Content Marketing For Online Marketplaces – How Content Drives Commerce

With the unstoppable march of the Internet, ecommerce continues to grow by leaps and bounds. Similarly, the virtual marketplaces have gone into an ever-expanding mode with more and more sellers joining the fray. It is, however, seen that not everybody has enjoyed the same degree of success as some have. This is basically because of their effective communication with existing and prospective customers and expert content management that has deepened customer relationships.

Let’s take Fliptech, an initiative taken by Flipkart recently, for example. Fliptech is a gadget guide that helps customers choose electronic gadgets best-suited to their individual needs.

This is available as an app for both iOS and Android and also on the company website. You just need to scan the latest launches of all electronic gadgets, ranging from laptops to cameras, each with its recommendations for the best buys of that particular day. What’s more, these recommendations are based on actual usage tests.

So what is it that successful online marketers do in terms of content marketing to stay ahead in the race?

Avoid Badgering And Tautology

Your fundamental outlook and policy with regard to content marketing should be based on the maxim, ‘less is more.’ So don’t badger customers with unnecessary information. They’ll inevitably tune out. Various research shows that reader’s attention span on the web is terribly short – 6 to 8 seconds at most – and you need to frame your content, accordingly.

Tautology or repetitiveness is yet another forbidden fruit. It bores the reader, forces him to look elsewhere and obviously makes you lose business. So use powerful headlines that immediately grab reader attention followed by short, crisp sentences that contain little verbiage but say a lot.

More importantly, convince or influence the reader to buy through relevant information that sparks his interest in the product. Create videos and/or visuals in a manner so that they deliver messages instantly and directly without leaving the viewer in two minds about making a choice.

Inform, Convince, And Sell

In order to sell, inform the prospective customer first. This should include detailed product descriptions, competitive pricing as also information on choices available and/or facilities for prompt delivery with free shipping. In other words, you have to educate your consumers about the right choice of products that will cater to their specific needs and how to come to a correct decision on their purchases. Make product reviews readily available on your site so that people don’t waste unnecessary time searching for product reviews.

This attempt to place all pros and cons of a particular product convinces most prospective buyers of your basic honesty and gains their trust and loyalty for future purchases.

Offbeat Creativity Is A Grand Seller

In unique creativity lies the actual spice of successful selling. Be it your individual official blog that gives the latest updates about the company, technology, industry etc. Your unique tech-focussed blog, own page for PR releases; and regular PR releases containing company info, exclusive products on offer, events and service updates, make sure that the creative process behind them not only stands out but also garners audience appreciation.

Your creativity in content creation, therefore, should not only be hard hitting but cater to its specific network and audience. Video and humour-based marketing, for example, are working well with audiences today. So, if you feel that these will work in your favour use them to the maximum, but without using too much slapstick or even crude humor to sell. This is more applicable when speaking to educated and sophisticated target audiences.

Moreover, avoid automated posts when it comes to the management of multiple networks. Getting celebrities to create an instant buzz also works, provided your budget permits it. They sure come for a price.

Encourage Comparisons

Your honesty and dedication to serve your customer will show when you create niche content for the fashion, lifestyle, home, beauty or electronic gadgets that provide valuable information to prospective buyers on product quality and use when they are at crossroads on making a final choice. This includes comparison content that provides prospective buyers not only comparative price lists of the same product on different sites but user comments also that they have received as feedback.

You are actually going that extra mile to clearly describe your products, thus helping customers to make an educated choice after weighing the pros and cons of every purchase they are about to make. Remember that more than 50% of Indian shoppers study online product reviews before buying and catering to this particular need of theirs will only give you the cutting edge.

Review Your Content Regularly

Finally, keep tracking the efficacy of your content by identifying what’s working and what isn’t. This is because it’s ultimately content that is and will be the prime lever for driving traffic to your platform for achieving growth and surviving the cut-throat competition.

So at the end of the day, create stuff that attracts the maximum exposure to make your products stand out among the competition and to provide a curated commerce experience to your customers.

In sum, even though your content may be completely product- centric, it will fail unless it connects emotionally with the customer first in order to pave the way for commercial success.

The basic fact is that content that actually helps, and not discounts, should be the central piece of all awareness efforts to attract targeted buyers to an ecommerce portal. Content that is thoughtfully crafted and more importantly, persona-tailored always attracts more visitors, differentiates a brand, while also managing to delight and surprise shoppers.

Any successful marketer always reminds himself that no matter what his perspective may be, integrating commerce into content and vice-versa is not really easy. His product, too, must be worthy, his content authentic, and the overall transaction experience has to be seamless.