People who own their websites can sign up for programs and promote the products using different forms like blogs, comparisons, product reviews, and more.
Source: Flipkart Website
Do your products contain terms that might be unfamiliar? Create a glossary page of terms, jargon, and acronyms that are exclusive to your industry or niche.
The glossary page serves as a central location for customers to understand the product and the language associated with it. It is also an effective SEO strategy that will help attract visitors who search for a specific term. They are likely to explore your product or website further after clicking on the link.
Email marketing is a powerful E-commerce content marketing strategy.
Email marketing is a tried and tested method that helps build relationships with leads, current customers, and past customers. It provides an opportunity to speak directly to the customers from their inbox, making it an impact content marketing strategy.
Some of the kinds of emails that can be sent include new product launches, holiday discount offers, seasonal promotions, deals, case studies, and more. You can also automate a few emails like welcome, promotional, and event emails. Additionally, also consider sending cart abandonment emails to customers who have abandoned their carts without making the purchase.
Faballey, an Indian clothing brand, sends out emails related to products, promotional, new launches and more. In the below example, they have used a catchy subject line along with an image, attractive copy and a button, which makes customers want to click the link provided.
Source: Faballey
Once you have curated your content, you must be wondering how to share it with your customers. Here are two ways to promote and distribute your content.
Social media is a great platform to distribute and promote your content. However, you need to find out which platform your audience prefers and target those.
Co-branded giveaway is a strategy where two or more non-competing brands can combine their E-commerce content marketing strategies to reach more audiences. It is a unique and fun way to engage your audience by making them a part of the experience.
Many platforms like Easypromos help brands connect with other brands to create a co-branded giveaway. These tools help set up a landing page easily, which can be shared with the audience.
Customers participating in the giveaways also sign up to receive marketing emails and messages, which helps brands generate 20,000 to 50,000 new leads. You can use these leads to remarket your products.
In conclusion, E-commerce content marketing is an effective strategy that helps brands build trust and authority, increase awareness, enhance organic traffic, and boost sales. We recommend using a wide variety of strategies that appeal to your target audience.
Are you looking for end-to-end E-commerce solutions? We at ANS Commerce, a Flipkart Group Company, provide a wide range of services from technological solutions to running marketing campaigns and warehousing.
Book a consultation with us today!
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