Best Practices/Tips to Follow for Building Retail Content Marketing Strategy

Author: Team WH

Published On: 22-12-23

Last Updated on: 19-04-24

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

With the advent of the e-commerce industry, the retail marketing scenario has changed drastically. Traditional brick-and-mortar retail stores have to compete with the e-commerce platforms.

E-commerce has also transformed the buyer’s journey. Now, customers’ expectations revolve around experience rather than just the product. Reportedly, 54 out of 100 shoppers claim that they wouldn’t prefer to associate with retailers that don’t provide customised relevant content for them.

Experience is a crucial element of the buyer’s narrative. This is where retail content marketing can help!

This blog discusses the role of retail content marketing and suggests key content marketing strategies to upskill your business. So, let’s dive in!

What is Content Marketing Strategy for Retail?

Retail content marketing utilises content creation and distribution strategies to engage the target audience. While the customers gain relevant content, retailers build trust through content marketing. However, the retail content strategy aims to ultimately attract the audience to their business.

The cliché — content is king — still holds relevance. Every type of content needs a medium to spread its magic. What are the different mediums in the modern scenario?

Retailers use different types of retail content marketing to engage the audience. Blog posts, social media posts, website content, video content, newsletters, and campaigns are the different retail content marketing strategies. Additionally, eBooks, podcasts, webinars, and case studies are a few marketing mediums.

Why should retailers use different mediums for marketing? A piece of content usually fulfils any of the following requirements:

• Educate the audience
• Identify client pain points
• Provide solutions
• Solve their problems
• Entertain the audience

Above all, it connects with the target audience and builds a long-lasting relationship.

Why is Content Marketing Important for Retail Business?

Readability and visibility are the two pillars of content marketing. In traditional advertising and non-organic marketing, businesses pay for ads that help them generate leads. So, each time, they pay for visibility.

Content marketing is a long-term investment strategy. It focuses on building trust and fostering relationships. Ultimately, the brand weaves a strong relationship that connects with the audience psychologically and emotionally.

Here are the reasons why content marketingis vital for retail business.

Increases Brand Awareness

Imagine brands as people with their unique personalities and traits. How would you describe them? For instance, Nike stands for “excitement”, “power”, and “innovative”. Coco-Cola could be associated with the adjectives “friendly”, “happiness”, and “down-to-earth.”

So, why do we associate brands with these adjectives? The answer – their unique content marketing strategy that creates a distinct voice and brand personality.

Businesses use different mediums to reach out to their potential customers. 70% of customers prefer getting information through an article rather than an advertisement. Focus on creating quality content rather than publishing frequent posts.

Builds Trust

Would you choose a brand that identifies your pain points or one that offers vague promises? Traditionally, businesses adopted outbound marketing to improve sales. However, over time, consumer behaviour has evolved. Today, 95% of customers consider information from blogs, newsletters, and websites (content) as important sources to build trust.

Use content to educate, entertain, or resolve to establish your domain authority. When the audience relates to you as domain experts, they will return to you for services.

Improves Brand Loyalty

88% of customers say the experience a brand delivers is as important as their products or services. With hundreds of brands to choose from, customers need something unique to choose their brand. That’s when content marketing saves your day!

Offering value-added, free, and accessible content helps businesses to attract an audience. Now, people have a reason to choose your brand repeatedly! Ultimately, loyalty accelerates your business.

5 Content Marketing Ideas for Retail Businesses

In the modern context, a content marketing strategy could be organic or paid.

Here are some inspiring content marketing ideas for a retail brand.

Add Value to Your Content

There are trillions of pages on the internet. Contrastingly, the human brain has 100 billion neurons. So, there are more pages on the internet than neurons in the human brain.

Moreover, there is a chance that the pages would be lost within a maze in seconds. An important question to ask is — what makes your content unique? Several pages on the internet provide generic content. Hence, creating content that adds value and is relevant is important to engage the audience.

Blogs, eBooks, case studies, videos, and newsletters are some ways to create value-added content. For example, Shopify offers informative content that enhances the e-commerce knowledge of retailers. Its Business Encyclopedia and Business Glossary Terms is a dictionary to establish in the e-commerce industry.

Develop a Unique Social Media Strategy

Is there a brand’s social handle you resonate with? Social media has evolved as an indispensable content marketing medium. Increasingly, retailers are leveraging social media platforms, like Instagram, LinkedIn, and YouTube to connect with the audience.

Visibility is the primary advantage of social media marketing. “Recommendations” and “influencers” are the new buzzwords in content marketing. However, choose the right social medium based on your business type.

