An audience of subscribers who consume content can grow an eCommerce business. But in a world of content creators, capturing that audience is increasingly competitive.
Sales channels for online merchants typically include Google Ads, search engine optimization, email, and social media. Each is based on putting a message in front of potential customers.
The PESO model
The Paid, Earned, Shared and Owned (PESO) model is a way to consider the different audiences a business can engage through marketing.
If you buy ads on Instagram, an online store targets a “paid” audience. Instagram pretty much owns the audience and sells access to it.
A “shared” audience might describe organic social media marketing. A company creates TikToks or Instagram Reels to capture an audience that is, in a way, shared with the social media platform.
But the “owned” audience (that is directly engaged with the business) is the most powerful. Content marketing is an excellent way to develop your own audience.
Content marketing
Content marketing is creating (or curating) articles, videos, podcasts and the like to attract, engage and retain an audience of potential customers. Ideally, the content should be entertaining, informative or otherwise useful.
When it was new, content marketing could position a company as an authority in a given industry. It may still do so around 2022, albeit with much more competition.
Say you wanted to start a direct-to-consumer herbal supplement brand. Developing an audience on Instagram would require exceptional content, as there are tons of vegan creators on the platform.
One example is Kim-Julie Hansen, the author of two vegan cookbooks from Harper Collins Publishers. Her Best of Vegan Instagram channel has over 2 million followers.
The Best of Vegan Instagram channel has 2.1 million followers.
Categorizing vegan content on Instagram is relatively more difficult because there are so many options.
Strategy and Media
The dilemma is this. Content marketing is one of the most important forms of audience building, but for this reason many more companies are involved.
So a company can wade through the sea of content or take one of two approaches:
Develop better content than the competition. Find new ways to engage your audience.
Let’s consider each option.
John Franklin co-founded a gym management software company. Earlier this year he decided to increase his audience on Twitter.
John Franklin experienced rapid growth on Twitter despite the competition because he had a thoughtful content strategy.
In two months, he went from 100 Twitter followers to 3,400. I had a plan to engage the people on this platform.
Franklin’s approach to content set it apart.
Franklin didn’t randomly post on Twitter when he felt like it or wanted to sell something. He had a plan and he followed it.
Or he could have chosen to post where there is relatively less competition.
One option could have been an editorial newsletter through a platform like Substack. A newsletter does not compete for Google rankings or views on social media.
You could have launched a text messaging subscription, such as a gym-related tip. Each text can include a link to the entire resource on the brand’s website, promoting the company’s software.
Eventually, it could have launched a series of e-commerce videos via Amazon Live. Marketers like Franklin or the hypothetical vegan supplement brand can broadcast live videos to their followers on Amazon and through the Prime Video app. Amazon Live is an ideal platform for e-commerce businesses to showcase their products and services.
Build your eCommerce audience now.
[ad_2]
Source link
