Kelvin W. Mwangi

How To Plan Out Your Ecommerce Content Strategy As an ecommerce business owner, you know that content is king, but are you maximizing its potential? Have you made your ecommerce content truly effective? Or is it getting harder daily to drive traffic, engagement, and sales to your ecommerce store using content? The key might be in your ecommerce content strategy! Poor quality content and ineffectiveness in your content marketing strategy waste over 20% of the buying process and lower the probability of making a sale by 40%![1] A whopping 63% of businesses lack an official ecommerce content marketing plan which makes them miss out on these benefits [2]: Ecommerce blogs bring 126% more leads [3]. Content marketing is cheaper than traditional marketing by 62% [4]. It exposes e-commerce stores to a market expected to reach over $3.2 trillion in 2023 [5]. A content strategy helps online stores nurture relationships with their prospects and win customers. If you're ready to unlock your businesses' full online potential, we're ready to share actionable tips on how to plan out your ecommerce content strategy for optimal results and offer you help doing it. From understanding your audience to creating a content calendar, we've got you covered. Let's dive in and unleash the power of a well-planned ecommerce content strategy. So, What exactly is an ecommerce content strategy? A content strategy for ecommerce websites is a plan to research, create, distribute, and manage content to attract, engage and convert target customers for your online store. The plan entails defining the target audience, building a brand identity, choosing the right types and channels of content, and formulating the process of content creation and publishing. A well-executed ecommerce content strategy can help your business create relevant, informative, and engaging copy that increases brand awareness, traffic, and conversions. Step-By-Step Guide On How To Plan Out An Ecommerce Content Strategy Step 1: Define Your Target Audience Defining your target customer is crucial for creating an effective ecommerce content strategy. By understanding who you'll be writing for, their language, pain points, and what they are looking for, you can create content that resonates with them and drives engagement. Without this understanding, you risk creating generic, irrelevant, and uninteresting copy for your customers, which may result in poor content performance. And how do you define your target audience? You can start by gathering data about your existing and ideal customers. The data might include, but is not limited to: Demographic data –Gender, age, and geography/location. Psychographic data –Interests, values, preferences, opinions, and beliefs. You can gather the above information through website analytics, surveys, social media insights, and interviews. Once you have the data, start sorting it out to create customer profiles or buyer personas. The customer profiles should highlight important characteristics of your customers, including: Their goals. Pain points. Preferred channels (For communication and social engagement). Buying habits. It's important to note that different target audiences may need different content strategies. For instance, if your target customers consist of a younger and older audience, you may need to use different marketing channels. Social media channels like TikTok, Instagram and Facebook would be perfect for the younger audience, while email marketing and direct mail would suit the older audience. Also, you'd want to create humorous, visually engaging, and shareable content for the younger targets, while for their older counterparts, more informative and educational content would cut the mustard. In addition to the customer profiles, you should categorize your audience into different buying cycles as outlined in the table below: Buying Cycle Customer Description Ideal Content Uneducated shoppers Customers are in the buying cycle's initial stages and looking for options. They may not be aware of your brand or product and need education and information to make a decision. Blog articles Category pages Educated shoppers Customers have done their research and are aware of your brand and product. They need convincing to choose your product over competitors. Product pages Buying guides Ready-to-buy shoppers Customers who have made their decision and are ready to purchase. They may need a final push, such as a discount or limited-time offer, to complete the purchase. FAQs Purchase and return policies Coupon pages NB: Knowing your target audience's buyer's stage will also help you know the ideal content to show them. Step 2: Conduct a Content Audit A content audit evaluates your existing content, including blog articles, social media content, email newsletters, and product descriptions. The audit gives you insight into the effectiveness of your current content strategy by identifying the gaps, areas that need improvements, and overlaps. This helps you know what's working and what's not. To perform a thorough content audit, follow these steps: 1. Make a spreadsheet to keep track of your content: List all your content, including their titles, types, dates published, and URLs or locations. 2. Group your content by category: I.e., blogs, social media posts, emails, product descriptions, etc. 3. Content assessment: Review each piece of content's value, performance, and relevance. Identify gaps and areas that need improvement. 4. Rank your content: Categorize your content based on the amount of traffic, engagement and conversion each brings. 5. Data Analysis: Analyze the information gathered from your content audit to inform your new content strategy. Highlight your weaknesses, strengths, and opportunities for new content. Conducting a content audit helps you: Improve your content quality after knowing the areas that need improvements. Increase your content efficiency after identifying gaps and duplications. Boost engagement and conversions after identifying best-performing content and replicating success. Better align your content with your target audience after revisiting their interests and preferences. If you lack the time or expertise to conduct a thorough content audit, a professional content writer like ScaleCopy can help identify gaps and improvement opportunities in your ecommerce store's content. And why would you choose them? Their customer success stories say it all! Step 3: Determine Your Content Types and Channels Your ecommerce content strategy should include various content types and channels to reach your target audience. Choosing content types that resonate with your target audience and