Content is essential to online stores. It is the way that the search engines can refer people to your business. Content allows you to keep your customers up to date with the latest trends. It helps you inform your audience about potential solutions to their problems. Content gives you the opportunity to connect with your audience. Keeping your audience interested in your website requires creative content ideas.
A content marketing strategy is extremely effective. It is also getting more competitive as 60% of business to consumer marketers are committed to content marketing. However, coming up with your next social media post or blog topic can be challenging. These content ideas should help you get the creative juices flowing.
Spotlight on Customers
People love recognition. That is the reason we hand out trophies to kids on sports teams. It is why we acknowledge stellar employees. Recognition makes people feel loved and appreciated. That feeling often gets reciprocated.
Online stores can urse one of their blog posts to recognize loyal customers. This creates social proof online that people are purchasing your product. It also is a social media sharing strategy. When a customer gets recognized, they are likely to share that page with their friends and family. This will increase your reach.
What are some ways to spotlight your customers? Create a contest and ask for stories using the product. You could also tell your audience that you are looking for volunteerism stories that you can share. Have them nominate a friend or family member. While this isn’t always completely related to the product, it does create an interest in the company. It gets visitors to your website.
Expert Interviews
Often people enjoy reading or listening to interviews with people who have a lot of knowledge and experience. If you know of experts that are in your niche, you can reach out to them and suggest an interview. Often they will welcome the opportunity for publicity and expanding their own platform.
Prior to the interview, you should come up with about twenty different questions to ask the expert. Email the questions to the expert in advance so they have an opportunity to prepare for the interview.
Record the interview. It will be difficult to recall and write down everything that the expert said. You don’t want to accidentally misquote them or get some information wrong. If you use a video to record the interview, it can be posted on youtube as well as your own website. If you simply used audio for the recording, you can post the audio file on your website. You can have the audio file transcribed into a blog post.
Product Videos
There is a reason that QVC is so successful. People don’t know how great products are until they see them demonstrated. Have you ever been convinced that you need a product after viewing it on television?
Just seeing how the magic bullet blender instantly blended smoothies together and was easy to toss in the dishwasher led to many sales. Most people probably already had a blender that worked just fine.
Product videos often focus on the benefits and features of a product. Cooking gadgets often have many product videos. The people in the videos make cooking look fun. The product videos don’t have to be demonstrations. They can be fun videos where the product happens to be used.
Go Pro User Videos –Go Pro created a great marketing campaign that has been popular and wildly effective. They handed out free cameras to top athletes and adventure sports enthusiasts. They took amazing inspirational videos and spread the word about Go Pro. This footage was edited by Go Pro’s team and used as creative content on their website. The videos communicate the incredible quality and unique ability of Go Pro to capture film in situations that a regular camera can not.
Image source: Pixabay
Product Tutorials
Some products require a bit of step-by-step instruction to set up and use. This is where a product tutorial can be helpful. You can explain the set-up process and how to effectively use the product.
Online software users often benefit from product tutorials. For example, Canva, the online image editor has a fun and simple tutorial that is proven to help convert their users.
When Canva customers open up the program, they are taken through the steps of creating their first design. Canva uses an animation video to demonstrate how to use the design elements.
Canva’s personalized product tutorial has resulted in a 10% boost in activation for the company. Not only is their product tutorial creative content, but it is also helping with conversions.
Customers can select how they want to use the design platform. 
Image source: Canva
They are then guided to make a template selection.
Fun and exciting tutorials are excellent ways to create useful content for your online store. Tutorials will help users understand more complicated technology products and gadgets as well as online software.
Publicize A Promotion
Are there products that your customers love? Why not take the time to create a new promotion or product launch?
You will have stronger sales if you lead up to your promotion with a series of emails. Tell people in advance what is coming up and how it will help them. Get them excited about the product. Alert them to what they should be expected.
Use your blog posts to create anticipation and educate them at the same time. This will keep them engaged and excited to buy at the time of your launch.
Create a Top 10 List
People love to discover the best tools in the industry. What are the top brands in your online store? Which products are the most helpful?
The top ten list could include tips, trends, insights, things to avoid, things to do, what to eat and what to see. The possibilities are endless.
One of the great things that a top ten list does for consumers is to break down some of the overwhelm that comes from trying to sort through hundreds of products to find the right one. A top ten list will do that for them.
Give a Behind the Scenes Look
Sometimes online stores can seem very impersonal in this digital world. A behind-the-scenes look at what goes on to make your store function adds a personal touch. People can feel like they relate to you when they see that you are messy and make mistakes as well.
A Comprehensive Product Review
Product reviews sell products. People look for real users experiences. They trust online reviews almost as much as reviews from their friends and family.
Online stores should have a review of each of the products that they sell. Product reviews should include the features and benefits of the product. Give the pros and the cons of the product. Include in the review who will benefit from using the product. Make sure that you include the price.
Product Comparisons
You may sell two or three similar products. You can create a review that lists the features of the products side by side. This allows the customer to make an informed decision about which product to buy quickly and easily.
Product comparison pages tend to be laid out a bit differently. They will have a few introductory paragraphs about the products and then a chart or table that includes a list of the features of the products.
An example of product comparison charts is this one for Printful, Printify and Scalable Press. It gives the details about which drop shipping companies will embroider and how long the orders will take.
Informative Posts
When you have informed customers, they become more confident in their purchases. They understand the benefits of their purchases. Sometimes learning a bit more about a product can help to solidify a purchase.
Butcherbox is a company that delivers grassfed beef to its customers. They are aware that most people don’t understand the difference between the cuts of meat. However, when they do, they may be more likely to spend extra on the cuts of meat. Therefore, they have informative posts for the different cuts of meat and tips on cooking them.
There are many creative ways to help promote the products for your online store. Hopefully these creative content ideas have help you generate some ideas of your own.
About the author:
Melinda Curle
Melinda is a blogger at ReferralCandy and CandyBar. She loves learning about internet marketing and maintaining her own fitness blog. She enjoys running, swimming, dancing and Pilates.
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