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What is a Full Service Ecommerce Agency?

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Ecommerce guide

Outsourcing Your Ecommerce: Full-Service Agency vs Specialists vs In-House

What a full-service ecommerce agency actually does, how it compares with hiring several specialists or building your own team, and how to decide which is right for your shop.

Ivan Latter, Owner, Focus Ecommerce  ·  Updated 21/10/2026  ·  8 min read

Key takeaways

  • A full-service ecommerce agency builds, runs and grows your online shop under one roof.
  • It suits growing shops that don’t want to manage several suppliers or hire a full team.
  • Specialists can go deeper in one area. In-house gives control but costs more to set up.
  • Ask any agency to show who would actually do the work, and how they report results.

What is a full-service ecommerce agency?

A full-service ecommerce agency is one team that handles every part of running an online shop: building and maintaining the website, the day-to-day operations behind it, and the marketing that brings in customers. Instead of hiring a web developer, a marketing agency and an operations manager separately, you work with one partner.

Plenty of agencies call themselves full service but only cover one or two of these areas. Many specialise in development, or in paid ads, or in content. So it’s worth checking exactly what’s included before you sign.

What does a full-service ecommerce agency do?

The work usually falls into three areas.

Build

  • Website design and development
  • Platform choice and setup
  • UX and conversion
  • Speed and performance
  • Tracking and analytics

Run

  • Order management
  • Stock control
  • Customer service
  • Back office processes
  • Reporting

Grow

  • SEO
  • Google Ads
  • Email marketing
  • Social media
  • PR and partnerships

Looking for a full-service ecommerce agency?

See how Focus Ecommerce builds, runs and grows online shops.

See our service

Full-service agency vs specialists vs in-house

There are three main ways to get your ecommerce work done. Here’s how they compare.

Full-service agencySeveral specialistsIn-house team
Who you manageOne partnerSeveral suppliersYour own staff
Joined-up strategyBuilt inUp to you to coordinateGood, if the team is complete
Range of skillsBroadDeep in each areaLimited to who you hire
Speed to startWeeksWeeks per supplierMonths to recruit
Fixed costsOne monthly feeSeveral feesSalaries, tools, training
Best forGrowing shops without a full teamShops with one clear gapLarger brands with budget

Pros and cons of a full-service agency

Pros

  • One point of contact and one plan
  • No gaps or blame between suppliers
  • Easy to scale work up or down
  • Marketing and website changes happen together

Cons

  • You rely on one supplier
  • May not match a niche specialist in every area
  • Less day-to-day control than an in-house team

It’s usually a good fit if most of these sound familiar:

  • You're spending more time managing suppliers than running the business
  • Your website, marketing and operations feel disconnected
  • You want to grow but can't justify several full-time hires
  • You sell to consumers but don't have retail connections or a team behind you

If you already have a strong in-house team and only need help with one thing, such as Google Ads, a specialist may suit you better.

How much does a full-service ecommerce agency cost?

Most charge a monthly fee based on how much they handle. At Focus Ecommerce, full-service ecommerce management starts from £695 a month. What affects the price:

  • The size of your product range
  • Which services you need (build, run, grow, or all three)
  • Your ad spend and number of sales channels
  • Whether you need a new website first

5 questions to ask before you hire

  1. Which services do you do yourselves, and which do you outsource?
  2. Who will actually work on my account?
  3. Can you show results for a shop like mine?
  4. How do you report, and how often?
  5. What’s the notice period if it isn’t working?

FAQs

Many ecommerce agencies focus on one area, usually building websites. A full-service agency also runs the shop day to day and handles the marketing.

Yes. Many businesses keep some work in-house and hand the rest to an agency.

Often, for smaller and growing shops, because you share a team’s skills rather than paying several full-time salaries.

Ivan Latter
Owner at Focus Ecommerce. A lifetime in retail and running ecommerce store

In this guide

Not sure which option suits you?

Book a free 30-minute call and we’ll give you an honest view, even if the answer isn’t us.

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Want one team to run your online shop?

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Related reading

Guide

What is ecommerce management?

