Being aware that the power has shifted to the consumer and that online stores need to create value for him in order to build a relationship that will lead to a business-marketing dialog, companies are quickly moving (not necessarily professionally) to Content Marketing activity, which is called: Inbound Marketing.
What is content marketing?
Content Marketing addresses the creation and distribution of relevant and valuable content for a defined target audience with the clear goal of attracting and gaining its attention and building a long-term relationship that can eventually turn into a business one.
What are the business goals?
- Awareness of the branded online store
- A relationship that supports consumer loyalty
- Differentiation of your products and solutions
- Customer retention
- Sell & Upsell
Online stores should implement a three layers content strategy
- Introduction layer
Expose your product’s ingredients, features and solutions
- The bonding layer
This stage is a deeper one in terms of the dialog with potential customers and includes activities such as social friendship and followers, invitation to demo or webinar, as well as subscription to content products such as newsletters.
22% go through this stage of a slightly more in-depth familiarity with the company’s content.
- The comparison phase
In this layer you should go deeper and expose potential customers to a deep comparison report in which you highlight 3-5 product parameters that make your solution better comparing to other online sellers in the relevant category .
Target Audience:
When planning a marketing move based on strategic entry into the content field, it is necessary to define the target audience in such a way that will improve the chances of success. The combination of proper social networking activity and familiarity with the company’s digital asset, users will enable the brand to find the right audience for this content activity.
The right audience should at least be a “listening audience” who is willing to watch or read the online retailer’s content. If we can find and create a dialog with an active audience and / or those who are early adopters of innovation and retailer’s solutions , they are also likely to be active in creating the content and conveying it throughout their social environment.
The optimal target audience is the Passionates who have a passion for your category. Those who are aware of any new relevant content which is uploaded to the network, add it, distribute it and talk about it on and off social. This is the desired goal of any brand starting a real content marketing strategic activity.
Content mix:
A retailer or a seller that strategically addresses the content area is required to have a true mix of content which consists of five main content types.
- Evergreen Content – relevant content that can be used by the brand every few weeks or months.
.2. Snackable Content – if you create written content – make it short. This type of content can be easily produced by the company’s content personnel keeping it original and relevant.
- Video/ Visual content is also important for a dialog that may lead to sales.
- UGC – Content produced by customers is necessary for any content or community platform. It is attractive, wins a higher reliability score than some traditional content, and gains a high level of collaboration.
- Content curation – using third party content which is relevant and valuable.
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