Running an online store is a competitive business. It’s hard enough to get people to visit your site, let alone part with their money. Ask yourself: what’s separating your website from the thousands of others selling similar products? As you may already know, it’s all about marketing.
You might have created and manufactured the best niche product in your market. You may have also designed a stunning Shopify store to showcase it. However, no one’s going to see your store if they don’t know your brand exists. Thankfully, e-commerce and content marketing go hand in hand.
What Is Content Marketing?
If you run an e-commerce store, you’ll already know that the world is moving online. This means traditional marketing methods are much less effective than what they once were. Enter digital marketing.
Digital marketing is any form of marketing (such as ads, promotions, branded emails) that exists online. Content marketing refers to the creation and sharing of online “content.” It includes blog posts, videos, images, and social media posts, to name a few.
“Content marketing is a strategic marketing approach focused on creating and distributing valuable, relevant, and consistent content to attract and retain a clearly defined audience – and, ultimately, to drive profitable customer action.” – Joe Pulizzi, Founder, Content Marketing Institute.
What Are The Benefits Of Content Marketing?
Content marketing has a whole host of benefits for Shopify e-commerce stores. Whatever your audience or budget, you can use content to generate more leads and sales.
The benefits of content marketing for e-commerce include:
- Cost-effectiveness: Content creation is either free or incredibly low-cost depending on the platforms you use. You may also decide to hire a content marketing professional or outsource to an agency.
- Ease: Chances are, you already know how to use social media. Blogging and posting on YouTube is also user-friendly. Thankfully, you’re not required to learn a whole new set of technical skills when you begin content marketing, and much of what you’ll do is intuitive.
- Integration: Your blog and social media are easy to integrate into your Shopify store. Not only does this make it easier for your audience to find you, but it also helps you track your leads and sales. To do this, you can install a social media app like Instafeed or Flexify, or you can code social media buttons into any Shopify theme. If you don’t have any coding knowledge, you can either consult a Shopify help center tutorial or enlist the help of Shopify experts.
- Direct sales: By posting content with links to your products or using affiliate marketing, it’s quick and easy for leads to become sales. You’ll want to track your conversion rates (meaning how many site visitors actually make sales) using Shopify analytics and reports. This way, you can adjust your content marketing strategy according to what’s working and what isn’t.
Great Content Is The Key To Successful Marketing
Promotional messages just don’t cut it these days. Today’s consumers are looking for value and insight from the brands they love. More specifically, these are the key areas you should focus on:
- Social media marketing: Social media marketing is a core component of content marketing, but it doesn’t cover all the bases. You need to establish an authentic, consistent presence on your chosen platform(s) so you can engage with your audience.
- SEO: Search engines reward businesses that publish consistently high-quality content. It means your Shopify page (and all content you post) needs to be well-written and optimized for SEO If you want to rank in search engines. If you’re not sure how to optimize your site, you can ask a Shopify developer to help.
- PPC: PPC stands for pay-per-click marketing, and it’s a great way to increase traffic to your site. PPC means working with an affiliate (such as another brand or influencer) who will share links to your store. This method of marketing is highly cost-effective, as you only pay your affiliate when someone clicks their featured link and arrives at your site.
- Inbound marketing: To increase inbound leads to your Shopify store, you should consider techniques such as guest blogging (writing posts for other sites in your niche with a link back to your store), vlogging (video blogging on YouTube), and sharing content on Pinterest and any other industry-specific platforms.
Content marketing is all about getting your brand seen. However, you want your audience to get the right messages about your brand, which is why consistency and strategy are key.
Being Consistent
You’ll often hear marketers say that consistency is what makes strong branding. It means you need to give your audience a clear message that states who you are, what you’re selling, and what you stand for. Then, you must make sure your branding and tone of voice are consistent across all of your content.
Creating A Strategy
It’s impossible to achieve consistency without a strategy, so you must plan your content. You could plan a content calendar, use an app to schedule posts, or hire a content marketing manager to do all this for you.
To Conclude
Content marketing is a great way to generate leads to your Shopify store, but only if you know what you’re doing. Take time to learn the ropes of different kinds of content and remember to work out what you want to say about your brand and why before you post anything. If you implement a strong, branded strategy and remain consistent, you should soon generate more leads to your Shopify store.
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