Content marketing in the online store: cases and approaches

Ecommerce has always been at the forefront of using internet marketing tools. Constant work on increasing sales, conversions, building loyalty, increasing the customer's life cycle makes it necessary to closely monitor all marketing trends and “dig” analytics. As a result, ecommerce specialists have a lot of experience and cases, which makes them real Jedi in the market. Of course, this is true only if the company and its experts really delve into all of the above, and not just go with the flow.

If you have an online store or have you been working in this field for a long time, you probably wondered how to use content marketing opportunities to solve business problems? Today, successful online retailers demonstrate interesting ways to use content marketing. We’ve run a little on Western (and not only) sites to see if they are all right with content marketing. Looking ahead, I will answer that the situation is normal, we are calm for them.

But first, an important question: for what purposes is content marketing used in an online store?
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Conversion Increasing conversion is the first sign that the tool is being used as intended. For example, nails can be hammered not only with a hammer, but also with pliers. But the conversion of correctly hammered nails will be higher when using a hammer. Proper use of content marketing should also serve as an increase in conversion. Many details are important and, as we will see below, it is a mistake to consider only blog or product descriptions to be content.

SEO . High-quality and periodic content on any site has always been relevant for search engine optimization and growth in issuance. Recently, after the launch of Google filters, as well as Minusinsk and the new AGS in Yandex, this relevance has only grown.

Engagement Content marketing strategy for an online store takes into account the full cycle of interaction of the audience with the blog, articles, newsletters, posts in social networks. Content engages the audience, increases loyalty and recognition.

Content and sales funnel

The user of the online store goes through several stages of the sales funnel. The simplified scheme is as follows: Shopping - Search and evaluation of goods - Adding to the cart - Checkout - Payment - Behavior after purchase.

Correctly adapt content for each stage. This applies to topics of publications, locations on the site, periodicity, etc. Content should help the visitor, cause a feeling of gratitude or approval, facilitate the "agony of choice", be in the right place at the right time. And, of course, the content does not have to be text.



American Eagle from the main page sends customers to the sections with women's or men's clothing, and then also offers, using photographs, to choose their own style. For the buyer, the search for goods is facilitated, it is gently and unobtrusively transferred to the desired section, the funnel is narrowed.



The fashion store Net-a-Porter is considered one of the pioneers of content marketing in online retail. He has a weekly online magazine The Edit and a glossy publication Porter.

These publications offer interesting and inspiring materials about fashion, style, health. Interviews, stories of famous people are published. All content is united around the interests of the audience and emphasizes Net-a-Porter's expertise in fashion.

Training

How-to articles, videos, manuals are one of the most sought-after types of content for virtually any area of ​​consumption, which allows you to show all the creative potential of the marketing department.

The website of the Mr Porter menswear seller has a content section The Journal , where excellent articles are published, in which the company's products unobtrusively “sound”.



For example, in an interview with José Mourinho, there are some photos of Chelsea’s coach in Mr Porter clothes.



In our blog, we wrote about Walmart - the American retail giant, who maintains constant communication with its customers with large amounts of useful content. In content strategy, Walmart is based on the obvious principle of customer focus: you need to be where the buyer has a question or a problem. Content is intended to solve the problem.

Walmart strategy is often built around a particular idea. For example, before the holidays, articles from the series “How to set the table in a hurry” are launched ( an example of such material ).

In addition, the content is focused on the audience of the store. Since Walmart has one of the main categories of customers - housewives, the site has a special section with recipes. An interesting opportunity is to view the recipe and add its ingredients to the shopping list with one click.

Video

A large percentage of the audience of online buyers decide on the choice of goods after watching the video. According to studies , 31% of buyers made a purchase after watching a video review that impressed them. And every second buyer trusts the product more after watching the video.

The Eastwood Company, which sells tools, welding equipment, consumables for painting, teaches using video. It would seem that such specific products are not at all suitable for “cinema”, but at the time of writing this article, its channel had almost 78 thousand subscribers and more than 23 million views. The company has been recording instructional videos since 2007 and, apparently, is not going to abandon content marketing in the future.

On its YouTube channel, Walmart launched the Growers Stories series of videos, in which buyers are introduced to farmers who grow vegetables and fruits for sale in the hypermarket. People see a beautiful video of juicy apples, the hands of people who are smiling, tear them down, a person who embodies their favorite farm brand and it is impossible to resist buying.

British bearded shop Beardbrand has integrated video tutorial content into an online store. For example, on the pages where beard oil is sold, there are short videos showing how to use it properly.

Reviews

Foreign opinions remain an important decision criterion. Today, almost all stores are working to increase reviews of products on the site. Conscientious sellers for discounts give discounts, who are looking for easy ways - orders paid reviews. Despite the generally accepted opinion that “all reviews on the Internet have been paid for,” people trust this channel of information (79%), since there is a hope that there are honest ones among the paid reviews. 67% of shoppers read up to 6 reviews before purchase.



Popular Chinese retailer DealExtreme encourages users to post reviews through a special affiliate program.

Content marketing strategy

In these examples, we see the variety of opportunities that content marketing offers. Should I implement everything at once? Most likely no. The main problem of working with content is not the resources for its creation or even the level of its quality, but the lack of a clear understanding of why it is needed and a systematic approach. Relying only on statistical data that videos, blogs, reviews, images, can increase, say, a conversion by several times, the owners and managers of ecommerce projects try and get frustrated. After all, even the use of one or another type of content, not to mention its formats, presentation, tonality, concept, depends on many factors. This is the audience of the project, its positioning and much more, which should be described in the content marketing strategy, before starting work directly with texts, videos, images.

Content marketing strategy will not only explain why this or that approach to interacting with the audience with the help of content is necessary, but also makes clear all the processes for its creation and placement - the frequency of publications, the content plan and other elements of the system.