Why Blogging May Become A Top Priority for Your E-commerce Business in 2023
According to CFO Dive, consumers will start spending less during the second half of 2023.
How can you continue to increase your e-commerce sales regardless?
By amping up your content marketing strategy, of course. 🙌
Content marketing is a powerful tool to improve your e-commerce sales, but it can take time to know where to start.
If you're like many other online retailers, you may wonder:
How do I write product descriptions that sell?
How do I choose the right words and phrases?
How do I create engaging copy that will keep my customers reading?
In this Substack, I'll show you why content marketing is so crucial for e-commerce businesses and how you can use it to take charge of your brand message and increase sales.
More than half of consumers prefer to buy from brands they trust.
A study by Nielsen found that more than half of consumers prefer to buy from brands they know and trust.
Trust is built over time with consistent, relevant content that shows customers what makes your brand unique--and why they should buy from it instead of another company (or competitor).
A robust strategy can improve your content marketing and give you better results.
As you create your content marketing strategy, it's essential to define your goals and objectives.
For instance: Increase traffic, and increase your sales numbers for a specific product or service.
When creating a content calendar, ensure a balance between frequently publishing new posts (primarily if they are related) and sharing older content that is still relevant today.
Consider using tools such as Google Analytics to measure performance metrics like bounce rate and conversion rate so that you can make improvements over time by tweaking things like titles, descriptions, and images based on what works best for each piece of the content type being published online.
Consumers are more likely to scroll through related posts than look at ads.
Consumers are more likely to scroll through related posts than look at ads. According to AdWeek, "85% of consumers ignore display ads on websites."
According to HubSpot, "Only 20% of people will click on an ad if it's irrelevant."
This is another reason why content marketing is so important: It's an effective way to build trust and authority with your audience while providing valuable information they want to read.
Best practices for e-commerce content marketing to improve sales
Now, you need to consider the content types that will resonate with your audience. There are plenty of ways to do this:
Use a variety of formats: Try infographics, white papers, or even interactive tools like quizzes.
Include calls-to-action (CTAs) at the end of each piece of content: Include direct CTAs and implied ones such as links within text or images pointing readers toward related products/services within their e-commerce experience.
Learn to write e-commerce product descriptions that sell
When writing product descriptions, you should focus on the features and benefits of your products.
In other words, how does this product make my customer's life better? How does it solve their problems?
This approach is best when combined with a conversational tone.
You want to talk directly to your customers in as friendly a way as possible--don't be afraid of using contractions or slang words (like "awesome") if they feel right.
How to write e-commerce content tailored for your target audience
To write e-commerce content tailored to your target audience, you should first know who they are.
Start with creating buyer personas.
Once you know what your target audience wants from your business, it's time to write.
Further, use keywords that are relevant to them to make sure that potential customers find you when they search on Google or other search engines.
However, writing solely with SEO in mind will only help people if you're more likely than not going to lose readers if all of your content sounds like it was written by an algorithm instead of someone who understands human nature (and wants their products sold).
Strike the right balance between keyword optimization and engaging copywriting so that people will wish to read through everything before making a purchase decision.
Hence, this brings us back around full circle: Understanding how each buyer thinks about purchasing decisions is vital when crafting any marketing strategy aimed at converting them into paying customers.
Content marketing is an effective way to drive sales and expand e-commerce reach.
Content marketing is an effective way to drive sales and expand e-commerce reach.
It's also a great way to reach new customers, improve brand awareness, build trust with your audience, and build an online community.
Let's take a look at some of the other benefits that content marketing offers:
Increase exposure: Content marketing gives your e-commerce company the opportunity to get in front of your target audience. So, you augment your potential to access millions of prospects who may not have known about your site.
Improve search engine optimization (SEO): Creating high-quality content helps improve SEO rankings because people are likely to share articles rather than ads or sponsored links when they find them useful or interesting enough..
In summary
If we do see a slump in online shopping during the second half of 2023, you can’t afford not to boost your content marketing efforts to improve your e-commerce sales right now.
It's a proven tool that can help your business grow and reach more customers, so it's worth the effort.
Stand by for my upcoming Substack on how to overcome small-business e-commerce challenges such as fierce competition and abysmal traffic.
Until next time, your friend Parrotfish. 🤝