Case study

Digital growth using IRP Commerce

Guide

Choosing the right ecommerce platform

If Marketing be the food of all business then play on!

If Marketing be the food of all business then play on!

Marketing Services Driving Execution | Focus Ecommerce & Marketing

Here at Focus Ecommerce and Marketing, our marketing services are driving impact and change.

Our marketing services embrace innovation and creativity whilst keeping our ethos of consistent, joined-up marketing solutions in our sights. Turning brand potential into business performance. Priding ourselves on differentiating clients and their products in an increasingly saturated market. We embrace innovation and creativity whilst keeping our ethos of consistent, joined-up marketing solutions in our sights. Our in-house marketers and work with, and act, as a true member of your marketing team. We can do everything in house or complement your existing internal team.

Fully Managed Marketing Service

Maximise your potential with a fully managed solution:

Having difficulty managing or maintaining your marketing? having trouble getting real results? or simply want someone to manage it for you! Our fully managed marketing team can help you, all while driving better ROI (Return on Investment) across all channels of your business. From the outset, we will agree the core strategy with key deliverables plus we have many methods of keeping you in the loop but as a minimum, we will provide a weekly report, weekly catch-ups as well as a quarterly review.

Integrated Marketing Service

Ideal for businesses that already have a small marketing team:

You may already have a Marketing Administrator who looks after your social media, but is struggling to deliver a fully joined-up marketing campaign. Or your business would benefit from some assistance with design or copywriting. Perhaps, you are simply looking for a website maintenance solution, but want to direct the activity yourself? Ultimately, we will work with you to understand what you need from us and dovetail where necessary, to perfectly complement your business’ existing skills.

TAILORED MARKETING SOLUTION

If you need fresh eyes and a fresh approach!

We also engage with clients to modernise specific elements and ensure that a marketing strategy is working as anticipated. It could be a new website, a product launch or perhaps assist with a communications plan during a merger or acquisition? We have experienced in-house design, web and copywriting professionals who will be fully briefed on your company profile to ensure we can provide the best possible service.

Book a consultation with one of our team at info@focusecommerce.co.uk or at +44 (0) 3337729241

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How To Get The Best From Facebook

How to get the best from Facebook?

Facebook is the most-used social media platform in the world, so if you get it right you can reach the most people, in theory………………

Facebook facts | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

How to get the best from Facebook? Being the most used it can be the hardest to get reach that audience and engage them. As so much is going on and there are many factors and tools built into Facebook’s user interface and the algorithm that decides who sees what.

Facebook is looking at allowing users to turn off the algorithm that controls what it thinks users wants to see, allowing a return to seeing more content but in a chronological feed as it previously used to show content on our Facebook newsfeeds.

Target audience knowledge

What you do need to know is information about your target audiences. Where they are, what they like and how to engage them.

Facebook algorithm

The basis of Facebook’s News Feed algorithm, which defines how far and wide your posts reach has 3 key elements:

Who posted it?

How often a user engages with a profile or person plays a role in determining reach and you getting the most from facebook. If you regularly like or comment on posts from a Page, you will be shown more of that content as the system knows you are interested in it. If you interact with particular people more than others when they share links, you again will or could be shown more of their content. So, you can see engagement in your content is critical.

Facebook facts | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

When was it posted?

Understanding when your audience and followers are online is critical. Initial responses to your posts need to be quick to make sure the system continues to show the content to other followers and users. If no early engagement then the reach will die out very quickly. You must punch in and grab attention among the people who initially see it. Use the inbuilt Facebook insights for some basic insight or invest some decent external insight tools.

How likely each user will engage with it

Facebook is constantly analysing its users to see what they like and what their habits are. Facebook will also estimate how long it thinks users might watch a video for, or read an article, as further indicators of likely engagement. All these factors relate to how your content might get seen or in many cases not seen by your established audience or your new target audiences.

Trending news

Trending news is now the most shared content type on Facebook. But posts that trigger an emotional response, prompting users to like, comment or share with their friends also do very well. Think about the language and the media content to trigger engagement. Call to actions (CTAs) can be simple as words.

