Content marketing is probably the most underrated strategy when brand owners are trying to grow their ecommerce brand. When clients come to our agency for SEO services or Pinterest Marketing Services, we usually always ask about the effectiveness of their content marketing strategy because it plays a role in these two services.
Sadly, most small eCommerce brand owners do not know the importance of how content marketing can scale their business. In fact, sometimes eCommerce content marketing is ignored completely.
Content is still king and it’s the secret link to
- scaling your ecommerce brand
- increasing relevant website traffic
- increasing new customer base
- growing an email list
and more! Let’s break down the importance of content marketing for your ecommerce brand and the 5 types to focus on.
What is Content Marketing?
Content marketing is the creation and distribution of valuable content within different media formats including;
- blogs
- videos
- podcasts
- infographics
that are used to target a desired audience with the goal of; increasing brand awareness, credibility, trust, generating more leads, driving more customers to your website and increasing website conversions.
In other words, your brand’s content should be about your customer, not about you. Your goal is to educate, entertain, inspire or get your customer to complete a desired action that ties back into your business goals.
5 Types of eCommerce Content Marketing
Remember the 4 types of media channels we mentioned earlier? Those are the foundation of building an eCommerce content marketing strategy. However, let’s talk about 10 ways you can use a mix of these media channels to help scale your eCommerce brand.
1. Spreading Value through Blogs
Blogs as an eCommerce content marketing strategy can be powerful.
From a consumer standpoint, brands can use blogs to spread awareness, build credibility or provide inspiration that all can result to sales.
One of our favorite small eCommerce fashion brands, Curated for Equality, has an amazing blog post that spreads the awareness of ethical business practices in the fashion industry. They used this blog post to inform the reader (or future customer) of what exactly makes a fashion brand ethical and what to look out for.
Within their blog post, they even link relative items that they sell that are 100% ethically sourced. When you’re done reading the blog post, the goal is to become aware of how to recognize an ethical fashion brand and what fabrics to be aware of.
From an SEO standpoint, blogs help create different pathways to new customers finding your site. The more relevant blog posts on your site, the more Google can index (learn) about your brand. This helps place your web pages in front of the right people.
From a brand standpoint, creating blogs can build authority within a specific niche. For example, Curated for Equality wants be the leader in ethical and politically correct fashion standards for women. If you take a peak at their blog posts, they all play a role in building their brand authority.
2. Guest Blogging
As an eCommerce brand, your goal should be to relate to your consumer as much as possible.
This is why eCommerce brands collaborate with your favorite influencers or content creators to increase their brand reach. As an eCommerce brand owner, guest blogging can be another form of content marketing.
Here’s a good example of a guest blog post from the brand Alana Athletica where they interview an influencer about the true strength of women. If I had to guess, this was also a great way to get in front of the influencer’s audience as well.
When you’re creating a guest blog post, you can create awareness of your knowledge and skills within your industry amongst a new audience. This in turn will maximize your reach.
From an SEO standpoint, you can ask for backlinks. Backlinks are websites that refer traffic back to your site. Google recognizes this as a form of domain authority. So, if relevant websites that you’re creating guest posts for are linking back to you, it increases your Google rankings and authority.
3. Email Marketing
Email marketing is also a form of content marketing. Now, the goal is to use email marketing to spark customers on your list to visit your site.
Emails should be short and to the point. You can share new arrivals, tips, guides, brand news or yes, sometimes a new and exciting sale!
What I also recommend is using email marketing as a way to find your next brand ambassadors. Let your email list know you’re interested in working with content creators or influencers.
Explain exactly how they can work with you. I guarantee your email open rates will increase!
4. Videos
Video marketing is taking over the content marketing realm. With video, you are able to grab the attention of your customers, or prospect customers, quicker. Videos also help your customers retain information longer.
The trick with using video marketing within your eCommerce content marketing strategy is to use short form and long form videos.
Short form videos can be Instagram Reels or Tiktoks. Long form videos can be YouTube videos. The purpose for both is because you can’t educate your audience all the time with a short video. Your audience always wants to learn more so this is where you can point them to longer videos to help them.
A good eCommerce brand who’s doing a great job with video marketing is GoPro. Go Pro is an action sports camera brand and they are killing the video marketing game.
Their videos on Instagram, Tiktok and YouTube tend to show people engaging in action sports and other high-adrenaline activities, which immediately helps other like-minded people imagine themselves using a GoPro product.
5. Social Media Graphics
- Creating eCommerce marketing content on Social Media is pretty much a given for most brands. It’s also where a majority of brands spend their focus which could hurt your overall ecommerce marketing strategy.
Let’s face it, most of your customers are using Social Media. You want to make sure you’re creating valuable graphics that spark action on the platform your customers use the most.
A small eCommerce brand who’s doing a great job with educating and inspiring action with their social media content marketing is Ariella Cosmetics. Ariella Cosmetics is a natural hair and skin care brand. If you take a look across their feed, you’ll find social media posts that are
- Before and After
- Video Product Reviews
- Tutorials
- Product Information
- How-to’s
- Educational infographics
All of these types of social media graphics can take a social media follower into a customer.
What's eCommerce Content Marketing Strategy Have You Seen Success WIth The Most?
Share your thoughts on these 5 types of eCommerce content marketing strategies. Are you a new eCommerce brand owner struggling with creating your own long form content? Check out our blogging content marketing services.
