13 Ecommerce Content Marketing Tips from the Experts at HubSpot

To compete with the big box stores and avoid a race to the bottom on discounting, you need to differentiate yourself –– and content is one of the best ways to do it. Content builds SEO, generates customer loyalty and helps to push both new and existing customers down a purchasing funnel, increasing your annual sales.

But, creating compelling content isn’t always easy. You’ll need a strategy, and that’s where the marketing experts over at Hubspot come in. We’ve collected their best ecommerce content marketing tips, tactics, strategies and must-try experiments.

Read on to learn how to take your ecommerce content marketing to the next level.

1. In your content strategy, you need toconsider the visitor who doesn’t buy just as much as (if not more than!) the visitor who does buy. You need to figure out the content that will get them to purchase the first time and then create it.  – Alex Whitney, Customer Success Manager
2. When creating content, have an ideal buyer in mind. You should be on a first name basis with your persona and create content that appeals to and helps them. – John Dukes, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Specialist
3. You need to use data to inform your content strategy. Use personalization and segmentation to serve people content on topics that they’re interested in, and you’ll nurture them into a purchase. – Lauren DeSoiza, Customer Success Manager
4. Content is made to be measured! You can’t improve on your content if you don’t measure it. I can’t overstate the importance of this to your ecommerce content strategy. – Patricia Yuse, Customer Success Manager
5. Ecommerce is uniquely positioned for great video content. Show the people what they’re buying! A particularly good way to do that is through video how-to’s or tutorials of how to use a product. – Spencer Dunfee, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Specialist
6. Have your support and live chat teams write down interesting questions they get. If one person asked, many more might be Googling the same question. Be the answer they find! – Sam Mallikarjunan, Head of Growth, HubSpot Labs & Author of How to Sell Better Than Amazon
7. Stay on top of current trends and adapt your current content strategy to address them when necessary. For example, “unboxing and haul” videos get thousands of views online. You could encourage users to post unboxing or haul videos , or work with influencers in your space to create them. – Charlie Keegan, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Specialist
8. Always include a call-to-action. By getting to the end of your content, your reader should have a clear understanding of the next step they are supposed to take – whether that’s signing up for your email list, adding something to their cart or watching a product video to bring them further down the funnel. – Ted Ammon, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Specialist
9. Make the most of limited real estate in emails and on your homepage by promoting content that touches on a variety of products. Let customers know they can click into those images to learn more about each individual item. – Juliana Nicholson, Industries Marketing Manager
10. Instead of immediately giving a discount code, encourage visitors to come back and purchase by giving them content they can use. Think product guides, how-tos, etc. – David Bernstein, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Specialist
11. Content provides conversion opportunities for visitors who aren’t ready to check out. Two pre-purchase conversion opportunities that every ecommerce company should have are subscribe to the blog and sign up for a mailing list. – Jennifer Cedorchuk, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Specialist
12. If you’re creating content with errors, you’re undermining the value and credibility of your content. It needs to have the correct spelling, grammar and punctuation to be taken seriously. While this sounds like a basic best practice, it needs to be said! – Greg Wise, Ecommerce Inbound Marketing Specialist
13. It used to be that you had to pay a fortune to have your product “accidentally” shown, drank or worn in a movie. But now, with democratization of video and other storytelling media, you can place the products in your own content. One of my favorite examples is Bro Science Life, and the muscle-headed musings of the main character, Dom Mazzetti. The videos are hilarious (especially if you or someone you know are a gym fanatic), and all the t-shirts Dom wears are for sale on the company’s website. For the cost of writing, filming and editing their videos, the 2-man team gets their products in front of millions of fans. Not a bad ROI. – Steve Haase, Sales Engineer

Hopefully these tips, tactics and strategies will help you succeed at your ecommerce content strategy, both now and in 2016.

Photo: Flickr, Kyle James