With a new decade already on the horizon, it’s the perfect opportunity to take stock of where you are, what you’ve done, and how to best plan your approach for the foreseeable future. It’s never too early to start maximising your potential. With that in mind, we’ve put together some top tips for building an awesome product content strategy that will help you grow and develop your business in 2020.
What Is a Product Content Strategy?
First things first: you’re probably wondering, what is product content and how do you create a content strategy that works? Product content revolves around any marketing copy, videos, or descriptions that explain what a specific product is and why it’s worth purchasing. Its purpose is to supply customers with all the key information concerning the features, benefits, and unique traits of any given product so they’re more compelled to purchase.
This can be done in a number of different ways. For example, it can be through engaging copy that’s attached to the product, it can be a video that explains and displays all its unique and desirable traits, or it can be a social media post that’s designed to stop people scrolling in their tracks. There is no limit to what your product content strategy can be; the only decision you’ll need to make is how creative you want to be with it.
The Importance of a Content Strategy
There are over 5 billion unique mobile users in the world today and over 3 and a half billion social media users this year alone. All of this adds up to a lot of people online looking to purchase products and a lot of products out there vying for their money. There have never been more people to trying to sell or a wider variety of channels on which to sell from. With so many products competing to make a sale, what ends up being the defining factor for a user is the quality of the content surrounding a product.
That being said, let’s take a look at 10 ways you can begin building an awesome content strategy that will help elevate your products to the next level.
1. Focus on Your Ideal Buyer
One of the most important things you need to do when building a content strategy is to focus on your ideal buyer, i.e. your target audience. In this instance, it’s definitely best to be as specific as possible. The most interesting and engaging product descriptions look to address their target audience directly. Utilise words they would use themselves and communicate with them as if you were talking face to face.
By knowing in your head who your ideal buyer is, you will quickly form a picture of the right way to talk to them. You’ll know what sort of sense of humour they tend to have, if they prefer to be spoken to more professionally or colloquially, what sort of questions they will ask you, and a whole slew of things that can help you target them even better.
2. Be Consistent
Like content, consistency is king when it comes to your product strategy. It’s vital to ensure that all your customers are receiving consistent information at every stage of the buying cycle. If they are getting inconsistent data pertaining to product information, features, specifications, promotions, or prices, you will seem much less credible in their eyes and, ultimately, this means they will be less likely to purchase from you.
Making sure everything is aligned will help to avoid any confusing messaging that you’re putting out there. To this end, there are a few things that you’ll need to remember when crafting your strategy:
- Are unique or specific products features explained using the same words?
- Do these specifications include the same information throughout the buying cycle?
- Are your call-to-actions (CTAs) consistent in regard to language?
- Do any videos use the same language as the website or brochure?
- Does your tone of voice match between products?
Even the slightest difference or lack of consistency can damage your credibility. Remember that it’s the small details consumers use to make their decisions between competing products.
3. Create a Product Content Style Guide
One of the best ways to ensure consistency is to create a product content style guide. This is where you lay everything out that you’ll need in order to create product content that aligns with your branding. This should include everything, no matter how simple or obvious it may seem. From the basic grammar, punctuation rules, and the style and tone of voice you would like to use, to acceptable terms, phrase, and slang to either avoid or use, it all needs to be in a style guide.
4. Align Content and Design
Content and design should work in harmony to improve the overall user experience. If they don’t match or align seamlessly, it will sow doubt in any potential customer’s mind and immediately reduce your brand’s credibility.
Additionally, do the images help reinforce the information being communicated, or do they distract and discredit what’s there? Your copy should explain and educate the customer about any products, whilst any design features should help streamline the overall process and evoke a style that reinforces your brand ethos. As a result of this, all copywriters and designers should work together to understand what customers need at each stage and how best to achieve this. Deliveroo is a great example of when these two factors combine successfully.
5. Use Evocative Descriptions
Knowing how to write product descriptions that sell is a vital part of your content strategy. Utilising fitting adjectives and evocative descriptions is a great way to turn potential customers into repeat ones. This doesn’t mean you need to go overboard writing flowery descriptions and pages of dazzling copy, but the right adjectives in the right places will imbue a sense of luxury into your products. You want your customers to desire your products, and an effective description will do just that.
6. Incorporate Stories
Adding stories and background into your product descriptions can be a great way to engage with customers whilst discussing your product in an organic manner. For example, The English Whisky Company discusses its products and company in relation to its heritage, where their ingredients are sourced from and the very land itself in story form.
If you think this is something that could apply to you and be incorporated into your product content creation, there are several important questions you’ll have to ask yourself before doing so:
- Who is making the product?
- Where does the product come from?
- What are the different aspects that make up your product?
- What is the inspiration behind creating the product?
- What obstacles did you overcome in development?
7. Create an Accessible Product FAQ Page
An FAQ page can be a critical part of your content strategy that is often overlooked. This is because it can make the path to purchase on your site as frictionless as possible. A well thought and effective FAQ resource should educate, inform, and guide users naturally through your website’s content and lead them towards making a purchase, something that the clothing store, Fatface, manages to do clearly and effectively.
8. Hire a Copywriter to Create Unique Content
Being original and unique online has never been more important. One way to ensure your content remains fresh and stands out from the growing crowd is to bring in people with the right talents to help you. A skilled and effective copywriter can help you in all phases of the product content creation, from inception to implementation. The same can be said for designers, animators, and video editors. Bringing in talented, creative people to enhance your product content will never be a bad idea, no matter whether you’re a brand-new company or a Fortune 500 one.
9. Use Evidence-Based Suggestions
Offering helpful suggestions and sprinkling them in product reviews for when your web visitors are unsure what to purchase can help them convert. Users will often be swayed to buy the product with the highest number of positive reviews, or those that have been the fastest-selling over a short period of time. Real user experiences are an incredibly useful way to help sell your products, and mixing these on both your main website and social media channels is something you should start doing. Intrepid Travel is a great company to take inspiration from in this instance, both in regards to their site and their social media profile.
10. Link to Related Content
If you run a blog on your site, linking content to products is something that should be installed at every opportunity. By making continued connections between related product content, you’ll increase their authenticity and will positively influence purchase decisions. Linking all facets of your content is a sure-fire to way continually funnel people back to your products and therefore improve the likelihood of them being bought. By putting links in their bios to the locations they are discussing, Airbnb is able to advertise and then directly drive people to the advertised accommodation in just one click, streamlining the whole process effectively.
Final Thoughts
Creating an effective product content strategy is a crucial part of building a user-friendly experience and a seamless customer journey that forms and shapes good impressions of you and your products in the eyes of the consumer. By following the tips we covered today, you’ll be making product content that is well-crafted, helpful, and engaging in no time at all. Let’s take a look at these tips one more time:
- Focus on your ideal buyer
- Be consistent
- Create a product style guide
- Align content and design
- Use evocative descriptions
- Incorporate stories
- Create an accessible FAQ page
- Hire a copywriter to create unique content
- Use evidence-based suggestions
- Link to related content