Content marketing in e-commerce is the creation and distribution of useful information for consumers with the goal of attracting potential buyers and gaining their trust.

Unlike advertising, content marketing benefits your potential customers without the expressed intention to sell here and now. But how to create a shopping website without spending big money on ads?

The task of content marketing is to motivate the customer to target actions. With a free distribution of useful content, you solve the problems of the audience at a time and in the place where it is particularly necessary. By benefiting from the materials found on your site, the audience is imbued with trust, gratitude, and willingness to buy something from you.

The advantages of content marketing are that it effectively attracts the attention of the audience, helps to gain trust and unobtrusively promotes a product or service on the market. This article will help you how to sell online successfully.

How Does Content Marketing Work?

1. By adding and updating online shopping content at your store, positions in search engines are improved: search engines rank well for high-quality texts that provide answers to questions, and links in texts to the pages of catalog sections and products promote them as well. Through the search and social networks, more new visitors come to your site, who previously did not know anything about your online store.
2. If the content is useful, readers are immersed in its study, add comments and share it in social networks, improving the behavioral characteristics of your site. Regular readers turn into subscribers who want to receive new information by e-mail. To do this, you must have email marketing. It is crucial at this stage to send only useful materials without advertising.
3. Gradually studying your materials, readers begin to trust your expert opinion, because they see you as a market leader and professional in your industry. And as soon as the subscriber needs your goods or services, he is guaranteed to contact you, because he knows you and trusts you.
4. If you trade in miscellaneous products, content marketing is necessary here: training videos, step-by-step tutorials, comparative reviews, test drives will help you lead a client to a deal. That will tell how to sell online successfully.
5. After the purchase, the task of content marketing is customer care and the unobtrusive generation of repeat sales.

The Benefits of Content Marketing for An Online Store

• Brand recognition due to the distribution of online shopping content through different channels;
• Creating an image of an expert in your field among customers and competitors;
• Increase audience loyalty to the brand through useful materials and their credibility;
• The improvement of search rankings by continually updating the site;
• Increase in targeted traffic to the site due to the development of search rankings;
• Effective link building by sharing on social networks;
• Increase website conversion due to useful materials;
• The growth of client base due to a subscription to the distribution of valuable articles;
• The long-lasting effect in contrast to the contextual advertising and promotion through the trading platforms.

If you want to know how to sell online successfully, you need to know what type of content to use on each step of a sales funnel.

Forms and Genres of Content for An Online Store

Content marketing tools for an online store site include preparation and publication of:

• High-quality and detailed descriptions of good;
• Comparative Reviews;
• Reviews of new products and collections;
• Ratings of goods;
• Customer Reviews;
• Successful examples of the use of products offered by the online store;
• Entertaining infographics;
• Tutorial videos;
• Online courses;
• Collages and design projects;
• YouTube videos: product descriptions, reviews of new products, examples of use, educational materials.

The simplest and most popular way of publishing online shopping content is posting to a blog: these can be texts, photo selections, videos, infographics, etc. For example, the most effective type of material, according to a survey of marketers, is research and reports.

Useful content includes the following types:

• Text: comparative reviews, test drives, reviews, news, descriptions, instructions and tutorials, tips, lifehacks, reports, etc.
• Visual: infographics, pictures, photographs, videos, cases, estimates, galleries of works.
• Interactive: polls, tests, games, webinars, planners, calculators.

The answer to the question on how to sell online successfully is the creation of content strategy.

How to Sell Online Successfully: Build A Content Strategy for An Online Store Blog

How to create a shopping website with effective sales funnel? After you have decided on the objectives of content marketing and have understood about what you are going to write in a blog or what videos to shoot for the YouTube channel, you should create a content plan that you will stick to in your work. To do this, you need to plan topics, format, and frequency with which you could prepare and publish materials without reducing the quality bar. In general, for an average online store, 1-2 posts per week may be enough; for large ones, 5-7 posts would be optimal.

The materials created for the website of the online store must meet the interests of customers at different stages of the sales funnel.

