Content marketing or content marketing is based on the creation of relevant and valuable content to attract the attention and interest of our users. By creating this content we seek to generate quality traffic to our online store,

do branding and achieve loyalty from our customers, in this way we manage to position ourselves in the consumer's mind and increase our sales.

Benefits of content marketing for an ecommerce.

This digital marketing strategy, if used correctly, can provide great advantages to our online business and in a very economical or free way.

• Positioning your online store in search engines: by combining good SEO practices and creating quality content, you can position your ecommerce in the first results in search engines. This way, when users perform searches related to the content you have created, your store will appear in the top positions and you will be able to attract more qualified traffic.
• Loyalty: getting new customers is much more expensive than building loyalty with those we already have, so by creating content we can generate a connection with them. For example, we can write to resolve doubts that they may have once the purchase is completed or on topics that interest them about our products.
• Feedback: this online marketing strategy allows you to get to know your buyer persona better and know what things they like and don't like or which attract their attention the most, since through the comments or interactions they have with your content you can analyze their behaviors and optimize your ecommerce.
• We build trust : If we want users to become our recurring customers and end up buying our products, we must build trust. The more information we provide about our products or our brand values, the greater the bond with our customers and the more willing they will be to buy in our store.
• Improve your reputation and differentiate yourself from the competition: the more quality information you provide to your audience, the better your reputation will be and the more people will turn to your brand. Furthermore, creating valuable content makes you different from the competition, awakening the public's interest in your ecommerce.
• Increase in sales: if you manage to meet the points that we have mentioned, without a doubt all this effort will be rewarded in an increase in sales in your business.

Effective branded content formats for your online business.

After having made clear the benefits that this marketing tool can bring us, we are going to see some of the most used formats for creating content.

• Blog : it is one of the most common publications that has been with us the longest, but at the same time it is one of the most consumed by users. The important thing to have a relevant blog that gives good results is to make quality content, publish regularly so as not to lose the interest of your followers and create different categories to segment the content.

• Product or purchasing guides : the objective of this format is to expand the information about your products, resolving all possible doubts that your customers may have. In this way you can position yourself as a reference within your sector.
• Quality images and videos : images are essential to convey attention, care and quality in our products. Users will not be able to touch the materials of our products or know the size or weight, which is why it is essential that the images reflect the product as best as possible.

On the other hand, videos are the most used format currently and the ones that are best received by the public, since all users like to be shown virtually the characteristics of the product or its operation, this generates trust in the user and drives sales much more. Tutorials are increasingly being used to create greater engagement with our audience,

• Emails: through this channel you can communicate with clients who are interested in your brand, sending them the latest news or the most relevant information according to their interests, through Newsletters. Also, you should take advantage of order confirmation or thank you messages to provide value to the user and make branding or recommendations of other products.

Steps to follow to create an effective content strategy for your online store.

If you want your content strategy to have good results, you must plan every step you are going to take. Below we leave you the fundamental steps that you should take into account when creating your content marketing strategy.

1. Establish objectives : it is essential that we think about why we want to carry out this strategy. Content marketing can help us increase traffic to our ecommerce, capture leads, boost sales, build customer loyalty or improve branding. But to make this strategy effective, we must first set the objective and then, based on this, develop all the content.

2. Identify your buyer persona and define your target audience: it is very important that we have defined and know how to identify our buyer persona, from this we can begin to create the content in a more personalized way and we can even adapt it according to the phase of the funnel in which our client is.

There are some data that we can take into account when forming our buyer persona such as: demographic data, pain points, motivation, the channels they use...

Once your buyer persona has been created and after having defined your target audience, you can better understand your audience and create the customer journey that they will carry out, identifying the best moments to impact them and the most suitable content in each of those moments according to what you are looking for. Since we cannot speak in the same way to someone who is looking for information as someone who is about to make a purchase.

3. Discover the channels that your audience uses to consume content : each one is different and is oriented towards different profiles, which is why we must analyze each channel that we are going to use in depth. To choose the most appropriate channels, we must discover how our audience consumes content. To do this, we can choose some questions that can resolve this question, such as: what is the social network most used by my target audience, what is the device they use the most, do they prefer some type of special content…

4. Research the most relevant content:
In order to create content according to our audience, it is necessary to study our sector and the competition. In this way we will see what relevant content they are creating and are having an impact and also, we will be able to discover the topics that they are not covering and that our target audience may be especially interested in.

5. Impact each part of the funnel : the sales funnel will help us know where our client is in the journey and what is the most suitable content at all times.

At the top of the funnel we find the discovery part by the consumer, at this stage the consumption of content is very easy through social networks, blogs...

In the middle of the funnel we find the consideration stage, in this phase customers get to know you and is where the information you give them must be deeper, since at this point it is when they will buy your product the most compared to that of the competition. .

In the last part of the funnel you must make clear the exceptional value that your brand offers, since it is the moment in which the customer is ready to make the purchase.

How to improve the sales funnel of your shopify store

6. Creation of the editorial calendar: the best way to control the content that we are going to publish, the frequency and on which channels, is through the editorial calendar that will help us to have everything organized in advance.

7. Dissemination of content: we must achieve the maximum possible reach. To reach all our customers we will have to use various channels and get the greatest number of people to see it.

8. Measurement of results : in this way we will know which content is working for us and which we have to change or improve. It is essential to measure the results that we are obtaining. Some metrics that can help us measure the results of our content strategy may be: organic traffic, leads, conversion rate, engagement...

In this post we show you the metrics that Google Analytics provides us by default to start measuring the data of our online store.

9. Collect feedback from our clients : Last but not least, it is essential to listen to our clients. Through the comments or reviews we may obtain from them. We can adapt the content to resolve your doubts and needs. That our users leave positive comments in our online store can make new customers resolve their doubts about it and decide to buy our product.

Remember that the importance of content marketing lies in providing our audience with relevant and quality content that they are looking for and in the format and channels that they usually use. If we achieve the proposed objectives with this strategy we will make our users become our clients.

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