Strategies to Maximize Marketing ROI for eCommerce in 2021

By December 2021, content marketing will account for 50% of all eCommerce marketing spend (Source: DemandGen Report). What does this mean? 

What will eCommerce marketers be doing differently in four years? 

It will be an incredibly competitive market, with online stores vying for space on the same mobile screens where brands like Amazon, Facebook, and Apple will now compete for our time and dollars.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and other forms of advertising will continue to be important in search engine optimization (SEO) tactics. Still, consumers are increasingly turning to recommendations from their peers and social media influencers they identify with. 

Loyalty programs and email marketing will continue to remain integral parts of eCommerce marketing in 2021, but the types of campaigns companies run will start to look a little different.

I'm sure you already know the value of content marketing, but have you considered how it can be implemented to increase traffic and conversion rates for an eCommerce store?

There are a few factors that make this especially tricky. 

For example, unlike a blog, content on your website needs to relate to the products directly for sale. It needs to be something that will grab the attention of potential customers and convince them to make a purchase.

Today, I'd like to share how you can leverage content marketing strategies to build a foundation for your eCommerce store that will ultimately bring you more customers. When it comes to building a successful eCommerce store, most eCommerce entrepreneurs focus on current marketing trends.

But what they should be doing is using content marketing strategies to build a foundation for their store that will ultimately bring them more customers.

With the right content marketing strategies in place, you can start building a powerful online presence that will resonate with your target customer. And once you've done that, these customers will come to you instead of you chasing after them. 

Here are some top content marketing strategies for eCommerce stores that you need to give a serious thought in 2021 and beyond

Search Engine Optimization

When you're running an e-commerce business, it's vital to ensure that customers and prospects can easily find your site. If you're struggling to rank in search engine results, search engine optimization (SEO) can help to drive traffic to your e-commerce site. 

By recognizing and targeting keywords and phrases that consumers are using to find your products or services, you can boost the amount of qualified traffic to your website. 

E-commerce makes it easier for potential customers to find and browse your site at any time. Additionally, optimizing your site helps to enhance user experience and drive more traffic to your e-commerce website. 

SEO is particularly important for e-commerce businesses because customers are typically prepared to purchase whenever they are searching for a specific product. 

Without SEO, customers might not even be aware that your business or brand exists. Boosting the visibility of your site with SEO helps to increase incoming leads and maximize profits.

Here are sure-fire tips that you can use to help create the best result:

1. Link Building

One of the most important and most time-consuming strategies in SEO is link building. These are links that go back to your website and are counted as votes of confidence from trusted sources, essentially telling search engines that your site is legitimate and can be trusted. 

Link building can be a long-term strategy, so don't expect these links to happen overnight. The main strategies for link building include:

• On-Site Link Building
• Guest Posting
• Blogger outreach
• Leverage haro outreach for links and mentions
• Competitors' Links

2. Leverage Product Listing Ads (PLAs)

Part of Google's success is its ability to provide information to consumers quickly and efficiently. Product listing ads allow users to search products directly from Google's SERPs, providing instant access to information about specific items. With PLAs, brands can gain their own real estate on SERPs to showcase products.

More specifically, PLAs allow e-commerce brands to promote relevant products via a basic listing that includes price, merchant name, and product title. Importantly they also have brand logos and link back to product listings on the merchant's site. This provides brands with valuable real estate on search results pages. In terms of format, PLAs work similarly to traditional text ads, but instead of including a link, the product link is included in the product title.

By implementing effective SEO techniques, e-commerce store owners can improve their conversion rates and increase customer loyalty. As more and more consumers turn to search engines to find products and services, SEO can be a powerful way to reach potential customers and drive sales.

3. Use Interactive Storytelling Rather than Traditional Blog Posts

According to a recent study, 54% of online users have low trust for branded content. Adopting interactive storytelling can help to develop a deeper emotional connection with your target audience. Another study found that the human brain is naturally wired to love stories. That means you can create a story around a memorable brand tale to make consumers feel connected to your brand. Once your audience has developed trust in your brand, they are more likely to buy from you. The best stories are the ones that the audience can relate to.

Here are some questions to help you find the right kind of stories for your audience. 

• Who are your consumers?
• What do your consumers care about [comfort, traveling, science, adventure, technology?]
• How do they like to spend their free time [read, shop, watch movies, go out?]
• What types of social causes do they care about?
• In what ways does your service or product help them?. Write content that solves people's problems. Many of the most successful eCommerce businesses offer products or services that solve real problems for real people. 

Take, for example, Mink Holsters. They sell physical products—holsters for smartphones—but their value proposition is much more than that. They help people protect their phones from drops, keep them close at hand, and make them look cool. All of this resonates with their audience and gets people to fork over their hard-earned money for a piece of plastic and a few screws

The answers to most of the above questions are easy to find. You can get answers through online questionnaires, email surveys, and simply by interviewing your existing customers. You can then choose the most appropriate type of content to share your stories, like videos, blog posts, a series of images, and GIFs.

4. Create Epic Pieces of Content

Epic content is anything that will make people stop whatever they are doing to watch or read and share it. They help your audience achieve the desired result or solve their problem while increasing awareness about your business or brand. 

Epic content is also highly useful, engaging and often makes people want to store it for future use or reference. Additionally, epic content is comprehensive. When creating epic content, start identifying a specific aspect of a bigger problem that your business or brand helps your customers solve. Also, conduct in-depth research on the topic to ensure your content is accurate and trustworthy.

The storytelling component of content marketing is a key factor in creating a positive experience for your audience. One way to ensure that customers love your content is by telling stories that are relevant to them. 

Stories can range from product reviews to behind-the-scenes looks at how you produce your products. Stories can be about products that have a specific impact on people's lives or can be about the people who use your products. Be sure you know what types of stories your audience likes to read- are they more interested in news articles, videos, images, infographics, or something else?

• Make sure the stories you're telling are relevant to your audience

• Think about how your story will resonate with your audience

• Provide the necessary context for your reader

• Allow for further engagement with your brand.

Regardless of your store's size or feel, you want to make sure you produce content that tells a story about your brand. This doesn't necessarily mean that you need to tell long-form stories. Still, a cohesive series of blog posts that build a narrative about your store is a great way to generate traffic from your own website and reach potential buyers through social media.

Drive traffic with appealing visuals. In today's digital age, it's hard to imagine that you can get anyone's attention without an enticing image or video. 

According to a recent BrightEdge survey, visual content receives more engagement than any other type of content. The most effective means of leveraging this is by optimizing your product photography. This involves maximizing the benefits of high-quality photography and also taking advantage of your UGC (user-generated content)

• Share personal stories whenever possible.

Creating valuable and impactful content that will boost the ROI of your e-commerce business is not a walk in the park. However, you can drive more sales and boost the net profit if you have the right strategies. The tactics outlined above are tried and tested to increase the ROI of e-commerce businesses.

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