1. Creating the demand

Often people do not even realize that their problems or difficulties can be quite easily resolved. Previously, no one knew about the existence of dryers and dishwashers, but now thanks to advertising and reviews of friends, homemakers are gradually purchasing these items. Although, many continue to dry laundry on the balcony and wash dishes by hands.

You can form a need to get rid of this routine through:

• Photo contests, special projects, tests, viruses for a broad audience;
• Affiliate sites;
• Creating information resources on related topics;
• Mailing list with stories, reviews, amazing facts.

2. Search for solutions

After the client realizes the problem, he begins to look for an answer. For example, he throws out a broken vacuum cleaner and starts looking for a new one. But he cannot imagine that there are vacuum cleaning robots, and they have become more accessible. It is useful at this stage to have:

• Educational videos;
• Articles;
• Instructions and guidelines for action;
• Online books.

3. Data Gathering

At this stage, it is critical that a potential client be able to gather the most valuable information on your website. That will help him to gain confidence in your expert opinion on this issue and then turn to you. When the client has decided that he already cannot do without a TV in the bedroom, he begins to choose and compare. At this stage, the funnels work best with:

• Comparative reviews;
• Test drives;
• Links to useful online shopping content from other resources.

But how to sell online successfully? Never stop work with the client and always perform all stages.

4. Exploration and selection

For new visitors to the site, it is essential to explore the product to understand why he needs all the available functions and whether to trust the opinion of this seller. At this stage, the best will be:

• Educational materials (for example, how to use a robot vacuum cleaner),
• User reviews (happy homemakers), videos of how it works;
• Photo and video of the vacuum cleaner in the interior and work;
• Photo result (before and after cleaning).

5. Purchase and payment

For those who are interested in the product and turned to the online store, you need to give detailed advice, tell about the bonus program for subscribers and regular customers and, perhaps, arrange a free demonstration in the showroom or provide a test drive of the goods at home. Thus, at this stage, the following types of content will be relevant:

• Consultations;
• Demonstrations;
• Test drives;
• Infographics.

6. Usage

After the sale, work with the client is just beginning, as he needs to be interested in related products to sell accessories, after a while remind him of changing filters, batteries, flash drives, etc. That can be done in the mailing list. And pay attention to the new product in a blog – now it will be easier to do because the buyer already knows you and trusts you.

7. Reviews

After some time, it is worth asking the customers whether the product suitable for them, whether they are satisfied with the service of your online store. Ask customers to write reviews about the products purchased in your online store – this is the most valuable content that users share for free or for a bonus point to the next order.

How to sell online successfully if the client refuses to buy from your store?

And what if the customer did not buy?

Users who bought and not bought need to be attributed to different segments and continue to work with them in different ways. For those who slipped away, dropped the shopping cart and did not complete the transaction, you can set up remarketing and retargeting, which will catch up customers on other sites. Comparative reviews, successful operating histories, and other useful materials on the online store website can again convince them to make a purchase. How to create a shopping website with a low level of “slippers.” Never stop working with the client.

Thus, if your content covers the interests of users at all stages of the sales funnel, then the content marketing strategy is right.

Final Words

So, this is what an online store needs to do effective content marketing:

1. Get to know your audience and segment it;
2. Define content marketing goals for an online store;
3. Choose the genres and forms of content with which you can most effectively achieve your goals;
4. Develop a content strategy that will cover the interests and needs of the audience at each stage of the sales funnel;
5. Create a content plan in the form of a calendar with themes and genres of materials;
6. Delegate content creation responsibilities to employees or remote specialists;
7. Think over the channels to promote your content;
8. Create and publish useful content;
9. Place links to sections of the catalog and product pages in your online store;
10. Set up analytics on the site to always be aware of whether content marketing is working or not.

How to sell online successfully? We repeat that today everyone needs high-quality and useful online shopping content: even sellers of trash bags have something to share with their customers. But the key phrases here are “quality” and “useful.” If you are not ready to create it yourself, give content marketing to outsourcing, but be prepared that this will require you to closely contact with remote specialists, make constant monitoring and allocate financial investments. The results will not keep you waiting long. Now you know how to create a shopping website with high sales performance? Good luck!