Create a Content Marketing Strategy That Will Grow Your Business

welcome to the curiosity podcast a show about everything ecommerce and digital
business the aim is simple to help you thrive online and now your host Matt
Edmondson hello our welcome my fellow ecommerce entrepreneurs my name is Matt
Edmondson and this show is for those of us who are curious about e-commerce and want to know how to get better at doing
digital business now coming up in today's show we are addressing the
all-important topic of content marketing oh yeah is gonna be big it's important
right because I think content marketing sets the tone for your brand and it can have a huge impact on the bottom line
that's for sure so make sure you stay with me throughout the whole show as we learn how to create valuable relevant
and consistent content to drive traffic and generate leads and sales for our
e-commerce businesses okay as always I will put up show notes and all the links
that we use on the website at Matt Edmondson comm just head on over there and head to episode number can you
believe we're on episode number oh what guess just flying by I mean technically it's still a very brand new
podcast and if you're new to the show I definitely want to give a big shout out to you we are getting lots of new listeners each week which is great is
good see the stats are always going up and it's because it is a new show although we are on episode number
which is a bit mind-boggling for me but anyway enough said about that before we get into the meat and potatoes if you
like of this show I just want to give a shout out to the show's sponsor the amazing curious digital it's an
experience-based ecommerce platform that I use to run and grow my own e-commerce
businesses right so if you are looking for a new platform if you're looking to upgrade your website your ecommerce site
then do check it out at curious digital that's curious with a K and not with a C
it is a fab platform the guys are continually developing it and moving it forward I get to see the development
list and what's coming out neck as some great stuff let me tell you and they've just released some really great
feature so do check it out it's really worth having a look at okay shall we jump into it let's jump into it content
marketing so before we start off it's worth saying right that creating and sharing valuable
and relevant content is is these days considered like one of the foundational
elements to having a good ecommerce website okay your content as having a
conversation your content is one of the key ways I think you can differentiate yourselves from some of the bigger sites
like Amazon because they can't be you they can't put your brand voice on
things right they can't create the content that you can create so it's it's
essential it's critical I think if you really really want to skyrocket your e-commerce business now let me tell you
right at the start it's more than just about and this is what I've discovered right content marketing is not just
about putting any old thing on your website doing social media posts well writing a blog post and some some doing
some videos and I've seen companies do that a lot and sometimes it works
sometimes it doesn't but it has to be more than that right so let me say this right the stock content marketing for
you has got to be a strategy right that you as a business carefully consider and
implement okay because it's gonna take effort it's not something you just do once consistency
as we learn is the key so you've really got to make sure you can do this and stay on top of it now the benefits of
doing content marketing I think everyone has heard of and come across in some way
right which is maybe why you're listening to the show you've heard about this idea of content marketing you've tried it a little bit and how can you do
it better you know it's a good thing to do right the key thing for me that content marketing does the key word is
engagement that's what it is all about it's about engagement and resonating with your customer
and the better you engage the more customers you get the better you engage the payer your conversion rates so you
know the benefits for these things go on and on and on and on so let me define a
couple of terms because not all content marketing is the same there are in
effect two key phrases that I hear a lot and that is outbound marketing and
inbound marketing so you've got outbound content marketing and inbound content marketing bound is where you go and
shout out and try and grab people's attention it's usually short snappy easily digestible content it's designed
to disrupt the reader and offer them value that they aren't necessarily
looking for right it can be dangerously close to this whole concept of spam so
we have to be very clear on what is advertising what is spam what is interruption and disruption what is
annoying outrageous and spammy and you know you need to be slapped for and but
that's what outbound content marketing is inbound content marketing is where you actually try and make yourself more
discoverable by people who are searching around a problem so for example on the
Jersey site the skincare website that we have we will do content around the
problems that people searching for online to do with their skin for example how do I solve dry skin or how do I deal
with open pores and so on and so forth okay so this is where we create what we
call content gold really great content that people discover and and it wins
consumers over because and they keep coming back because we've been really helpful and giving them some great
content okay this is much more of a medium to long term strategy in bear
marketing I rarely is short term let me tell you but medium to long term this
can really win out and it's also where longer content is better so outbound
tends to be short snappy content inbound longer content actually can be better
because consumers are looking for it and they they're quite happy to dedicate the time to read and to learn okay so we've
got to give them that information really high valuable content answering the questions not necessarily holding stuff
back but giving them valuable content right so how do we do that Matt is great
how do we create valuable relevant and consistent content you ask well I think
we'll get into that after the news so let's take a quick break now we'll do the news and then I'm going to come back
