Content is an invaluable piece of your online presence. Your engagement, visibility, discoverability and sales depend on your product content. Employing strategic content strategies empowers you to connect with consumers and strengthen your relationships, leading to more sales, more profits and improved customer experiences. 

The article provides actionable steps to strengthen consumer relationships with effective content strategies. Read on to learn more. 

Why are Robust Customer Relationships Central to Digital Shelf Success? 

The digital shelf gives consumers access to any product, brand or retailer whenever they want. As e-commerce becomes increasingly popular and competitive, consumers have the power of choice like never before. 

Brands must take every opportunity to edge out the competition and secure their position at the top of the SERPs and the digital shelf. Connecting with your consumers and establishing and cultivating relationships with them is essential for your e-commerce success. 

Fostering and strengthening consumer relationships helps you make the initial sale, then incentivizes and motivates your customers to return for future needs. These relationships allow you to gain new customers and increase ROI over time with returning shoppers. 

Your product content is the most effective means to engage with consumers, position your products, and boost sales. Employing the right content strategies makes the most of your marketing and content resources while increasing your sales and profits.

Read on for our top content strategies that strengthen consumer relationships and improve your bottom line. 

Content Strategies that Strengthen Consumer Relationships 

Shoppers spend more time with product content than ever before. When creating and curating content for your product pages, you must consider how various content strategies empower you to build relationships with your target audience. Consider the following approaches that will allow you to relate to and engage with your consumers. 

1. Implement Persona Identifiers 

Strengthening consumer relationships requires you to know your audience. Implementing persona identifiers on your site lets you know who is shopping and how to create content that meets their needs and draws them toward a purchase. 

In 1WorldSync’s Consumer Product Content Benchmark report, we asked respondents to describe their shopper persona. With that data, we segmented shoppers into various personas that empower you to better know your shoppers. Our online shopper personas are grouped into the following categories: 

• The Deal Hunter 
• The Scientist
• The Brand Loyalist
• The Free Agent 
• The Crowdsourcer

One more blog is to come on shoppers who self-identify as Cause-Based Consumers. By reviewing our findings and understanding who is shopping for your products, you can create content that speaks to their needs, desires, and shopping behaviors, cultivating lasting and mutually beneficial relationships. 

2. Manage Ratings and Reviews

Shoppers come to your page looking for ratings and reviews to shape purchase decisions.

Recent research from 1WorldSync found that consumers are choosing to spend more time studying product content to gauge customer satisfaction. Rating and review management highlights the positive experiences of your existing customers, incentivizing potential customers to click “buy now.” 

Your product ratings drive sales by validating your product (and brand) quality and integrity. Customers will trust an online review more than a personal recommendation. Reviews are the most crucial factor influencing online purchases. 

A robust rating and review management strategy is essential to engaging new customers and bolstering existing customer relationships. Your product pages must include customer reviews –– enough to paint a clear, consistent picture of customer sentiment and instill confidence in the shopper. 

Including customer reviews on your product pages garners trust with potential customers. And review management strengthens the relationships you have with existing customers. Whether a customer is considering purchasing for the first time or has been shopping with you long-term, managing ratings and reviews on your PDPs will strengthen your rapport and provide the social proof that today’s shoppers seek.  

3. Showcase Benefits, not Features

Your PDP content should include every detail regarding your product. Your PDPs provide a space for you to preemptively answer every possible question potential customers might have. 

As you craft content to support consumer relationships, consider how to showcase your product’s benefits, not just product features. 

For example, you should include helpful content detailing what your product can do or accomplish. But consumers want to know how those features will enhance their purchase and benefit their lives. 

Your competition has product content that highlights product features, but you can engage consumers and distinguish your product and brand by connecting with shoppers emotionally. What does the consumer have to gain by purchasing your product? That’s the pressing question your customers need to be answered, and you can do so through your product content. 

4. Provide a Variety of Content Types 

Impactful product pages require various content types to engage consumers, create connections, and move shoppers toward purchase. 

Users want product details, specs and features organized in an easily-consumable format. Bullet points and comparison charts make product data simple to read and understand. 

But users also want engaging and interactive content. How-to videos and 360-degree spin imagery provide further product information, filling in potential gaps left by your written content. 

Furthermore, AI- and VR-enabled content provides an intimate content experience that immerses the user in your product, allowing them to visualize themselves using and benefitting from the item. 

Building robust and lasting consumer relationships requires content diversity on your product pages across all channels where you sell. Providing enhanced product content to the shopper draws them in, educates them regarding your product and brand, and creates familiarity and comfortability that can translate into a long-term relationship. 

5. Align with the Consumer’s Values 

Consumers want to shop with brands that share their values. Seventy-five percent of shoppers will part ways with a brand if there’s a conflict with their values system. 

Consumers vote with their wallets. And with the digital shelf continuously expanding and brands providing greater product and organizational transparency than ever, shoppers have access to value-based brand data that guides their purchase decisions. 

Shoppers want to buy from brands that take a stand, and they want their values to align. Create content that highlights your values and priorities as an organization. Showcase how your brand works toward social goals, like sustainability, equity, humanitarian causes, etc. 

6. Create Your Message around Their Needs 

Your product content is part of an inbound marketing approach: you draw consumers in because your content speaks to their needs and provides solutions to problems or issues they experience. You cannot and should not expect the consumer’s needs, wants, desires, or behaviors to mold to your content. The opposite should be true. 

Create messaging for your shoppers. Know what they want and need, then position your brand and products as the solution they seek. Highlight the positive social, emotional and functional outcomes that result from your product purchase. 

Every marketing and content decision should bring you closer to your goals, including customer retention. Build content around the consumer, and you’ll be better able to facilitate positive relationships. 

7. Deliver on Quality 

Content quality will make or break consumer relationships. 1WorldSync research found that most shoppers (56%) believe content quality carries more weight than brand recognition in shaping purchase decisions. 

Quality is foundational to everything you do, and your product content is no exception. Consumers want to buy from brands and organizations that prioritize quality. If you can deliver quality content, you’ve already established yourself as a trustworthy entity that consumers can rely on. 

Bolstering Consumer Relationships with 1WorldSync

Visibility and engagement, brand affinity and customer loyalty are built upon content strategies that effectively engage your audience. At 1WorldSync, we know your organization depends on solid consumer relationships to thrive in your market. 

We provide the tools, resources and support you need to create content that delivers results. You need solutions that target the consumer at every step. 1WorldSync provides what you need to cultivate robust and lasting consumer relationships that position you to win the digital shelf. 

Reach out today to learn more about 1WorldSync’s content solutions and how our team can help you strengthen relationships with your customers –– and boost your sales.