Here are some tips that might help retailers create a powerful social space:

• Identify the audience
• Find the platforms they use
• Perform competitive search analysis
• Develop a social media calendar
• Interact with the audience through comments, hashtags, and mentions
• Use reels to create engaging content about your brand
• Host live Q&A sessions with founders and industry experts

Are you a new retailer trying to make a mark in the industry? Adopt the 80-20 rule to create a powerful social media space.

• 80% of posts – can inform, educate, and engage the audience

• 20% of posts – for brand promotion

Adopt an Engaging Email Marketing Strategy

Email marketing still holds its charm. Reportedly, 70% of content marketers use email marketing in the B2C landscape. Your email list includes customers who have signed in to learn more about your brand or gain insightful niche content. Engage them with your content and subtly promote your brand.

Here are a few tips to create an email marketing strategy that fuels your business:

• Identify the brand context to create a campaign (Use SWOT analysis)
• Use email marketing software
• Build your email list
• Choose your campaign type (newsletters, announcements, blogs)
• Define a schedule
• Analyze your results

For example, financial startup Finshots’s daily 3-minute newsletter is insightful and enriching. It offers its readers a daily dose of financial and world news.

Focus on Mobile Adaptation

Searching for a sure-shot successful tactic to attract customers to the brick-and-mortar charm? Then, zero in on mobiles. 66.6% of the global population uses mobile phones. With its popularity, mobiles are an effective medium for retail content marketing.

Local marketing is the most crucial bet on mobile platforms. Moreover, most buyers use mobiles to discover the local or “near me” stores. Leverage local SEO to attract potential customers.

For instance, use an all-in-one platform like Beacons to target local shoppers.

Here are a few tactics for retail stores to elevate the user experience:

• Update your Google My Business pages
• List your business in other local directories like Yelp, Bing
• Use proximity marketing (location-based data) to increase leads
• Incorporate street and neighbourhood names as local keyword

For example, Macy’s and Walmart use location-searching strategies to grow their business.

Imbibe Influencer Marketing

Has a product felt more appealing due to an endorsement by your favourite celebrity? Influencer marketing is a crucial arsenal for retail businesses. Trust and outreach are the two advantages of influencer marketing.

If you are a small retailer expanding locally, shelling out money for a top influencer might not work. Instead, merge with micro-influencers or a local celebrity to drive sales. According to Hubspot’s 2024 Social Media Marketing Report, 80% of influencer marketers prefer micro influencers.

Besides, businesses work with small influencers as they are economical and have a high engagement rate.

Successful Content Marketing Campaigns

Successful content marketing is not about generating leads and nailing the revenue figures alone. Striking the right chord and tuning with the audience is necessary. A successful content marketing campaign is one which people remember and resonate with. 

The following are retail content marketing examples that stand out. 

Spotify’s Wrapped

The leading music streaming app Spotify has not only been leading the revenue charts but engagement rates as well. Its chartbuster Wrapped Playlist Campaign is something its users look forward to as they approach the end of the year. 

So, what is Wrapped? Wrapped sums up all the songs you have listened to that year and creates an appealing collection. Further, the roundup is categorised based on genres, artists, and years and enhanced with cool graphics. 

Most importantly, it creates a playlist of the user’s favourite songs that users can share on social platforms. The social fad is the reason why the campaign is trending. 

Takeaways: Venture beyond purpose (music), resonate with the audience, create customised content, and make customers feel special. 

Canva’s Design School

Over the years, Canva has become an essential skill to master for designers, influencers, and content marketers. With an extensive graphics library, Canva has everything you need to create a visually appealing graphic. 

Beyond designing, Canva’s design school is an amazing initiative for budding professionals in the industry. It offers different courses, tutorials, and live sessions for beginners and experts. 

Takeaways: Educating the audience, innovation, providing unique and insightful resources and tools, and delivering a unique experience.

The Bottom Line

Ideal content marketing amalgamates different content marketing strategies like blog posts, social media posts, video content, eBooks, etc. The goal of content marketing efforts should be to engage and build trust of the target audience.  

A marketing strategy that works for one brand might not work for another. So, research different brands and adopt a unique strategy that works for your business. The golden rule is to create your brand story and present it in an enticing way to the audience. 

FAQs

Q1. Why is content marketing important in retail?

Retail content marketing has several benefits, such as increasing brand awareness, boosting brand loyalty, generating revenue, and building trust. 

Q2. What are the key trends in retail content marketing?

High-quality data-led content, short-form videos, and user-generated and interactive content are the key trends in retail content marketing in 2024. 

Q3. What are the 4 Ps of retail?

Product, Price, Placement, and Promotion are the 4Ps of retail. It also includes other elements: Place, People, and Presentation. 

Q4. What are the primary goals of content marketing?

The primary goals of content marketing are to inform, inspire, convince, and entertain the target audience.