Creating content for your customers that can provide information and answer questions is a great way to build trust. If you create a great one, people will share it. There are lots of ways to use video marketing for your e-commerce site. Look at your product offering. You can share customer success stories about using your products or services. Provide case studies that demonstrate how your product or service helps people “Does it really work?” This is probably one of the most common questions people ask before buying something. If I provide lots of details on how email marketing increases company sales, that’s a research study. Creating content is only part of content marketing. 15 ways to get started with creating content right away. Remember, I suggested the following options: Product guides Training videos Information pamphlets Customer stories Case studies A glossary of definitions Research studies User hacks Checklists Curated content of interest to your customers Personal stories If you’re not comfortable beginning your content marketing on your own, you can seek out guest bloggers, influencers or paid writers to help you out.
If you have a successful e-commerce site, you know that conversions are the key to survival.
First, you need to build the traffic to your store. Then you need to convert that traffic into leads and sales.
After all, traffic is critical, but it doesn’t pay the bills.
Without conversions, your store won’t survive, no matter how many people are visiting.
Content marketing can increase your conversion rate by almost six times!
The average conversion rate with content marketing is 2.9%, compared to only 0.5% for sites not using it.
Why does content marketing improve conversions?
Content allows you to connect with your customers.
Customers crave connections. They want to feel engaged.
If you do a good job connecting, it will increase engagement and brand loyalty, which will boost conversions and increase sales.
Don’t worry if you’re not already using content marketing for your e-commerce store.
I’m going to show you 15 ways to get started.
1. Start by picking one form of content
Don’t waste time, money, and energy trying to tackle all forms of content across all platforms.
The quickest way to get started is to start with one thing.
One type of content. One platform.
Which one is best will depend on your product, service, niche market, and customer type.
However, if you’re at a loss, start with email content.
74% of the most successful B2C marketers are using email as their primary way of distributing content.
Why?
Because it works!
Email marketing continues to provide the highest return on investment.
Want to narrow down your focus even more?
Automated emails do better than manual. Automated welcome emails, promotion emails, and event emails are the most common forms of email content marketing.
Starting a new sale, campaign, or promotion?
A great way to drive traffic and boost sales is to email past customers to let them know.
After all, you know these people already like your product or service.
But what if you have no idea how to create automated email marketing campaigns?
To get started as soon as possible with content marketing, pick a medium you’re most comfortable with.
If that’s not email, that’s okay!
Do you know how to add a blog section to your e-commerce site and write blog posts?
Or, are you already used to making YouTube videos? Make more!
Have you been making audio clips for ages? Consider a podcast!
Pick whichever one you think you can get up and going the easiest. Below are examples of some content mediums used by B2C marketers.
Once you start seeing some success and you have a good handle on the one medium you chose, then you can branch out to others.
You can always repurpose a piece of content from one form to another platform.
For example, you could turn a blog post into a podcast or a YouTube video later on.
2. Build product or service guides for your customers
Choosing how to share your content is one decision. The other is deciding what to share.
A quick and easy way to start is to build guides for your customers.
Provide resources on how to use, assemble, or fix your products. Offer in-depth details about what services you offer.
Creating content for your customers that can provide information and answer questions is a great way to build trust.
It can also help move them through the purchasing funnel to the ready-to-buy phase. And it’s a good way to share information on product updates to keep customers.
Make sure you use these guides as a place to educate customers.
Don’t use guides as a place to sell!
Guides should be used to show your audience that you care about educating them and helping them make the best decisions.
And make sure you always include visuals.
Consumers want to see how things work and what they look like. They want to be able to visualize how to use and care for products.
A great way to combine information and visuals into a guide is to create an infographic.
People love infographics.
If you create a great one, people will share it.
This will provide links back to you and help you increase your reach to new potential customers.
3. Create product or service videos to show your offerings
People are visually oriented. So it shouldn’t surprise you that my next suggestion is to use video.
There are lots of ways to use video marketing for your e-commerce site.
You can do short ad campaigns, in-depth webinars, online courses, or anything in between.
Make a viral ad campaign.
First, target a length that matches your medium.
Then make sure your ad campaign has a hook. If you want it to go viral, it needs to be catchy and stand out from the rest.
A perfect example is Metro Trains’ Dumb Ways to Die videos.
Their catch?
Illustrating dumb ways to die, other than falling off a train platform or walking in front of a train.
Here are some of the ideas they put in their videos:
- Hiding in a dryer
- Eating two-week old unrefrigerated food
- Sticking a fork in a toaster
They built in the underlying message that jumping out in front of an oncoming train is dumb. It’s so dumb that it’s right up there with selling your kidneys on the Internet.
The dark humor and the novel idea made their campaign take off.
Offer an online course.
Webinars and online courses are a great way to engage your audience and grow your e-commerce sales.
An interactive webinar is a great way to build engagement.
You can use it to interact with real people and still record it to offer later.
One option is WebinarJam. It’s incredibly simple to use.
Not sure you want to pay for it? Check out their free trial or try Google Hangouts, which is free.
Don’t want to interact with an audience?
You can also use a platform such as YouTube to create a teaching series.
Other places you can offer a course include:
4. Offer information ‘pamphlets’ such as size charts and FAQ sheets
Size charts aren’t only useful for clothes and shoes. They can be useful for all kinds of products such as tools, furniture, and large or bulky equipment.
Look at your product offering. Do you have anything that might cause a customer to ask one of the following questions?
- Will it fit in my car?
- Will I have space for that in my…? (Could be in their house, on their deck, in their office, on their toolbelt, or in any other relevant location.)
- Will I be able to comfortably fit in it or on it at my height or weight?
- Is it going to be too large for me to carry by myself?
Evo provides this size chart to help with choosing a snowboard online.
FAQ sheets are a great way to have a handy resource for commonly asked questions.
Do customers often call or comment about the same questions? Create a resource for them to find the answers themselves.
If you’re offering a product, think about questions such as the following:
- Do you deliver to my location?
- How much will shipping cost?
- How long does shipping take?
- What is your return policy?
- What if it breaks?
Providing a service? Consider these:
- Can I get a refund if I’m unhappy with the service?
- Is there a free trial period?
- Do you have a loyalty program or a discount if I sign up for a longer period?
- What is included in your service package?
- What’s the difference between your basic and premium packages?
You can revisit and update your FAQ sheet as new questions come up that you realize others may be wondering about as well.
Similar to a product or service guide, FAQ sheets help build trust with your customers.
5. Share customer stories
Sharing customer success stories is a no-brainer.
You’re showing potential customers that their peers love your product.
You’re also getting your customers to do the content creation for you.
It’s real, authentic, and cheap to produce.
You can share customer success stories about using your products or services.
Do you already have some great product reviews? Reach out to those customers and ask them to provide more information.
Try to find original or inspirational stories, and then request permission to share what you’ve learned.
You can also create competitions to encourage your customers to share stories, pictures, or videos that help promote your product.
A competition between fans is a great way to boost interaction and get people talking about you.
For example, Coca-Cola created the ‘Coke Games’ during the Winter Olympics.
They encouraged customers to share videos of themselves playing games such as Speed Sipping, Coke Curling, and Bottle Cap Hockey.
People could share their videos on Coke’s Facebook wall and be entered to win a prize.
Coca-Cola also captured user-generated content by adding customer names to their bottles and cans:
All over the world, people shared images of themselves with coke bottles that had their names on them.
This made others in their social networks want to find bottles with their names, too.
The campaign was so successful that it generated over 998 million…
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