Are you an e-commerce owner who wants to use content marketing for more sales but are feeling overwhelmed on how to create and manage a content calendar?
This is the post for you!
Lots of e-commerce owners know they should leverage content marketing. It’s how we to grow email lists and increase brand awareness to eventually make more sales.
But e-commerce owners also have plenty of other things to worry about besides blogging – like acquiring more products, and keeping a good inventory on hand.
So what is it that they need in order to get content marketing to work for them?
1. Brainstorm your audience’s problems.
Your brainstorming should include knowing who your returning customers are. What are the pain points that you’re solving uniquely – that others are not doing so great at solving?
Take these two e-commerce owners, for example:
Owner #1: Bath bombs provider
Problems: sensitive skin, allergies, wanting affordable luxury self-care products
Owner #2: Sells ethical, sustainable home décor and supports international small business owners
Problems: wanting minimal and ethical designs
Writing blog posts that provide solutions to these problems can be very helpful for you and your audience.
2. Brainstorm a list of solutions to those problems.
Think about what your audience comes to you for and what you actually offer. Following your list of problems and solutions, you will be able to brainstorm blog topics.
3. Brainstorm blog topics.
Your list of problems and solutions should allow you to come up with blog topics that will eventually guide your audience to the items you do or will offer.
Owner #1: Bath bombs provider
Blog Topics: Self-Care, At-Home Spa Day
Owner #2: Sells ethical, sustainable home décor and supports international small business owners
Blog Topics: 10 Minimalist Design Tips, How To Gain Support From Local Consumers
When creating an editorial calendar, focus on providing educational information that is evergreen.
Updates on your products every now and then are ok, but it will not be a permanent traffic increase.
Your blog posts will create awareness of your brand, products and/or offers.
As you bring in leads, you will need to provide a lead magnet somewhere on your site.
A lead magnet is a free thing that you offer in exchange for your avatar’s email address. For e-commerce owners, it is very common and compelling to offer a discount on your avatar’s first purchase.
4. Research the blog topics you have brainstormed.
It’s important to do a little market research so that you can confirm people are actually searching for the unique ideas that you will be writing about. Market research will also allow you to find your keyword phrases, so you can search engines optimize your blog posts!
5. Decide what you can do.
Consistency will overcome talent every single time. Creating a content calendar is key to that consistency!
Having 100 blog posts go out every month may help if they’re good posts, but what really matters is that you keep posting and pushing through no matter what the outcome is. There will always be changes in the market, do not freak out. Keep going.
If you are crazy busy and don’t have a team yet, but you can pump out one really good blog post every month, do it. If you can pump out two posts every month, DO IT!
You will have to decide where your focus can be stretched.
If writing 4 blog posts a month interferes with sourcing new products or checking in with customer service, it may not better your business as an entirety. E-commerce owners have to find a balance with their content calendar so that the energy and time put into it is just a part of their marketing strategy, not overwhelming everything else.
Decide how many blog posts you can write, how many Pinterest posts you can produce, what other social media you want to manually use and what you want to do with the social media scheduling. You may decide that Pinterest requires your manual posts while Instagram can be automated.
Non-negotiables:
Newsletters
There is no sense in building your email list and not utilizing it.
Don’t overthink your newsletter, this should be used to update your audience with anything new and just to let them know you are there!
Think of your newsletter as a community connection and conversation tool. Make it fun!
Monthly Sale
Holidays are a big way to provide sales.
Using a monthly sale is a great way to say, “Hey! Over here! We still sell so and so.”
Sales are also a great way to bring in a boost of sales and to get people excited about your products.
Once you have all of these items checked off your list, you can create an editorial calendar from there.
So, instead of wondering how to create a content calendar, follow through with this list to bring in great traffic and eventually many sales!
NEED MORE SUPPORT?
Content marketing is powerful – but it’s also easy to make mistakes that can lead to spinning your wheels instead of making an income. I can help make sure that doesn’t happen.
If you’d like some help growing your business, let’s chat: AlisonReeves.Co/strategy-call
