Sales are a top priority, and with the right content strategy, you can increase conversions and gain loyal customers. Let us help you take your e-commerce content marketing to the next level.
A solid content marketing strategy is essential for any business looking to grow its customer base.
But for e-commerce brands, a solid content strategy is especially crucial to help your brand stand out from competitors, get you in front of potential customers, build relationships with your current customers, and, most importantly, increase your conversions and return on investment (ROI).
At Siege, we’ve created tons of content that’s helped e-commerce brands increase their organic traffic value, monthly visits, and brand awareness — and we’ve got the case studies to prove it.
Interested in learning more about e-commerce content marketing? We’ve got you covered.
Our guide goes over what content marketing is, how it benefits e-commerce brands, and different ways you can build a content marketing strategy that’s right for your e-commerce business.
What Is Content Marketing?
Let’s rewind and start with the basics. What exactly is content marketing?
Content marketing focuses on creating and publishing valuable content — whether through videos, articles, podcasts, or other media — to attract and retain customers.
Instead of an in-your-face marketing approach, content marketing involves informational and educational content meant to lead the customer through all stages of the buyer’s journey.
Why Is Content Marketing for E-commerce Important?
As mentioned, content marketing is important for e-commerce brands because it supports every stage of the buyer’s journey.
With that in mind, a sound strategy is absolutely necessary.
One of the things we see e-commerce websites get wrong strategically is when they don’t create enough top funnel informational content.
Without content that educates your potential buyers, persuading a purchase at other stages is much more difficult.
With that in mind, a sound content strategy is absolutely necessary.
To attract potential buyers to your site, top funnel content is going to be crucial to educate your audience before trying to persuade them to make a purchase.
Here are just a few benefits of content marketing for the e-commerce industry. Trust us, without it, you may be stuck on the SERP’s double-digit pages.
Establishes Brand Awareness
Before you can even retain a customer base, your target audience needs to know your brand exists.
A good content marketing strategy can help:
- Get your brand front-facing via social media campaigns and email marketing.
- Set you apart from competitors by creating unique content.
- Attract people to your brand through promotions.
With e-commerce content marketing, you want to develop brand awareness and then move those users down the sales funnel until you retain them and turn them into loyal repeat customers.
Educates Potential and Existing Customers
There are a myriad of content types that e-commerce brands can leverage in their content marketing strategy, which we’ll dive into down below.
To get potential customers to your site, prioritizing top and middle funnel informational content is going to help you move them all the way down to the bottom of the funnel a.k.a. conversions.
Strengthens Customer Loyalty
Building your customer base is huge, and content marketing is a valuable strategy that can entice those customers to keep coming back to your site, turning them into loyal repeat customers.
How?
Continuing to create content with valuable information and services, which in turn will gradually increase your brand’s authority in the industry.
From there, customers will naturally use you as their go-to.
Improves Your Site’s SEO Performance
When potential customers head to Google for information, you want to be the brand that meets them with the answer they need.
An effective content strategy combined with killer SEO can help do just that.
In fact, 51% of content consumption comes from organic search, making it an extremely valuable tactic.
By optimizing your content to include keywords relevant to your brand, you’ll be able to:
- Show up on the search engine results page (SERP).
- Drive relevant organic traffic to your site.
- Provide an answer to the user’s questions.
- Increase leads and sales.
Increases Conversions and Revenue
Ultimately, a solid e-commerce content strategy is persuasive enough to increase your conversions and revenue over time (which is the ultimate goal).
The best e-commerce content strategies:
- Naturally move customers down the sales funnel.
- Meet customers at every stage they’re at with educational content.
- Lead them to the bottom of the funnel to purchase your products.
10 Strategies To Include in Your E-commerce Content Marketing Strategy + Examples
Now that we know how beneficial content marketing for e-commerce can be, let’s dive into the specific ways you can start building your content marketing strategy.
Jump-to:
- Prioritize a Harmonious Blog Setup
- Build a Content Hub
- Utilize Video Content
- Use Product Photos Within Your Content
- Create Buying Guides
- Leverage Visually Engaging Content
- Make Your Content Shareable
- Build Comparison Pages
- Integrate Shopping into CTA’s and Blog
- Provide an FAQ Page or Help Center
Want to learn more about e-commerce marketing? Get 82 of our favorite e-commerce statistics here.
1. Prioritize a Harmonious Blog Setup
One of the most important components of an e-commerce content strategy is your blog setup — unfortunately, we see a lot of e-commerce sites getting this wrong.
The biggest pitfall we’ve seen is that many e-commerce sites build their blog on a subdomain that’s completely disconnected from the main site.
To create a natural shopping experience, it’s important to pull your main navigation and main footer onto your blog. Your blog should feel similar to your main site and a lack of harmony can actually hurt conversion rates.
Users should be able to easily head to your main site to view your products, and if it’s not easily accessible because your content lives on a subdomain, they’re likely going to bounce.
Ultimately, you want to make the shopping experience as easy and natural as possible.
2. Build a Content Hub
A content hub is a place that houses a collection of content all in one place, organized by specific topics relevant to your brand and your customer base.
Instead of organizing your blog in the typical chronological order, having specific categories can help users find exactly what they’re looking for at whatever stage of the buyer’s journey they’re in.
The purpose of content hubs is to help solve new and potential customer problems and provide useful, valuable information and content. Content hubs can include blog posts, downloadable templates, quizzes, generators, and more.
Let’s take Zola’s advice hub for example.
The content hub breaks down into a variety of categories that meet their target customers at every step of their journey, including planning, decor, invites, pre-wedding activities, registry, and honeymoon.
3. Utilize Video Content
Video content is becoming more and more prevalent online, with users turning to search engines like YouTube to find engaging and most of all entertaining content.
