Ty Rothstein
Do you want to increase online sales for your ecommerce store? That’s probably one of the only questions in the world with one answer – “yes”.
Then there is only one thing standing in your way – the how. Luckily, there are dozens of different tactics and hacks that you can use in order to increase sales. Today, I want to let you in on one incredibly effective tactic that’ll increase online sales for you: start blogging.
Blogging to Increase Online Sales
There are various theories and opinions on how to increase online sales by blogging. Some focus on design, while others focus solely on content marketing. Recently, I read a post that stated that to sell more with a blog, the blog had to have three elements: content, context, and commerce.
It’s an interesting concept, but something was missing. After some brainstorming and spending more than a few hours reading blogs from different ecommerce stores, it seems consistent that if you want to use a blog to increase online sales, the blog cannot just have those three very basic elements. You’ve to go beyond, and thus we’ve expanded with two more “C’s”.
The 5 “C’s”
Content: There was a time when online content was just another name for text. Luckily, today content is served to people every second of the day via numerous mediums: video, gifs, images, audio, and text.
Context: The blog is not intended to just be another product page. Instead of directly trying to sell something (like with a product page or catalog), here you are creating a destination that aims to share either a story, experience, or useful information.
Commerce: Your visitor has taken time to take a look at what you have created. If you’ve used the right content marketing strategy then you have now placed the visitor in a simple situation in which they want what you are selling.
Call to Action (CTA): Creating CTAs is an art-form. Really. I’ll give you an extremely simple CTA that can and should be used in conjunction with your blog posts: “Know Everything”. If someone is taking the time to read something, then why not let them in on everything – including owning it?
Creativity: “Think outside of the box” is the most basic, and crucial piece of advice I’ve ever gotten. For me, creativity is all about doing something clever and different from what you are used to doing, so you can catch someone’s attention.
- Creativity in content: Combine videos, images, memes, gifs, infographics, and other interactive content to make the visitor feel like the brand is doing everything it can to create a relationship with him/her.
- Creativity in CTAs: As we pointed out in one of our recent posts, a successful CTA goes beyond using the right words, and the conversion rate has just as much to do with its context and contributing attributes as it does with the chosen text.
eCommerce Stores Rocking it With Blogs
Lululemon
This is a brand that has its own physical stores, however the time between reading a post and then getting to the physical store is like night and day. For Lululemon it’s all about creating a community around yoga and an active lifestyle.
In their blog post, “What to pack for a yoga festival”, they wrote a post that is 100% catered toward their audience.
Content: Written clearly, and right to the point, they served their readers with a list of 9 “must haves”.
Context: The context is clearly on spot, as this was created to help the brand’s loyal followers prepare for a huge event.
Commerce: Take a look at this image and you’ll immediately notice that everything is numbered. I visit the post, immediately see the image, find an object that interest me, and skip down to it on the list.
Call to Action: The post is “explanatory” and quite basic, all that Lululemon had to do was link to the products. They leveraged their authority and expertise to get visitors to get the same accessories and outfits as their contributors.
Creativity: The image speaks for itself, no? Creativity doesn’t mean you need to create a new universe.
Taking it up a notch: I would have loved to see them make each number on the image clickable to that product page.
Birthday Girl World
In today’s social media focused world, creating meaning and community for your brand is a must. No one follow or engages with a brand just to buy a product. Check out one successful brand social page or profile and you’ll see that creating a community wins.
In their post “Learn Why Leo’s are the QUEENS of the Jungle”, Birthday Girl World creates content that is targeted toward strengthening the “community” feeling.
Content: Astrological signs are a popular topic and is something that people really never get tired of reading. One could even say it’s addictive.
Context: The site is dedicated not only to celebrating life – your birthday – but also at saving a life. These kinds of posts are right on target.
Commerce: This element could definitely be improved as they don’t mention any products. However (and this is a big one), not every post must focus on commerce. Sometimes just writing for the sake of engaging and interacting has its own ROI.
Call to Action: No product, no CTA. Here it actually makes sense not to add a CTA, seeing as the main goal of the post was to just create something fun to read.
Creativity: Instead of just using some flashy image and creating a list, there is some nice copywriting in this post from the introduction to the closing sentence, such as the headlines: ”Leo Girls Roar Like a Lion!“, “Leo Girls WORK HARD & PLAY HARD Too!“, and “Leo Friends Make the Best Friends!“.
Taking it up a notch: They ended the post with, “Leo Birthday Girls make this zodiac sign rad!”, however had they mentioned that their “Birthday Shirts” are a way to feel super-rad, this would have been quite the post.
Oi Polloi
Why do we go to movies? There might be a minority of those that go to see how a certain actor plays a certain part, but for the most of us it’s to see a good story unfold. Oi Polloi mixes in a combination of interviews and product updates to tell great stories.
In the post, “The Story Of The Fjällräven Kånken” they tell the story of how one of the types of bags that they sell “grew up”.
Content: In this case, this is a piece written to enlighten visitors what the bag represents, and it happens to fit in perfectly with their classic brand.
Context: Like money, your products did not just grow on a tree (unless you’re selling apples). Giving readers an interesting “behind the scenes” look into a product is generally a successful move.
Commerce: Nature, bikes, blue jeans, and great bags – classic, clever, and successful!
Call to Action: The “see the bags” at the end is quite subtle. Does it need to scream at the reader? If the content didn’t do its job then yes, but if the content hit the spot, then this CTA can get the job done.
Creativity: The post in itself is creative and different than their other posts. Their introduction isn’t too shabby: “This was written a few years ago now, but such is the power of the humble Kånken that this article is still as relevant now as it was way back in the mists of time.”
Taking it up a notch: Why not do a bit of mix and match with the CTA and creativity by adding an image of one of the bags with the text, “see the bags” written across horizontally or diagonally?
Bottle Cutting Inc.
Do you notice how most “hits”, whether it’s a book, tv show, or movie always have a follow-up? This ecommerce shop has hit the nail on the head with their blogging campaign “100 days of bottles”.
Content: It’s one continuous blog post that shows the capability of one of their newest products, and a perfect example of, “show and tell”.
Context: They’ve created a dedicated place on the internet for those that enjoy cutting their bottles. Then with this post, they inspire others to go make their own. 
Commerce: In this case, the result of using the product itself is what sells – and even I want in even though I have never done this!
Call to Action: At the top of the post there is a brief explanation on their newest product and then a CTA just below that and above the latest image.
Creativity: This campaign is as creative as it gets. They have their usual posts, but to spice things up the team added this lovely bonus that keeps people coming back for more – every day.
Taking it up a notch: The “ORDER HERE” could have be placed within a button on so that it’d be more noticeable, while still not being too pushy. A bonus tip would be adding a “Pin” icon to the images.
Start Blogging
I know exactly what you are thinking: “I need to add a blog ASAP”. You are in luck! We have some advice for you from Sam Waller from Oi Polloi:
Don’t worry so much about how many ‘views’ you get. Something could be browsed indifferently by 1000 people, or devoured avidly by 10 people. Write about things you like. This is a lot easier than struggling to find something nice to say about things you don’t like.
It’s simple: write what you are passionate about and create a community around that passion.
eCommerce platforms, like Shopify, Bigcommerce, Prestashop, Magento, and others enable you to easily create a blog without needing to hire a web developer by using their platforms. If you want to use WordPress, then just make the blog a subdomain (blog.domainname.com) to make it fit with your eCommerce platform.
Are you blogging? Then please share a post or the blog itself with us in the comments. If now you’ve decided to launch a blog, then take these tips and get to work. Come back to us and share your first post.
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