Do I Need To Create A Content Development Strategy?
E-commerce is definitely on the rise. The past few years have seen a dramatic shift in consumer behavior, with more and more people going digital. Cyberspace is fast becoming the mecca for information, entertainment, socialization, and commerce.
As hybrid shopping patterns became more prevalent in the pandemic era, e-commerce sales grew by 32.4% in 2020 – and saw another 16.1% growth in 2021, per eMarketer. Although e-commerce sales are forecasted to continue growing at a slightly slower rate over the next two years, sales figures will still continue to climb and are expected to hit the USD 1 Trillion mark in 2022.
However, with the Internet as crowded as it is, being able to cut through the noise and be heard is becoming more and more challenging. This is where content development comes in. Growing an e-commerce business goes hand-in-hand with growing your presence online. Having a strategy in place for how to leverage your content is vital in making sure uniform messaging is in place, and all materials are geared towards achieving the same goal overall.
Content Creation Vs. Content Development
First things first: What is content? Put simply, your content is the voice of your brand. It informs, educates, entertains, and engages your customers about your business, products, services, and more. It supports your branding, and more importantly, helps build trust with your customers. This can be in the form of written content such as website content, blogs, social media posts, emails, whitepapers, and e-books or multimedia like videos and podcasts.
When it comes to content creation, the saying “quality over quantity” ALWAYS applies. These are the materials that will reach your target audience as a representative of your brand. Informative, well-written, or well-produced content helps build trust between brand and consumers as well as helps establish brand authority in your chosen industry.
Content creation is a major part of content development, however, it comes much later in the process. Content development deals with a broad overview of getting the brand’s message across. It can cover just one aspect like presenting information on an e-commerce site or encompass several channels of the digital space where information will be disseminated.
The Content Development Process
Content development is a process not unlike strategizing a marketing campaign in order to achieve a business goal – only this time, the materials you’ll be working with are different types of content. This involves several steps including setting clear objectives for the campaign, researching the audience, determining your messaging, plotting the timeline, generating topic ideas, setting individual goals, as well as content creation and execution.
While good content can ideally increase reach organically, sometimes, incorporating a little added nudge such as SEO optimization and paid ads can help give it a little extra boost. Tracking your content’s performance – successes, failures, and feedback – helps in knowing which aspects of the content strategy are working, which need to be revisited, updated, or modified, and such.
How We Can Help
At Nexus Box, our team’s strength lies in our combined experiences and expertise in the fields of technology and marketing.
Content development is the final frontier in our four-step web development process. There is no one-size-fits-all content strategy for all businesses – every company has its own unique strengths and weaknesses, messaging, and goals. Formulating each and every strategy involves both critical and creative thinking, and our content developers are always up for the challenge.
Find out more about how we help clients turn their amazing business ideas into exciting e-commerce ventures here. Already have a project in mind? Let’s talk!