and look at the four steps that I take to do content marketing [Music]
Ecommerce News
we are now going to take a few minutes to stop pause and review this week's
ecommerce news hi Matt hey how we doing we are doing well sure yes getting
better all the time that's the main thing so what we got this week luxury brands
ok so I was reading this article on the drum the drum now like you know playing
the drums I like a site called the job yeah okay and according to the inter
stats just % of all luxury sales good sales are made online % that's quite
low e yeah so they're selling higher value products uh-huh but to a smaller
pool of people okay right and what they are doing or what they do well in an in
their bricks and mortar stores is the personalization aspect like they're really good at that yeah and trying to
translate that on to ecommerce is not
always easy but they do have the resources to do it mm-hmm so I guess like for smaller
ecommerce businesses who don't have the resources but we know from last week's
podcast just how important personalization is or for a ecommerce
site so what are your thoughts as far as what can small businesses learn from
luxury brands even though they don't have a massive amount of presence but
what they do do they do really well yeah I think I mean there's a whole podcast
episode dedicated to this when we talked with them remember Casey idea because she was talking about Southern luxury
products online and the the way you do this is I think with with just insane
levels of customer service and so you have to figure out for your customer
base what that service is gonna look like right and what it is they want and what it is they need and how you can
give them that in a digital space digital format I think that's that's the
complicated bit and because it's why only % of the total luxury brand sales
are done online right because it's not actually straightforward but because only % are currently online I think
it's a great opportunity if you've got the ability to to think that three and I
would say if they're sure if you're doing luxury brands and definitely check out cases podcaster Coleman what episode
it is but if you look on the website it'll be there cool carrying on with our whole concept of personalization item
number two is about e-commerce in China okay and we know that China is dominating the e-commerce world yes
simply because they have so many mobile users in China yep but they're they're
like the e-commerce giant Alibaba mm-hmm it's massive and one of the things that
they've done really well is that they've categorized their products really well so that when when users go on their
website they know exactly where they need to be to get what they want and all that so they do that really well
is there anything that we could take from that oh that's a good well if you
like you say turn it into personalization just making sure your navigation works super well that people can find out where things are on the
website really easily I think that's always super super helpful I'm not saying you know become Alibaba if you do
that they'll be nice but you know you could definitely learn from that the
whole categorization thing and the search thing you know making sure search works well especially if you've got a large catalogue a large list of items
that the bottom rule is this right how quickly can you get the product that the
customer is looking for in front of them and the quicker you can do that the higher the chance you've got of selling
that product right um usually I know someone listening is gonna go what what about no but usually it's all about you
know people on websites they want to find what it is they're looking for and they want to find it fast and the faster and easier you can do that the higher
conversions going to be right and also I guess the categorization is great if you're just browsing as well yeah yeah
Shopify Top Products
yeah absolutely please it does totally okay item number three yep top products to
sell online according to Shopify oh okay so I'm gonna read them out to you I hang on a minute so this is top products according
to so shop if I've given a list of the the best selling products through Shopify website yes yeah okay this would
be interesting hmm all right let me guess can I guess one of these yeah jewelry yes is that on
there it is on there but not just any kind of jewelry minimalist jewelry okay
man I have no idea what minimalist jewelry is but okay okay I guess I could go away research they dope costume
jewelry oh okay I don't know what that is okay let's move on yeah I don't
really wear jewelry yeah can I guess what else on the list yeah um would watches come into jewelry
maybe is that on the list smart watches it smart okay smart watches are on the list yeah I should have maybe put the
words this definitely watches jewelry these are does the standard go to Shopify websites there'll be some kind
of clothing items on there and I would have thought and there'll be some kind
of I don't know some kind of gadget type fidget spinner type thing is that on
there pet grooming I should have guessed
pets pets are always gonna sell a lot okay so what is actually on the list shapewear number one okay so shape wears number this is
clothing mm-hmm that contours the human body by squashing it imparts that it
shouldn't be squashed in and expanded empires it shouldn't basically okay this is cool because this is this is in my
head this is quite Elizabethan you know Victorian style trends that have not
expired yet yeah okay shapewear cool I don't we don't so she ate we're online but it's interesting that it's number
one maybe we should on a beauty website get some shapewear products okay angling
yourself pet grooming okay I don't have but we have guinea pigs I don't think we
groom them though but Pet Grooming as in just brushing their fur off your dog I suppose okay I
wasn't so interested in that one neither yes but I imagine this is quite skewed by there by America at America spends
disproportionately more in his person you know anywhere else in the known world so I assume pet products are
actually quite a good product to sell in the States okay what's number three athleisure athleisure athleisure sorry
athleisure and it will make a Brit out of you yet okay so that's just like
