What are the most effective content marketing personalization strategies for B2C e-Commerce? With what content do we attract consumers? Here are some tips.
Of the importance of content marketing and marketing personalization for brands, retailers and B2C e-commerce in general, much has been written but, as is often the case, still too little has been done.
With what content do we attract consumers?
What content do we keep them engaged with while browsing?
How do we help them choose the right product?
How do we use content to maintain a connection with them over time and bring them back to us?
These are some of the questions that are probably already nagging at you, but to make sure you don’t miss anything, I’ll add one more: Once we’ ve created customized content, how are we able to deliver it to the type of consumer we envisioned it for?
One of the reasons for the lack of effectiveness of much of the content produced is in fact due to the fact that either we are very lucky or it is unlikely that the content we normally propose on the homepage, within the site or in our newsletter will be able to coincide with the needs of the individual consumer who is browsing our site or reading our communications at that moment. The solution to this problem is certainly not to produce generic content that pleases everyone-not pleasing anyone-but, on the contrary, to personalize content by surgically proposing to the individual user the best content for him. Over the past few months, moreover, an important wake-up call has sounded for e-commerce companies that had not yet implemented an appropriate content strategy. Even in the cryptic nature of the information released by Google, it is now clear that organic traffic is heavily penalized for all those who, within their site, limit themselves to product sheets and service information. We can therefore make the motto official: “No Relevant Content, No Party!”
However, I would like to return to a key point for the purposes of increasing the effectiveness of the content produced. Assuming that we have written content dedicated to a particularaudience, how can we segment users and recognize them so that we can propose such content to them at the right time? It is therefore necessary, in order to maximize this investment and, above all, make it effective for conversion purposes, to equip ourselves with tools that allow us to always propose the right content to the right person, at the right time and in an automated way.
The importance of content marketing in numbers
Several researches, including this one conducted by the Content Marketing Institute, testify that even in B2C there is a major shift in trends and especially in results.
In fact, this research shows that B2C companies consider, in 70 percent of cases, their content strategy more effective than in the past.
Customer Engagement
Making your communications to your current and future customers more relevant is a key step in being able to create a relationship with them that is not based solely on the convenience of what you are offering but actually brings them value. Offering them useful content to help them choose the best product while they are in a research/awareness phase, sending them information on how to get the most out of the product they have just purchased, or stimulating them with future offers on products in categories they have shown interest in; these are just a few examples of how different content can be used at different stages of the customer lifecycle. This does not necessarily mean increasing the production of content by a lot, but also being able to exploit it to the fullest extent over time, not solely from an SEO perspective but making them real conversion weapons. Maintaining relevance over time necessarily means being able to automate the process by which these are shown to different types of users so that they can be engaged in an automated way, keeping the relevance of the messages high over time and thus maximizing the investment made in their production. Think about how often a blog article is doomed to oblivion once new articles are produced, undermining the first ones from the homepage box dedicated to the most frequent posts.
“Thanks to profiling and automation tools, it is now possible to be able to offer the best content in a personalized way to different types of users, at each stage of the customer journey.”
As we said, in order to propose relevant content it is essential to be able to segment our audience according to interests, life cycle stage, browsing mode etc. so that we can propose to them, in an automated way, the best content for each of them. If you would like to learn more about the possibilities of segmentation find a dedicated article on the topic on our blog.
Some examples of content customization
Let’s look at a couple of examples of sites that make the most of content production and personalization. One of the masters of e-commerce-related content production is definitely Rei, the famous American retailer specializing in the outdoor world. Different types of items and suggestions are offered to consumers at different stages of search.A truly captivating mix of inspiration and practical tips.
Creating valuable content that engages theaudience is not the prerogative only of aspirational brands or those linked to the passions of their consumers. Even in more “hands-on” areas such as the appliance world, it is possible to do great things, and proving it is Ao.com Choice guides, video clips, and content personalization help to significantly improve the user experience.
Target, content and marketing automation
At the base of any personalization strategy it is essential to be able to identify exactly our target audience and its needs. Supportingthe rest is technology, which with advanced, A.I.-based systems is able to choose the content that is most likely to convert and that will be most suitable for the individual user. Thanks to omnichannel automation, it will then be possible to be able to always give the best content to the user user, taking advantage of the best channel and being able to personalize both their browsing experience and subsequent reengagement; thanks to this personalized experience, which will make each communication much more relevant, you will greatly increase the likelihood that the user will come back to you, thus increasing its value over time.
