King is the content. When Bill Gates wrote those words in 1996, they were true, and they are still true today. Content for drop-shipping businesses can help you stand out from other stores that sell the same products. It helps you show off your products and brand in different ways and build trust.
And if you have a well-thought-out content strategy, you’re more likely to connect with your target audience and make sales.
The first step is to figure out what you want to include in your content strategy. Let’s look at some of the best ways for drop shipping businesses to use content and tips to turn traffic into sales.
Why should you use content marketing to boost sales from drop shipping?
Before we get into the details of content marketing, you might want to ask yourself if it’s right for your business.
Here’s what we know:
- Content marketing has conversion rates that are times higher than other types of digital marketing.
- 74% of companies say that their content has made their leads better and more numerous.
- Content can sway someone who is on the fence about buying and turn them into a paying customer.
Drop shippers can get more people interested in the products they sell by using content. You’re giving your audience more reasons to stay and coming back for more. This makes your business more visible than a drop shipper who doesn’t use content marketing. This can help your SEO and website traffic.
Also, good content makes you look like an expert in your field. You’re not just selling any old products. Instead, you’re showing off your products in ways that will make your audience feel something.
When you build your brand with content marketing, your brand becomes more valuable. People start to recognize and trust your brand, which can go a long way toward getting them to buy from you instead of a competitor.
Still, making content just for the sake of making content doesn’t work any more. A few years ago, this used to work because content marketing wasn’t yet the marketing powerhouse it is today. But because content marketing has grown in size and scope and because so many online retailers rely on it, brands need to be strategic about the content they make.
Let’s take a look at some of the best places to spend your time and money:
Make sure each of your products has its own content.
Unique content is anything you or your team make that other people selling the same product can’t get. This could mean taking more photos of the product than what the supplier gives you, making a video of the product being opened or used, or writing a review of the product.
Even though other people might be selling the same thing, you are marketing it in a way that is unique to you. Content on your website is more valuable than a simple list and description of your products. It helps bring a product to life, show how it’s used, talk about the benefits it offers, and put it in context for your audience.
The problem with drop shipping is that you usually don’t have stock on hand, which can make it hard to make unique content. If you can, work with your suppliers to get sample items that you can use to take your own photos, make videos, do live demos, and add to your content creation.
Ask for content made by users
The good news is that you don’t always need to have the product on hand to make interesting, original content. One option is to let your past customers do your content marketing for you.
UGC is content that was made by your audience, not by your brand. For example, if you drop ship clothes, a photo of someone wearing their new outfit could be user-generated content.
There are many different kinds of user-generated content, including, but not limited to:
- Videos of things being opened
- How to cook
- Videos or wikis that show how to do something
- Using certain hashtags in social media posts
- Photos of them using a product
- Reviews of products
- Comments from past clients
- Ratings and reviews can be found on the Internet.
User-generated content can happen on its own sometimes. People who like your brand or product will make content because they want to. Most of the time, though, you’ll have to ask them for help.
For instance, you can make it a habit to ask every customer to rate and review your business on your website. Reviews are worth their weight in digital gold because they tell you exactly how your customers feel about your products and business. They help other people trust you and want to buy from you.
As a business owner, reviews can also help you find problems before they happen. If a product gets a lot of bad reviews, it might change what you sell in your store and what brands you work with in the future.
You can run campaigns to get different kinds of content from users. For instance, you could make a hashtag for your business and ask people to use it to tag you in photos. Having this kind of proof from other people can do a lot to build trust. It shows that other people have bought from you and liked what they got, which could make them feel more compelled to buy.
Create a blog.
Blogging is still one of the best ways for drop shipping businesses to use content marketing, and there are many reasons for this.
First of all, blogging gives you a new and interesting way to show off your products. You can write blog posts in a round-up style, where you talk about several products in the same niche (think gift-giving guides, etc.). You can also do a deep dive on a single product and talk about its features, benefits, how it works, and other important details. You can put this content on your own online store or write guest blogs for other websites and link back to your products.
Also, blogs are a great way to get backlinks to your website. As you write about your different products, you can link to them on your product sales pages so that users can easily find them. Linking is an important part of search engine optimization (SEO), which helps you rank higher in search results.
Blogs can also help you add more keywords to your content, which is good for SEO. Keywords are the words that people most often type into search engines when they want to find something or ask a question. Doing keyword research can help you make blogs around terms that real people are using so you can start ranking for those terms.
Make a list of emails
Email marketing is still a good way to keep in touch with customers and prospects, no matter what you dropship.
Send out news about new products, sales, and promotions, as well as news about your company that is worth sharing, on a regular basis. Put a call to action in each email to get people to go to your website and buy something.
Email marketing can also help you get back carts that were left behind. This can be done automatically by sending an email to users who add items to their carts but don’t finish the checkout process. The average conversion rate for emails about shopping carts that have been left behind is over 18%, which can make a big difference in your sales.
Make a channel on YouTube
Video has become one of the best ways to sell products. It helps people understand how a product works and gives them a better idea of how big it is. In fact, 94% of consumers say that a video helped them learn more about a product or service and changed their mind about whether or not to buy it.
People don’t buy things they don’t understand, so this shouldn’t be a surprise. Videos give shoppers a better idea of what to expect from a product before they buy it. Adding a product video to a landing page could increase conversions by as much as 80%!
You could share your videos on your website, but you could also start a YouTube channel to help your brand. Your channel can be a place where all of your videos are linked together. It lets you become known for making a certain kind of video if you want to focus on a certain niche or style. People who have never been to your online store can still find you and learn about your brand on YouTube.
Use influential people to spread the word about your products.
Influencer marketing is a sure way to give your brand and products more credibility. By reaching out to someone else’s audience through an influencer, you can grow your own audience. You get more people to see your products, which gives you more chances to sell more.
Best of all, you don’t have to work as hard to gain their trust. The influencer’s audience already trusts them, so having them promote your products automatically makes you look credible.
Influencer content marketing works best when you work with people whose audience is similar to yours. This puts you in front of the people who are most likely to buy from you.