sports clothing yes again is all super trendy yeah okay cool all right you ready for this one sure a bathroom stool
I cannot form a bathroom stool yeah as
in a stool you say one no actually it's not a stool you son know what kind of stool is it it's them
I've knew the stools are there well you can have stools for standing on to make kids a bit taller okay you can have
stools for sitting on like like at the kitchen counter okay but this is a
bathroom stool to help people with their constipation sorry I'm really sorry I
should know I've left LA I was not expecting that so a bathroom stool that helps with constipation yes oh the irony of calling
it a stool right um store to remove the stool is that what it's called that should be a great that's a great
website this was I thought the best part
uh-huh but some of them even come with an air freshener I've no I did you know
I know don't tell me what these things look like I'm gonna go in google it like really curious to see what that is okay I have number four it's the stove to
remove stools nice okay dot-com if anyone's listening and they register that domain to make a million out of it
just remember where you first heard it that's all I'm saying okay pet bed pet
bed is number five yeah okay it's bit boring okay yeah smart watches we've
already talked about that minimalist jewelry that's number seven okay I'm kidding okay dish racks
districts districts so I guess for people who don't use dishwashers as in
you know when you're doing the washing up you put your plate or your bowl on a rack to dry yeah I think so that's one
of the best selling items okay that has surprised me I would never have thought you know what I'm gonna set up a
business selling dish racks how many different types I suppose there's wooden ones plastic ones metal ones I love
cheese okay I'm not gonna do that yeah no okay okay number nine safety shoes safety
shoes okay I actually own a pair of safety shoes you need when you're like when when do you need them when you're like
um don't stuff in the yard when you're I like to do woodworkers like Hobby so
what I'm using woodworking machinery carry and stef heavy stuff so the shoes have got like steel in the toes and
underneath so if you stand on a nail isn't going your phone doesn't squash your foot my husband's got safety shoes
yes it wear them at work okay not just when he's at home posture corrector now
I have definitely seen a lot more adverts for these recently so are they like a vest yeah well I don't know very
different thing that you wrap around and yeah they throw it on you know cuz we're
we're all static computers all day so we'll become more more round-shouldered and so they use these postures co-actors
to pull his shoulders back and so just sort of it's like a there they all come in different types and sizes that I find
them quite uncomfortable personally but yeah I mean I've tried a few on but yes to open up the chest and stretch back
the shoulders I don't know how effect if they are I just know that they sell a lot of them I don't know if any science
is behind it I don't even know if any studies a bit on it actually that would be a really interesting one and I just
know people sit at the desk get back pain and think oh I've got a bad posture therefore I'll buy this for bucks and it will help me whether it does or not I
don't know if you've got one and you like it and it's helped she let me know because I'd be curious I'm just
interested to find out is that it that is it so finish the nice we are awesome thanks
thank you
that's the news so now let's get back to it
okay so that's the news let's get into the four steps that I want to cover in
Content Marketing Steps
this particular podcast around content marketing you appreciate um I could
spend hours on this topic I'm not going to I just want to give you four quick areas to think about that will help you
on your journey to creating some great content stuff that I've discovered and figured out along the way right and the
first the very first thing I appreciate this sounds crazy obvious but every time
I've come across people that have struggled with content marketing it's because they haven't taken the time to
define their content marketing strategy okay so that's the first step you have got to define what your content
marketing strategy is before you even start investing any of your precious time or energy into content you need to
have a very clear measurable content goals in place knowing where you are
where you want to be will give you a clear sense of direction and it can help
you create a great content schedule you start to be deliberate with the content that you create I cannot begin to tell
you how many times people have sort of gone off and it's like written one or two blog posts because they've heard
about content marketing and then they've run out of ideas and then the content stops and they go and try something else
right it's just one of those things whereas if you if you think about this from a twelvemonth point of view what
over the next twelve months are you gonna do what's your content how can you strategize around that be
really really clear don't just go head off and destroy any old thing because
that's where it doesn't work you'll either run out of steam or it just won't resonate with your customers okay step
number two is again obvious create good content now the competition for great
content out there is tough right think about YouTube as a classic example there
are hundreds of hours of content uploaded to YouTube every second some of
its great some of its awful some of its quite mediocre the great content tends
to be the content gets discovered now that doesn't mean it's the most expensive it doesn't mean
it's you know crazily high figures on production that's not what I'm saying it's the most thought-out content that
makes sense for the people that want to watch it okay think to yourself is what I want to do
is what I want to create going to be valuable and relevant to the person listening to the person reading to the
person watching is it going to be valuable and relevant okay and use that
as your basis okay use it as your basis and think to yourself is this content
going to raise awareness of solutions that their customers didn't even know about am I going to educate them on an
