{"id":18988,"date":"2021-11-17T10:31:00","date_gmt":"2021-11-17T10:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nobraineragency.com\/seo\/https-www-nobraineragency-co-uk-blog-content-marketing-five-steps-to-drive-more-online-sales-with-content-marketing\/"},"modified":"2023-10-24T14:58:43","modified_gmt":"2023-10-24T14:58:43","slug":"five-steps-drive-online-sales-content-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nobraineragency.com\/seo\/five-steps-drive-online-sales-content-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"Five steps to drive more online sales with content marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The role that content plays in someone\u2019s decision on whether or not to buy from a particular brand has long been under discussion. In the pre-Internet days, use of above the line marketing channels like TV, radio and print ads (which all incorporate \u2018content\u2019) has long correlated with sales increases along with boosting a brand\u2019s profile and audience awareness, but it can be really tricky to accurately measure and attribute sales directly to this kind of activity.<\/p>\n

Even these days, in comparison to marketing channels that can have a much more obvious and tangible return on investment (ROI), such as PPC or paid social, the use of other content can often be thought of as something that doesn\u2019t directly influence conversions. However, this is most definitely a myth! Paid media is one kind of distribution for content, but by no means the only way in which content can be utilised to increase your online revenue.<\/p>\n

How does content marketing help sales?<\/h2>\n

Effective content marketing<\/a> is essentially providing your target audience with useful, inspirational, informative or entertaining information in a way that engages them wherever they are in their journey towards making a purchase. Each content element helps to move the potential customer closer to their buying decision.<\/p>\n

This content marketing matrix graphic by Smart Insights<\/a> shows some of the roles that different types of content can play in the buyer journey, and how these various tactics can potentially have an impact on sales.<\/p>\n

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Image by Smart Insights<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As mentioned earlier, correlating the use of content in a specific marketing channel or group of channels with an increase in sales is fairly straightforward, but how do you know which pieces of content are actually achieving their goal? Any digital marketing content produced needs to be tracked and evaluated to make sure that it\u2019s performing the role you intended so that this data can inform your future content marketing plans.<\/p>\n

Thankfully, when it comes to ecommerce, there are many ways in which we can measure the role of digital content in driving sales, which enables you to see exactly what is working and what isn\u2019t, along with proving the value of content to the wider success of the business. More on this later.<\/p>\n

What should a content marketing strategy include?<\/h2>\n

No two businesses are the same, which means that your ecommerce content marketing strategy needs to be tailored to your specific brand, audience, objectives and products in order to be most effective in driving sales. Here are our five steps to focus your digital content strategy on maximising ecommerce transactions and revenue.<\/p>\n

1. Get to know your audience better to produce more purposeful, search-optimised content<\/h2>\n

Attracting the right kind of organic traffic to your website via search engines is an essential part of any content marketing plan. The key to ensuring you bring in the right visitors with your SEO<\/a> content strategy is to understand your audience and what they might be searching for at the various stages of their buyer journey. This way you can target the most appropriate intent-led keywords in your content and attract the most relevant users to your site.<\/p>\n

This process starts with personas, and means you need to understand elements that include:<\/p>\n