channels that are most effective when reaching them is best. The different types of content you could engage your audience with include: Blog posts. Email newsletters. User-generated content. Customer reviews and testimonials. Videos (Educational, How-To's, etc.). Infographics. Social Media posts. Each type of content offers unique benefits and can be used to achieve specific objectives. For channels, or the different outlets where you can publish your content, here are the most common for ecommerce businesses: Websites. Mobile apps. Email marketing. Social media platforms. H4: How do you choose the right content and channel for your ecommerce store? Consider your marketing goals, objectives, target audience, and budget. You can begin by identifying the content that best resonates with your target customers based on their interests and behaviour. (Refer to step 1 for more on categorizing your target customers). Then, determine which channels are most relevant and effective to reach your audience by identifying which outlets are easily accessible and convenient. Keeping a budget in mind is crucial to avoid upsetting your business' financial balance. For instance, if you have a small content marketing budget and lack a dedicated video production team, creating high-end videos might not be a viable path for you. You may need to consider other types of content, like blog posts, social media content, and images, that won't require many resources. The channels and content types you choose should be used together for the overall success of your content marketing campaign. Here are some examples of successful channel and content combinations you could emulate for your business: Content Channel Example Blog posts Instagram A fashion brand can use Instagram to share photos of their latest clothing lines and then links to blog posts on their website that provides more information about the featured products. Video tutorials YouTube A beauty brand creates video tutorials demonstrating how to use their products and then shares the videos on YouTube. USG (User-generated content) Facebook A pet supply company asks customers to share photos of their pets using their products and then shares them on Facebook. Infographics LinkedIn A B2B software company creates infographics that visually explain complex topics related to their industry and then shares the infographics on LinkedIn. Now, you're ready to start creating different types of content and leveraging different platforms to promote your brand message and reach your target audience. If you need professional help creating SEO blogs or product descriptions for your ecommerce store, the ScaleCopy team can come in handy. You can book a free call now! Step 4: Create a Content Calendar After creating your content, you'll need a calendar to organize when and where to publish it. A content calendar ensures you consistently create and publish content to build and maintain an engaged audience. To create an effective content calendar for your ecommerce store, follow the steps below. 1. Pinpoint your content themes: Identify the main topics your content will cover based on your target audience's interests and needs. 2. Define your publishing frequency: How often would you like to publish your content? It could be daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly, depending on your abilities and goals. 3. Choose your content types: Decide what content you want to create, whether blog articles, videos, social media posts, emails, etc. 4. Allocate dates to specific content: Create a spreadsheet and assign each piece of content a specific date for publication. You could also include the channel(s) where it'll be published. 5. Plan ahead: You'll need to create your content in advance to have enough time to review, edit, schedule, and publish it. To get the most out of your content calendar, you'll need to maintain it by: Updating it regularly to reflect changes to your content plan. Being flexible –willing to make adjustments to accommodate business or industry changes. Getting your team intimately involved in developing and observing the content calendar. Leveraging tools and software to organize, manage, and automate your content plan. If you need help creating and maintaining an effective content calendar for your ecommerce store, our team of specialized content marketing experts is ready to help. Just give us a ring or book a free consultation now. Step 5: Measure and Analyze Results Finally, to ensure your ecommerce content strategy works, you need to set up a system that measures and analyzes the results. This step involves setting goals and KPIs (key performance indicators) and gradually leveraging data to improve your strategy. You can use several metrics to track your content strategy's performance and vary on the content type. The table below outlines the performance metrics for different content you could use to measure and analyze the results of your content strategy. Content-Type Performance Metric Blog articles Views, shares, and comments. Social media posts Engagement rate and follower growth. Email newsletters Open rate and click-through rate (CTR). YouTube Videos Engagement, subscriber growth, and CTR. Landing pages Conversions like sales, bookings, new orders, signups, etc. Product descriptions Bounce rate, time on page You can use analytic tools like social media analytics, Google analytics and email marketing analytics to analyze the above metrics. By analyzing your data, you can identify patterns, trends, opportunities, and gaps to help you enhance your content strategy. For instance, you could identify what content is performing better, create more of that, and see which platforms receive more engagement and focus more on them. You could also identify high-performing keywords to integrate into your blog posts and landing pages. Are You Ready To Launch Your Ecommerce Content Strategy? Developing an ecommerce content strategy is crucial for any online store looking to succeed in today's highly competitive market. Following the five steps outlined in this article, you can create a comprehensive and effective content strategy that aligns with your business goals and resonates with your target audience. Remember to define your target audience, conduct a content audit, determine your content types and channels, create a content calendar, and measure and analyze your results. Don't forget to continuously refine and improve your strategy as you gather more data and insights. If you need help with your ecommerce content strategy, contact ScaleCopy today to learn how our expert content marketing services can help take your online store to the next level!