idea a product or a service that's really gonna help them stuff they've not even considered before so how does this
work for an e-commerce website right really great question for me there are
some really obvious places where you can put some really great content number one is going to be on product landing pages
so this is where you're doing a specific landing page for a product with a
marketing campaign and because it's a landing page you can do longer form content on this page it needs to be an
entirely customer focus it's not what you think that's cool it's what's gonna help the customer okay make it relevant
to them that's the critical part right what does this problem what does this product solve what problem does it solve
for the customer how's it going to transform them what do they need to do next has it got a clear call-to-action
right an excellent landing page will quickly translate into conversions because the content on it is good good
content okay so think about your product landing pages think about your product
pages so these are just the general product pages that people come to on the e-commerce website and there are three
things that I think was gonna be more right but let's let's focus on three key
things that I think you can do to a product page that's going to make the content really Z
for your customers especially if you're trying to compete against people like Amazon number one is going to be like
how to videos so you can do the how-to videos you can shoot them on your iPhone these days you don't need expensive gear
but shoot a video that shows how that particular product can be used or worn
or what what are the benefits that product how how's it going to help the
customer transform into whatever they transform into how is it valuable and
relevant to them your customers will definitely watch the videos to better understand the product so do put videos
on there and again a top tip here is where if you're going to do videos where there's talking and where you're doing
narration for example or you're doing a product demonstration put subtitles on the video as well you can do that quite
easily with YouTube just because people watch videos in silence right a lot of
people watch content on the phone maybe they when they're on the train or wherever you'll be amazed how many
videos are watched in silence so make sure it's understandable if people are not listening to the audio that's a key
thing okay the second thing I think you can do with your product page is product reviews product reviews are great
encourage your customers to write them because they're gonna write all kinds of
amazing stuff in those reviews what they found worked well for them what they didn't like what they tips and tricks
they found and you know what their thoughts are this is all amazing content
Amazon now claimed that over % of people read the reviews before buying
the products okay so it's this independent user-generated content which really is going to help give credibility
to your products that people are going to love so reviews are absolutely critical to your product page get them
on there get your customers to write them and the third form of content that we found works really really well on
product pages is FA cues so this is where a customer or potential customers
FAQ
reading about a product and they've they've read your page but they've they've got a few questions in their
heads and that if for whatever reason has not been totally answered on the product
page it may be that they is not the information that answers a question it may be they've just not read it right
but it's fascinating to me how many people actually will read the FAQ right
hand when you're buying a product think about it yourself Amazon a grater this if you go to a man's and say when you
buy a product you're often reading those questions just because you're kind of going well is that a question that's
relevant to me as the customer and so putting FAQ S on there is brilliant it's
again user-generated content you're answering very specific questions customers will have which is just Y so
when we say create good content tip number two let me tell you that is good content okay so so you so do that the
other great thing that you can do with your reviews and your fa Q's is you can use them to generate your own content
ideas right so if there's a question that customers are asking over and over
Customer questions
again well that could be a blog post or a series of blog posts that you put up on your website or a series of videos
you know however you do your content they'll tell you what they're caring about their specific phrases and questions that address their concerns
the more you can read that and understand that the better your content is going to be and reviews and FAQ s are
a great source of ideas for you to generate high engagement content you can
also use that same thinking on social media you know what are they writing in social media what are they putting in
there could you create some content that would help them understand how to solve
that problem or address that concern right so it's really straightforward to do good content comes from research and
when it comes to e-commerce doing stuff like that on our product pages is really
really going to make them stand out and sing in terms of content okay tip number
Content schedule
three is be committed to your content schedule right with content marketing
you are definitely playing a long game and a long game means
Mittman and it means consistency think about content marketing is running a marathon versus running the -meter
sprint you are running the marathon right you are in it for the long haul and if I there's one thing that I can
tell you about content marketing if you do your research and deliberately create good content for your customers and
you're consistent in doing that you have got a much better shot of your content
marketing working if you just create good content sporadically okay it might help people to actually come to your
website but it won't necessarily draw people in it may or may not work if you create bad content consistently again
you know you're gonna be a bit here miss but if you can do good content and do
that content consistently you are really really helping yourself so really make sure that you're committed to creating
consistent content so for me let's take this podcast for example well this
