We don’t need to tell you that selling online is highly competitive. Digital marketers and designers work hard every day to find ways to increase conversions. They’re looking for ways to perfect their product pages, checkout process, upselling techniques, navigation and more.
It’s all about creating a personal journey for a shopper that takes them from searching for a product to submitting an order. While there are many ways to increase traffic and eCommerce conversions, we’re going to focus on one area that tends to get overlooked – driving sales through a content focused approach. Whether you’re new to the concept or not, see how merchants successfully use this approach to drive purchases.
Benefits of a Branded Website Vs. Marketplace Selling
When talking about selling online, it’s hard not to mention marketplaces like Amazon, eBay and Walmart. They’re dominating the eCommerce industry for a good reason. They provide easy and convenient shopping that was unmatched before.
However, not all shoppers are interested in buying from marketplaces. Instead, they prefer branded website. According to DigitalCommerce360, these non-Amazon shoppers have distinct buying habits. They’re motivated by different reasons to buy, especially among Millennials. Some of their reasons for buying include:
- Motivated strongly by a sense of belonging
- Care about knowledgeable staff
- Want an easy return policy
Keeping these in mind, a branded website can play to these desires to capture more sales. Merchants should create a brand image that focuses on personal relationships with customers. Shoppers aren’t choosing merchants on price alone. They’re looking to spend their money with someone they can trust to deliver and belong to a growing community.
How do you create such an environment? Educate first and sell second.
Educate First, Sell Second.
Content marketing turns traditional marketing on its head. Instead of blasting shoppers with ads that interrupt their days, content marketing is the process of creating relevant and valuable content for your customers during all parts of the shopper’s journey, not just when they’re ready to buy.
The difference is that the content doesn’t just focus on selling your products. Instead, you provide rich content that a shopper could need at any point during their buying journey. You want to provide content that provides valuable insights to your products and answers your customers’ questions.
It’s an approach that focuses on educating customers, not just advertising to them through different content offerings.
Wait, isn’t content marketing all about writing blog posts? No it’s not!
Content marketing is not just about publishing weekly articles. It encompasses all your content. This includes ALL your website pages like your individual product pages, FAQ, return policy, shipping policy, online quizzes, customer assessments, and more. All your content must work together to help customers understand and trust that your product is what they need.
Still not convinced? Read how a content first approach helped a merchant increase their conversion rate and grow their online sales.
Read a more in-depth article on how content marketing can drive eCommerce sales here. There’s a lot to learn so take it all in!
Case Study: New Chapter
To see content marketing in action, look no further than nChannel customer New Chapter, a P&G brand that specializes in vitamins and other wellness products. Using BigCommerce as their eCommerce platform, they were recently recognized by BigCommerce as the 2018 Best Overall Website Design winner because of their content and education first approach.
And, this approach had concrete results New Chapter. According to them, they saw:
- In less than one year, their store went from $0 brand website to a thriving, seven figure channel, due to site design.
- Conversion optimizations increased from a launch state of approximately 0.4% to almost 2% through their use of iterative testing.
How’d they do it? Let’s take a closer look.
Starting on their home page, New Chapter guides you to places to “find a daily regiment for your health needs” and “Discover the New Chapter Difference.” Both of these CTA’s lead to rich content. Their “Difference” is fully explained in the science and tradition behind the makings of their products. They leave their shoppers no doubt that they’re products are sourced from the best ingredients possible.
When navigating to a certain product like Vitamins, shoppers are first introduced to the benefits of New Chapter and a FAQ section, before even showcasing actual products. This shows New Chapter wants to gain your trust before you start to browse.
Then, their product pages are bursting with rich, helpful content that help a shopper make the decision to buy. Through written content and video, New Chapter includes descriptions, benefits, suggested uses, facts, ingredient descriptions, shopper reviews, and other recommendations for each product.
Whatever info a customer is looking for, New Chapter has it!
Delivering to Customers as Promised
Converting a new customer on your site is just one piece of the puzzle though. The next step is keeping your promise to your customer that you’ll deliver their order when you said you would.
New Chapter leverages nChannel to integrate their BigCommerce platform with their back-end ERP system Microsoft Dynamics NAV to automate the fulfillment process. This ensures online orders are fulfilled quickly and accurately, while providing shipping statues to customers. When orders are delivered on-time, New Chapter continues to build trust with their customers that they worked so hard to earn by leveraging rich content pages throughout their site.
Learn more about how nChannel integrates BigCommerce.
Keep Learning
Keep learning about other content marketing and order fulfillment articles:
Join The Conversation