Here’s why an effective ecommerce content strategy is crucial to building your online retail brand

Too often, online retailers overlook the power of a strong ecommerce content strategy. In short, your content marketing encompasses all your online communications about your brand, so it’s crucial to get it right. 

What does a successful ecommerce content strategy look like? 

Your content strategy should communicate the ethos of your brand and products on a unique level, so what works for one online retailer may not necessarily work for another.  Content marketing campaigns will vary greatly depending on whether you’re, for example, a large online food retailer or a selective online fashion boutique. 

Which types of content marketing should you include in your strategy?

There’s no simple answer to the question ‘what is content marketing?’ but it does describe the process of creating and distributing digital communications online to promote your brand or products. 

Types of content marketing that prove highly effective for ecommerce brands include: 

Blogging

Blogging is an effective way to begin your ecommerce content strategy, since can be beneficial to your SEO and can even be used to scale link building. At its most effective, on-site  blogging can even be used as a lead generation  tool. 

The  right blogs allow you to rank for search terms where users are looking for informational pages rather than transactional (product) pages. For example, consider content marketing for an online flooring retailer. A user might be considering renovating their bedroom without being in the market for new flooring just yet. They’re more likely to be searching for style guides and inspirational ‘how to’ blogs  at this stage in their process. A blog outlining on-trend  flooring ideas is more likely to rank in this user’s searches than a flooring product page. With the right CTA included in the post,  you can reach the user at the ‘awareness’ stage of their purchasing process before encouraging them to consider your products. 

As well as on-site blogging, you can increase the number of domains linking to your site and  reach new audiences with off-site  guest blogging.

Social media

A consistent and well-considered social media strategy is an excellent complement to any blogging strategy. Social media allows you to communicate directly with the audiences and communities who will be most interested in your products. As well as sharing striking visual posts and engaging videos to pique new audiences’ interests, you can increase traffic to your site by sharing your blog posts across your social channels.

Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools in your kit as an online retailer. You can use it both to encourage traffic and drive sales with the following: 

Email marketing is also ideal for post-sales content marketing, since you can send regular content relating  to a customer’s order: 

If  you’re unsure about how to design and implement a content marketing strategy that drives sales for your ecommerce brand, get in touch with a team of specialists.