Why is Content Marketing Important for Ecommerce Sites?

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Intro

Content marketing is the backbone of any ecommerce website. It's cheap but effective to bring high-quality leads to your website. 

So, give content marketing a try if you are on a shoestring budget and want the most of your investment. This article gives you seven reasons to have a content marketing strategy.

1. Nurture your leads

If the internet is a goldmine, then the content is your shovel. Creative and useful content helps customers visit your site and convert. This is called nurturing leads. Let's take an example to understand this concept. 

There are four stages in a customer's journey:

• Awareness: When the buyer realizes they need something (a laptop, for example) 
• Research: The buyer seeks a product best suited to them (Specification and price-wise) Below screenshot shows the content that best explains it. 

• Consideration: The buyer shortlists a couple of products
• Conversion: Purchases from the store

In a nutshell

For Those In The First And Second Stage

1. Spread information about the laptops in your store. 

2. Create comparison, unboxing, or review content. 

3. This content should talk about the laptops' pros and cons. 

4. Punctuate it with advice on who the laptop is best suited for.

For Those In The Third And Final Stage

1. Create the content on why a customer should buy from you

2. Lists the perks and privileges you offer

2. Get Noticed by Search Engines 

If you want to sell online, you need to please search engines. One way to do that is to update your content. 

Having a content marketing strategy will help you with that. Here are the advantages of updated content. 

• Your web pages will get re-indexed as you add new posts
• This leads to re-indexing your entire website
• Your website stays up-to-date on all new keywords*
• You offer your returning audience new content

Thousands of new keywords enter search engines every day. To ensure you do not fall behind in SEO, you must create content on these new phrases. If you don't know how to find these keywords, here are a few tools to help you with:

1. Google Trends:This free tool helps you find trending phrases and words within an industry. The below screenshot shows the trending and related keywords on Google. 

2. Buzzsumo: This website allows you to find the best viral topics on YouTube

3. Trends.co: Its unique newsletter gives you evaluate opportunities behind each trending topic 

3. Create Trends That Last

Humans are wired to find and use products that make their lives easier. So, if you are the seller of a unique product online, you can be a trendsetter with the right content strategy. Let's take the case of sofa beds. 

The sofa-bed has its origin in the pull-out sofa sleepers invented by Bernard Castro in 1931. His product hit fame in 1948 after his four-year-old daughter starred in its TV commercial. 

Below the image is a snippet of the video commercial.

The catchphrase was: "So easy to open a child can do it." Castro's store sold over five million of its sofa sleepers till its closure in 1993.

Castro didn't have internet in his time, but he used the next best medium then -- TV. You, however, don't have to go for costly ad campaigns on TV. Instead, use the internet to spread the uses of a product that you think will improve lives.

4. To Cultivate Brand Recognition

Besides SEO, content marketing can also inculcate brand recognition among your buyers. This happens when you put out large amounts of useful content consistently. 

Your objective should be positioning yourself as an authority in your niche. Let users flock to you when they are in their research stage. If you answer their questions satisfactorily, half your job to convert them is done.

Your content strategy need not depend wholly on blogs. But it also can be presented in multiple ways to create user engagement, as an example shown below image. 

Here is a list of content types you can use: 

• Infographics
• Instructional videos
• Ebooks 
• Case studies
• Comparison charts
• Memes
• White papers

Having such content types solidifies the perception that you are an authority.

Tip: You can also reach out to influencers on social media and provide them with content to make their posts. Having your brand name mentioned by an influencer instantly brings traffic to you.

5. High Return on Investment

Content marketing is a lot cheaper than traditional modes of advertising. This doesn't mean print advertisements, hoardings, and TV commercials aren't effective. 

They still dominate marketing around the world. It's just that, for the time being, they may be out of reach for your business. 

Here Are Some More Stats:

• Firms using content marketing earn six times more traffic than those that don't
• Content marketing costs 62% lesser than traditional marketing
• Regular blog posts generate 55% more website visitors and
• 97% more inbound links

Moreover, the content you use on one platform says you can easily convert a blog into a script for a video. You can then: 

• Repurpose them into videos as in the below screenshot

• Separate the audio thread of the video and use them for the podcast
• you can break the same content into several social media posts
• Turn them into infographics using tools like Canva.

6. Build Your Pull Strategy

The core philosophy of content marketing is called a pull strategy. It's antithetical to the 'push strategy' employed by traditional advertisers. 

Let's take an example to understand these two concepts.

Suppose you want to listen to your favorite music video on YouTube. Before you can watch, however, you have to wait for a couple of front ads to get over. 

You are annoyed, but you associate the feeling with whatever brand played that ad. The possibility of clicking on the ad instead of skipping it after five seconds is marginal. 

On the other hand, content marketing presents useful content when the user is seeking them. The customer is in a mood to buy something or wants to know more about it. 

Take a look at the below screenshot showing the sites explaining outfits suitable for men and trying to sell them eventually. 

According to Demandmetric, people prefer learning about a brand via a blog to adverts.

7. Increase of Users in Cyberspace

After the pandemic, more people used ecommerce websites to buy the needed products. Reasons for this phenomenon vary. While some do it for convenience, some do it for safety, while some do it for better deals. 

Take a look at the below screenshot showing a graphical representation of how the ecommerce sales are affected before and after Covid. 

Whatever the reason, more people are using ecommerce than before Covid-19. Here are some stats to bring some perspective. 

• Half 18-49-year-olds obtain their news and other information via the internet.
• Around 79% of online shoppers devote 50% of their shopping time to research.
• Around 80% of people learn about products through marketed content.

Note: There is an underlying reason why there is demand for content. Cyberspace offers person-to-person interaction and validation to make purchasing decisions. So, people seek to fill that gap through trustworthy content. 

Therein lies the importance of content marketing for ecommerce websites.

Content Marketing for Ecommerce - FAQs

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1. What Is Content Marketing For Ecommerce?

It's the creation of content in formats including:

• Blog posts
• Videos
• Social media snippets
• Podcasts
• White paper
• Infographics
• Case studies

And then marketing it through internet platforms to attract customers. 

2. Is Content Marketing Necessary For Ecommerce?

Can you run a shop without a salesperson? No, right? Likewise, it's impossible to run an ecommerce store without content marketing. For a To, seek reviews from your customers and use that UGC in your email marketing.

3. What's The Best Type Of Content For Ecommerce Stores?

Image-heavy content. Articles, brochures, or infographics with large and high-resolution PNG images. You can also make videos to give users a virtual show-around of your products.

4. How Much Content Should I Generate For My Ecommerce Business?

Content marketing is a continuous process. As such, you need to create and share fresh content regularly. This helps your website re-indexed, giving fresh impetus to your SEO. 

Key Takeaways

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• Guide your customers through their journey through stage-focused content.

• Facilitate re-crawling of your website by updating its content regularly. 

• Try to set the trend or a fashion through which you can claim a lasting reputation.

• Cultivate brand recognition by being an authority in your field

• Tie up with influencers to make a connection with a potential customer base 

• Use the same content for different verticals to reduce time and money.

• Cultivate a pull strategy. That is, try to present content in a non-intrusive way.