Content Marketing in E-commerce: 7 Case Studies

Patrick Cole

April 19, 2016

Content Marketing in E-commerce: 7 Case Studies

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How do you determine which content marketing practices are best for your E-commerce business? Well, you can begin by looking at other successful brands to see what they are doing now, and what they’ve learned along the way. There’s no single content marketing plan that works for every business, but the following case studies should highlight at least a few things to emulate.

Envelopes.com Using Email to Solve The Issue of Shopping Cart Abandonment in E-commerce

People abandon their shopping carts for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it’s a simple matter of a disruption that draws the customer away from the page. In other cases, it’s a last minute moment of hesitation that causes people to abandon their carts.

Whatever the reason, the content marketers at envelopes.com decided that it was worth their while to get those customers back. So, they created an email campaign to contact customers who had left their shopping carts before completing their purchases. It took a bit of testing to work out the kinks, but in the end, they were able to raise their checkout conversion rate by over 60 percent.

Takeaway: Don’t consider these customers to be lost. Many simply need a reminder to come back and close the deal.

Modern Coin Mart Building Customer Confidence With Trustmarks

Many customers in e-commerce abandon their transactions just before it is time for them to enter their payment information. This is especially true of new customers who may not have developed much of a relationship with that company. The marketers at Modern Coin Mart decided that they would turn a trial run with a website security firm into a content marketing opportunity.

The security auditing showed that the Coin Mart website was a secure place for customers to make purchases, and the company was awarded a trust mark from the auditing company. The web designers added the badge to a prominent place for shoppers to see and launched a series of A/B tests. The end results showed that customers who saw the badge were more likely to make a purchase.

Takeaway: Badges from security companies, professional licensing boards, and other sources can boost confidence in your brand.

Michael’s Leveraging Pinterest to Reach Their Audience

If you could name one brand that would be a perfect fit for social media marketing, wouldn’t it be Michael’s? Not only has the largest arts and crafts store in the United States done well on this platform, they used a contest to boost their Pinterest followers by close to 90 percent. It all started with the release of a new line of picture frames that were designed for an upscale audience interested in home decor.

The marketing folks at Michael’s decided to promote this new product line, to generate engagement among their existing followers, and to draw in new followers through a contest. So, they designed a giveaway that involved signing up for Pinterest, becoming a follower of Michael’s, filling out a brief form, and then pinning the image of the newly released collection. Then they offered a very attractive prize, a $500 dollar gift card to the store.

Takeaway: If your product or service is appealing to creative, do it yourself types, consider using platforms such as Pinterest to reach your audience.

Headbands of Hope Earning Shares And Engagement Supporting a Charitable Cause

Headbands of hope is an online retailer that sells cute handmade headbands for girls, and for each item they sell they donate a headband to a child with cancer. Not only that, every purchase also results in a dollar being donated to cancer research. Because charitable causes are attractive to people, Headbands of Hope content is shared quite frequently, and they’ve quickly earned over 35K followers on both Facebook and Instagram. Making new friends on social media is always a good choice for your business. It can significantly increase your conversions.

Takeaway: Doing good is a great digital marketing strategy along with being the right thing to do.

Chipotle Adding Creativity to Make Content Truly Interesting While Pushing a Message

Chipotle isn’t just a popular restaurant among twenty-somethings, their use of creativity in their digital marketing efforts have made the Chipotle brand extremely popular on social media platforms as well. They begin with great content writing and visuals, often from renowned authors and artists. Then, they add in a wicked sense of humor that appeals to the millennial crowd. Check out their series, Farmed and Dangerous. Finally, they create a compelling brand identity by promoting healthy natural foods when other brands in their niche are largely relying processed alternatives.

Takeaway: You may not have the ability to hire a famous writer or artist, but it helps to create that is appealing.

ModCloth Building Relationships With Customer Centered Content

Modcloth is a brand that markets vintage clothing, home decor, and accessories to women. They have drawn a large and loyal audience in e-commerce by creating and sharing content that is relatable to their target customers. To begin with, they use real people to model their fashions and not professional models.

The result is that the consumers see their clothing on a wide variety of body types. This means it is more likely that they can see themselves in that clothing as well. Then, ModCloth takes it a step further by allowing customers to upload pictures of themselves to the website. As a result, the company gets more content, and the customers develop stronger brand loyalty in e-commerce. Finally, they do a great job of branding by carrying the retro theme throughout all of their content offerings.

Takeaway: Get customers in on the action to crowdsource content and promote loyalty.

Edible Arrangements Increasing Conversions By Promoting an Existing Service

You don’t always need a new product or service to boost conversions. Sometimes, customers simply need to be reminded of something that is already available to them. This is what the marketing team at Edible Arrangements hedged their bets on when they decided to promote the brand’s existing same day delivery service.

They began by slightly improving the service by expanding its available hours in all of its stores. Then they added a simple timer to their website reminding visitors of the hours and minutes they had left in the day to place their same day order. This gave customers a sense of urgency where a simple clock may not have had that effect. They also created a display ad featuring the words ‘instant gratification’. Finally, they decided to add mentions of their same day delivery service to their marketing emails. The results were nearly instantaneous. Same day orders increased by 8 percent.

Takeaway: Why not take some time to see if you have a product or service that could use some renewed attention?

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