Podcast example
podcast is you know each podcast episode comes out of research it comes out of
understanding the customer and knowing what the key concerns and problems are just questions I get asked all the time
and I kind of go well let's do a podcast around that that's great and I've got to commit to doing that content on a weekly
basis if I start doing one podcast one week and then it's three weeks the net one well that just doesn't work right so
consistency is key I'm going to say it one more time so I really need this to be drummed into your thinking
remember this key point right consistency is key to great content
marketing so tip and number four is be deliberate about distributing content
what I mean by this is it used to be that you could put something up and people would find it it just was the way
Tip Distribution
it was back when there was like you know five people on the web but now the amount of content which is being
uploaded the amount of businesses which are using content try and drum traffic there is so much content out there that
is becoming slightly overwhelming right so people aren't necessarily is going to stumble across what you've done
instead you've got to be deliberate and intentional about how you distribute the content and get it in the right forms on
the right platforms to the right audience and so that you get the engagement that you want okay so for
example if you've got a strategy which says you know what I'm gonna put blogs
on my websites or case studies or reviews which is all great well how are
people gonna read those how people gonna find them right what are people gonna do
to read those now one of the problems or one of the key issues people have when
Tip Creating content
it comes to creating content or doing content marketing is they hear all the benefits and go yes that's fantastic I
really want to do that but then this feeling of dread and overwhelm appears
quite rapidly when they think about the sheer amount of content that they feel
like they have to create so what I do and let's take this podcast as an
example right so what I do is we do the research we figure out what the podcast topic is going to be and we outline the
podcast and then I come into the studio record it or we'll record it with a guest or an expert and we we try and add
a bit of entertainment in there as well we do the news which is a bit of fun but also informative okay and that's our podcast so I then take that podcast we
have the podcast transcribed which then creates for as the blog post so I don't have to write necessarily the blog post
the very fact that I'm talking into a microphone and recorded it means I'm putting words out somewhere so I can
take the audio from that podcast get it transcribed and it becomes a blog post
with very minimal editing okay I can then take that audio and we can cut that
up into snippets and that creates the quotes for social media and you get what
Tip Creating content
I'm saying right you can create one piece of content and cut it up into the various formats that makes sense for
where you're trying to promote it so I don't just put the podcast up and hope it's discovered I create the podcast
based on a research and I then use the blog on my website from an SEO point
of view that drives traffic to my website so transcribing it's great right in the shownotes is great it's great for
you obviously to go and get those show notes and but it's also helping me from an SEO point of view and like I say we
then take that content and we cut that down and that gives me all the content I need them for social media and that
engagement so don't feel overwhelmed by the amount of content you can create you
can be quite clever in per tree purposing and reusing content that you
create so you don't feel like you're on this constant treadmill of having to create content but do be deliberate
about distributing it and promoting it okay it's it's the top way of getting
Summary
people to read it and to engage with it you can do it through Facebook has there's all kinds of ways that you can do it try them all figure out what works
for you okay so let me just summarize number one define your content strategy number two make sure you're creating
good content which comes from research and user-generated content on your e-commerce website be committed number
three to your content schedule and number four be deliberate about promoting and distributing that content
to get people coming to it getting the content right is vital for driving traffic to your site and generating
leads oh my goodness do I know this creating that content is going to be
valuable for the customer and relevant to them and it helps them build your trust in the brand or helps them build
trust in your brand let me get that the right way around and then you get more engagement more sales and a much better
website as a bottom line okay so I hope you found this useful they're my four top strategies for top tips is how we do
it here and you can use the same strategy if you're like me on the e-commerce side of things you're selling
digital products well that's e-commerce so we're selling courses we use content marketing to draw people in and hopefully that makes them
aware of what we're doing we use it on our ecommerce sites every site we do we
use content marketing as a strategy but with every site I'm clear on what that strategy is how we find good content
and and how we distribute that content and how we and what our schedule for
that content looks like right for every single business so make sure you you follow that pan because I know it works
I hope you've got something out of this make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcast it's free
and the show is full of great stuff about how to set up run and grow your own e-commerce business even if I do say
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media as well so you can just connect with me straight on there just head on over to Matt Edmondson comm and you will
see those so thanks for listening hope you've got something out of this week make sure you come back next week as we
talk more about e-commerce until next time
you've been listening to the curiosity podcast with Matt Edmondson subscribe and join us next time as we carry on
conversations about all things ecommerce and digital business [Music]