How many times have you written and published a really interesting and engaging blog post, only to forget about it and never read or use it again?
Creating blog content is often at the heart of an ecommerce marketing SEO strategy, however, that content strategy oftentimes begins and ends once the article is published. The most successful content strategies though, will identify a topic or situation that relates to the products you sell, and then plan to create and use that content throughout the many stages of the buyer’s journey. The key here is that the content is planned and built with both reuse and revenue in mind.
Here are 5 ways to plan and use blog content to generate revenue on your ecommerce website:
1: Make your blog content gated
A common ecommerce marketing tactic that helps generate revenue is to make some of your blog content gated. At this stage, you’re higher up the funnel which means it’s a longer period before seeing the payoff. However, doing this helps you get email addresses, and we all know that getting an email address means you can now market to these individuals with products that relate to the content about which they read.
Consider gating only a few articles that are more informative or have a higher perceived value to your customers though. Gating all of the blog content may be off-putting to your visitors so make sure that it’s worth it to the reader.
2: Include it in your emails
Ecommerce emails are often full of products, promotions, and asking the customer to buy, buy, buy! But if you provide content every once in awhile that is valuable to the customer, informative, and relevant to their needs, they’ll appreciate your brand’s interest in their lives, not just their pockets. The customer will begin to trust you more, and their loyalty will deepen. They’ll read your content, process what it says, and begin to connect how your products relate to it and how it improves their quality of life.
This ecommerce marketing tactic is especially effective at converting customers, and generating more revenue, if your blog content is written in such a way that organically incorporates and suggests products. Furthermore, use the design of the blog page template itself to encourage browsing with sidebar widgets that promote best-sellers, and product feeds that feature items related to the blog category or topic. Even though your blog visitor is likely in “research mode”, they can be easily persuaded into a “shopping mode” if they see products that relate to the content they’re researching.
3: Use it as pop up bait
It seems you can’t browse a website anymore without being served a popup at some point during your visit. It’s obviously the go-to tactic in ecommerce marketing these days, and rightfully so. Popups interrupt your journey and demand your attention. The important thing to remember with popups though, is to make sure that the message and call-to-action are aligned with the visitor’s motivations and expectations. And this, my friends, is where reusing your blog content comes in handy.
Start by identifying a blog post that has a lot of engagement or traffic, find a way to turn that information into an asset, then use that as download bait for an email capture popup. Once again, getting an email address can be incredibly valuable when you have the systems in place to nurture that individual and turn them into an engaged, repeat customer.
4: Repackage it as social media content
Social posting can seem overwhelming if you feel like every post has to be promoting something new and unique every time. Repackaging your blog content for social media posting is a great ecommerce marketing tactic. It simplifies the social process and gets your followers onto your site, researching, browsing and even buying products. It also frees you up to focus on other ways to generate more revenue.
Look for blog posts with high engagement or traffic, read back through it to make sure the post mentions products or product categories, then use images from the article as an eye-catching social media post that links back to your site.
In this example, Williams Sonoma created recipe content on their blog, then took photos of their products as they made it. They then featured this blog article as an Instagram post and provided the link in their bio to get followers back to the site to get the recipe and buy the accessories and appliances needed to recreate this meal.
5: Use it in product videos
Oftentimes, we create really cool and interesting blog content, and then it’s forgotten about and seldomly used to it’s full potential. The most successful blog content typically identifies a topic or situation related to the products you sell, and provides a narrative or solution to which the reader can relate. This kind of content is perfect for product videos. Think about it–a successful and engaging product video shows the product in real-life situations, because being used in context helps connect it to the customer’s situation.
Therefore, be intentional about using blog photos, graphics, charts, diagrams and anything else you’ve created, as slides or examples within your video to help tell a more complete story. A compelling product video will more effectively sell your products and help to generate more revenue.
Of course, this is just scratching the surface of the many ways you can use, and reuse, your blog content to help generate more revenue for your online store. After all, the most challenging, and rewarding, aspect of ecommerce marketing is the constant search for better and more efficient ways to get results.
With a little research and planning, you can start building a blog content strategy to use as the foundation for your ecommerce marketing efforts. Hopefully these ideas inspire you to think of your own ways to plan, create, and organize content with the specific intention for reuse and revenue generation.
Looking for more ways to generate revenue? We’ve got a couple ideas.
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The post Ecommerce Marketing: 5 Alternate Ways to Generate Revenue from Blog Content appeared first on Springboard Marketing.
