Having a great looking, functional e-commerce website is a good start to creating a positive customer experience – but is only half the story as the most important element for any e-commerce website is a steady stream of original and relevant product content. Here are some ideas for preparing a workable content marketing plan for your e-commerce business.
Get Creative
Content Marketing for an e-commerce website should involve more than just refreshing the product descriptions. Offer examples and advice about how your products can be used to best effect for example. Own a website that sells home furnishings? Then offer articles or blogs that demonstrate ways that they can be used in the home and make these pieces informative and interesting, not just a hard sell. Any product lends itself to this approach; it just requires a little creative thought to come up with the right “angles”.
Create a Content Schedule and Be Persistent
There is no such thing as a ‘one size fits all’ content schedule. How often you will need to update your website depends very much upon what you sell. The most important thing is that you do update and add new content regularly – and that what you add is useful rather than content for the sake of it. Maintaining a content schedule can be a challenge – but well worth the effort.
Keep Your FAQs Current and Organised
A well thought out FAQ section can make a huge difference in both winning new customers and building a loyal clientele. As queries come in add them to your site’s FAQs. If one person needs the answer to a certain question about your product then the chances are that others do as well.
Encourage Discussion
Offer ways for customers, and potential customers, to engage in discussions about the products you sell. If you sell goods that fit into a certain niche or interest group, creating a forum can be a great way for customers to discuss these things as well as how your offerings fit in with them.
Social media websites can also be a great source of ‘conversational content’ for your website. Even negative comments can be turned into a positive as you take the opportunity to address any issues and try to better understand just what your target market really wants.
Be an Advisor, Not Just a Vendor
In the end, the purpose of your e-commerce website is to sell products. However, a hard sell is not always appealing to visitors and they can often be turned off as a result. A product description is great but what can the item really do? How can it help them? How do they know that this really is the wisest investment of their money?
Acting as an advisor instead of just a vendor will help position you as a trusted source for your customers, not just another salesperson who is only interested in their cash.
Whether it’s reviews, descriptions or product write-ups, your content is a vital part of your marketing arsenal and as such, should be planned, structured and optimised to provide useful content for buyers while at the same time helping to attract search engine traffic and social media followers.
If you would like help preparing a content marketing plan for your e-commerce business, get in touch.