Videos are an extremely effective part of a content strategy, even more so for e-commerce brands, as they educate customers about their products and push them further down the sales funnel.
A study from Lemonlight found that 94% of people said they use video to make a purchasing decision.
The proof is in the pudding — video content is the sweet spot for e-commerce brands.
There are so many types of videos you can create to showcase your products, from how-to videos and tutorials to product reviews and expert advice, the possibilities (and creativity) are endless.
Tommy John’s video on how to fold underwear provides a solution to a common customer query while showcasing their products.
4. Use Product Photos Within Your Content
This may be an obvious one, but make sure you’re including product photos within your content.
A study from eBay Research Lab found that more product photos actually help increase buyers’ trust and attention while boosting conversion rates.
You’re selling products after all, so you want to highlight them any chance you get. High-quality product photos can be used on product pages, on social media, and in blog posts.
Let’s look at Pottery Barn Kids’ post on nursery organization as an example.
This blog post provides a ton of useful tips on how to organize a nursery, with product photos that can spark interest for potential customers.
When users are inspired by the tips you share, they’re more likely to click on the product you included in the post.
5. Create Buying Guides
Buying guides are another great strategy for e-commerce companies as they allow you to subtly put your products in front of potential customers.
Not only will customers be comparing your products to your competitors toward the end of their buying journey, but they’ll also be looking for product information that can help them make a purchasing decision.
Buying guides can provide customers with useful information like price, characteristics, functionality, and any other key product features.
You can create buying guides for nearly any kind of product and can take a seasonal approach and create seasonal buying guides for popular holidays, like Mother’s Day, Christmas, and Valentine’s Day.
Shutterly’s post on Mother’s Day Gifts is the perfect example of a great buying guide that puts your products in front of customers when they’re searching for the perfect gift.
In the screenshot below, we can see spikes in traffic around April and May, when users are typically researching Mother’s Day Gifts.
6. Leverage Visually Engaging Content
One thing e-commerce has a leg up on compared to other industries — like finance, for example — is that content can be a lot more visually engaging.
With e-commerce, content is usually a lot more entertaining, so creative content types that are engaging and interactive are going to help attract customers to your site.
There are so many different content formats e-commerce sites can leverage, including:
- Infographics
- High-quality product photos
- Quizzes
- Generators
- Downloadable templates
This hair color quiz from StyleSeat is a great example of engaging and interactive content that can attract their target audience.
7. Make Your Content Shareable
So you just created a killer piece of content, now how do you get eyes on it?
First things first, you need to make sure the content you create is shareable. If it is, people will likely share it without much leg work on your part.
Not only does sharing get your brand and your products out there, it can also help you gain relevant backlinks to these pages.
Backlinks are an important part of SEO because they help boost your rankings on the SERPs while increasing your authority.
Over time, your content can continue to earn backlinks so you can continue reaping the benefits for years to come.
Let’s look at Proflower’s post on how to make a balloon arch, which currently has 73 linking root domains (LRDs). This how-to post not only uses photos to explain every step of the arch-making process, it also has an infographic and video, increasing the likelihood of someone sharing.
8. Build Comparison Pages
Creating pages dedicated to comparing your brand against your competitors may not be the first thing you think of when it comes to content creation, but they’re actually one of the most effective pieces of content for e-commerce websites.
Comparison pages are your way of prompting potential buyers to purchase your products over your competitors.
When users are nearing the end of the buyer’s journey, they naturally start doing their research by comparing similar products.
By optimizing pages to include keywords targeting your product or brand name against your competitors, customers will be able to easily find you when searching for this information on Google.
For example, Casper has multiple pages dedicated to comparing their mattresses against their top competitors.
As you can see, they do a great job breaking down all of the important information a customer would be looking for — like pricing, comfort, construction, and type of material they use.
To put the icing on the cake, they include customer reviews towards the end of the page. I don’t know about you, but I’m more likely to buy a product with a ton of raving customer reviews than one without.
9. Integrate Shopping into CTA’s and Blog
A CTA, or call to action, is one of the easiest and most important ways e-commerce websites can guide customers toward a purchase.
Since you’re selling products, you want to center your CTAs around shopping. At the end of the day, your goal is for your content to convert.
CTAs don’t need to be in your face, but they’ll help push users toward your product offerings if they’re looking to learn more. You can include these within posts, or simply make sure your header navigation provides easy access to product pages.
Have you ever been on a page where the CTA is following you while you scroll and it’s actually more of a distraction than it is enticing?
You want to avoid this and only include CTAs where they are relevant to the buyer’s journey.
Take REI, for example: They seamlessly integrate shopping CTAs within their content where it makes sense without being overly pushy.
10. Provide an FAQ Page or Help Center
Having a frequently asked questions (FAQ) page is an invaluable strategy for e-commerce brands.
Though they’re not the most creative or interactive content types, they’re effective and extremely useful for e-commerce marketing.
The last thing you want is for a potential customer to leave your site and move to a competitor because they couldn’t find an answer to their question.
Aside from answering common customer queries, FAQ pages can help build trust with customers, improve site navigation, improve search engine rankings, and build your brand’s authority.
Take Kitchen Cabinet Kings. Their FAQ page is organized by topics — like ordering, construction, and delivery — and includes answers to common questions that both potential and existing customers may ask.
Ready To Execute Your E-commerce Content Strategy?
Content marketing is one of the most effective ways e-commerce companies can make sales and increase their ROI.
Once you’re able to reel in your customers with engaging content, you’ll have them hooked and ready to make repeat purchases.
Consistent posting, top-notch design elements, and A+ content writing are what it takes to execute a proper content strategy. We can help you stay competitive.
If you’re ready to invest in an e-commerce content strategy that can impact your business for years to come, Siege offers content marketing services that can help you get the most out of your investment.
