Market Yourself in Retail With a Content Marketing Strategy
One of the toughest issues for a small business lies at the corner of discovery and brand. How should you put yourself out there? How should you be seen by your customers? Standing out from your competition in a way that will make you interesting to consumers isn’t easy. Taking your shop to market in a way that will stay with customers is what will set you apart. This is why the Content Marketing Institute has found that 86% of business-to-consumer marketers are committed to a defined content marketing strategy.
What is a Content Marketing Strategy?
At the end of the day, content marketing is all about building the concept of your shop, in the mind of the consumer. This means marketing your brand, not just your products. This form of market strategy is all about selling your shop’s personality. Your customers want to know your shop, not just what it sells, so you need to take your brand to market alongside your products.
Your content marketing strategy needs to sell customers on your brand. Leave them wanting to know more. Customers won’t necessarily know what they want to buy, but they know they want to see and experience your shop. Your marketing doesn’t need to mention money at all – sell them on your store and once their inside your products will sell themselves.
What ‘Content’ Should You Market?
The content itself needs to be an engaging experience. Blog posts, videos, interactive exhibits, whatever you think will best show off your unique store, shopping experience and product range. Anything that builds your brand can be a part of your strategy. Anything that piques a customer’s interest is valuable content for you to market.
Although you need to make sure that you know your customers. You want to market to an interested audience, so make sure you know where your customers go for content. Younger audiences prefer video content, for example, so telling the story of your shop with a video (perhaps showing someone using your products or showing off the in-store experience) may be a better way to reach this audience.
Whatever media you choose for your content, remember that you don’t have to stick to one medium or another. Use your blog posts to support your youtube videos; bring up your interactive exhibits on your online podcast. Whatever you do, just remember to link it all together and market your brand first and foremost.
How Should You Market Content?
Your first thought, with content marketing, should be about what your shop is. What is your shop’s personality? What’s the brand that you’re trying to build? Once you know this, the next step is to communicate it to your audience. Remember that the best advertising is a product in itself. It’s a story that your customers want you to tell. Make your marketing interesting and your customers will want to know more.
Telling stories is a powerful way to keep your customers interested. Give your shop some background in the mind of the customer. The core of content marketing is that you need to sell your brand to get customers interested. Because selling product to interested, familiar customers is much easier than marketing product to them as a total stranger.
Read Vend’s full article on content marketing here.
If you want to know more about content marketing, get in touch with us here.
