Thanks to our ever evolving media landscape, parts of marketing strategies we implemented in 2017 are no longer relevant for 2018. We’re forever consuming content and interacting with brands in a different way to how we did a few years ago, and if we’re honest, it is causing headaches for those tasked with coming up with effective and meaningful content for e-commerce.
What was done in content marketing even 12 months ago may now not be enough to give you the leads you once got and are still expecting, and establishing a way in which you can still attract an audience is fundamental to keeping yourself in the e-commerce game.
The way marketing and content strategies are evolving is very interesting, so without anymore hesitation, we are having a look at the type of content you should be creating for your ecommerce site, and the strategy that will help you conquer 2018.
Ensure you are creating quality content!
We cannot stress this enough – your content cannot just be sub-par. If your content isn’t at a high standard, then don’t bother expecting results from it. What you write needs to be above standard, written well and optimised according to SEO best practice. It doesn’t need to be full of colloquialisms or complete with award winning piece of literature – you’re not Joe Lycett trying to email his way out of a parking ticket.
The content you produce needs to be unique and part of your site’s brand and overall message. When it comes to coming up with content ideas, look at what your competitors are and are not doing, and create high quality pieces that fill in the gaps.
Content is king, there is no doubt about it. But in order to get results, it needs to represent the current climate and tap into trends. The content your business produces should continue to tell the story of your business and its products, otherwise it has been a waste of your time. It needs to be unique, and one of a kind – much like The One and Only Chesney Hawkes.
Make sure your content isn’t pushy
Sometimes brands get the content they create so, so, so wrong. You’ll find that they don’t take the relationship with the customer account, and place the products at front and centre. While you are trying to get people on your site to buy a product or invest in a service, you shouldn’t be forcing them to. You should act as if you are the advisor, informing the reader of what is available, should they wish to convert.
Depending on your clientele, product/services and the brand message you want to get across, depends on the tone you should take. Some websites will target a very casual millennial market, whereas others will target middle aged men in suits. Very different styles of content will be needed for these different target markets, you just need to find out what works for you. You can repurpose content for different customers if you are struggling to alter your writing style to cater for different market shares.
What is verticalised content?
A vertical content marketing strategy is all about the bigger picture. With this strategy, you are thinking about how content can have a far reaching effect across your site, and it’s restricted to assisting the singular page it is placed on. This strategy plays well with the content re purposing we mentioned above, but can stretch even further than that. By allowing each of the pages to work in harmony with one another, a fully fledged content strategy can be put in place, allowing your site to have it’s own standout house style of writing, once again leading to an individual site with unique content that cannot be copied, otherwise it will stand out like a polar bear in the rain forest.
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Vertical content can reach far past your site as well. Using the content you have used and paraphrasing it for social media to increase your reach and brand image is one notable way of stretching content across multiple channels. Another way is by targeting Google Answer Boxes, which you can find out more about here.
Evolve the E-Commerce Techniques of 2017
Just because content marketing is always evolving, doesn’t mean you can’t look at previous methods for inspiration to do something new. Taking a look at our ecommerce predictions for the second half of 2017, any eCommerce site should now have many basic elements such as chat bots, a mobile friendly site and customised adverts implemented into their strategies.
What this all leads to is ensuring that businesses become customer-centric. With ecommerce titans such as Amazon being many people’s go to when it comes to a large amount of products, you need to ensure that you are able to grab customers attention. Through targeting advertising and Google AdWords campaigns, this is all the more possible. Social targeted advertising more than ever on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter is a huge potential market place for more localised or smaller scale e-commerce sites.
With sites such as ASOS and Amazon proving that on-the-go mobile shopping is very much a staple of how things are to be done in 2018, having an entire content marketing strategy in place to target this is essential to gaining you those all important leads. Make sure your site is optimised for mobile, set-up targeted advertising and establish a dedicated customer base who shop via an alternative method.
We know we keep on saying it, but you CANNOT sit still and expect to continue seeing growth in your online business if you do not change with the time. What saw your organic traffic increase year-on-year in 2017 will not see the exact same increase this time next year.
If you require help in staying up-to-date with the constant pressures of having an effective e-commerce content strategy, contact the team here at Rice to find out ways in which we can increase traffic and leads to your site.