Other content that works well is informing, how to, humour. But are any of these about what your organisation is about. Humour is a particularly hard one to pull off! What will get users engaging with your content? Probably the hardest one to crack and stay in lane at the same.

Content we know does well on social media.

  • Cute animals,
  • Practical Hacks,
  • Inspirational content,
  • Food and recipes,
  • Music videos,
  • Quizzes,
  • Travel and Adventure.

Content posting guidelines

Shorter text descriptions are the way forward, no one will read long paragraphs of text, current best practice is only 25-60 characters! That is hard to work with. More than 80 characters on the mobile App generates the dreaded ‘See more’ which an exceptionally low percentage of users ever click. So, you must get your message over quick or at least try and entice them to click the see more to find out more.

Facebook facts | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Video is King

And old statement now but one that is true and becoming more so, particularly on Facebook. Facebook encourages you to post 3 min + videos as it is trying to win the online video battle with the likes of YouTube. It never will. But your audience is probably unlikely to watch your videos for that length. Top tip which currently works, place a holding image at the end of your shorter video when editing it and extend that holding image past the 3 min mark. It could be your CTA details, website link or similar.

Hyperlinks

When you compose a post on Facebook with a hyperlink it should auto generate a link preview. But if that preview is not what want you can delete it and add your media which will leave the hyperlink in place as just text. But do not post all your content as outwards from Facebook, Facebook wants users to stay on its system for as long as possible so if all your posts drive traffic outwards, it will start to display it to less people.

Hashtags on Facebook

Do they work, yes and no and time will tell. The system now recognises them but how well they return results is a bit hit and miss. But it is worth persisting with them for now as they bring enough value to justify the effort. Top tip place them at the end of your text as they are reference tools, for people to find your content, not click away and then you lose them. Plus, it makes the limited space for best text delivery 25-60 characters easier to write and on mobile will probably be hidden in the see more section. Not a problem as they are reference tools!

How often should you post content?

This depends on your audience, find that balance that one keeps the audience interested but does not annoy them with constant your brand in their newsfeeds, or they will switch you off and ignore. My advice on how to get the best from Facebook is 1=2 posts a day and if your audience is more active on certain days than others focus on those days.

Here to help you

Get in touch if you need any help with social media? Are you using it, are you putting a lot of time into and getting little back? Social media is there is help you raise awareness of your brand, drive website traffic, engage your potential audience, customers, and clients. But it is not as clear cut as just posting content occasionally and we can make all the difference: Learn about how we can help you here

Contact us today

Phone: +44 (0)3337729241
Email: info@focusecommerce.co.uk
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Pushing Instagram to help your brand shine through

Pushing Instagram to help your brand shine through

Instagram Top Tips – like many other social media channels is an ideal tool for advertising your business, idea, or event. But there are some key points you should consider.

Instagram Top Tips | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

First Steps

The first of our Instagram Top Tips is to convert your Instagram to a business account via the settings option. This opens more options for a business, better targeted reach, advertising, and insights into your Instagram activity.

Via Facebook connect your Business Facebook page to your Business Instagram account if you have a Facebook page. Do it now.

Instagram Top Tips | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Use Professional-Looking Photos

Generic photos will not cut it and will not attract attention. Instagram is a photo-sharing social media platform, so it is important to share visually pleasing content. Take photos, edit them to make them stand out from the crowd. If you cannot do this then consider outsourcing to someone who can.

You can take a new photo through the App or select one from your camera roll. Then there are multiple options to personalize your post. You can add a filter, tag other users, write a caption and add a location. Another option is to also turn off comments on this page with the advanced settings, but you want engagement,. So we suggest do not do this but monitor your posts in case you need to engage.

Facebook Creator Studio | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Schedule your Content

Currently you cannot schedule content on Instagram directly, but you can through several schedule tools and even through Facebook, using tools such as Facebook Creator Studio (You will need to a have Facebook Business page to do this).

If You have a Facebook business page there are also now various Facebook business page tools coming online which allow management of content to be posted to your Business Instagram account.

 

Schedule your content so it hits users’ newsfeeds when they are most active. Once it publishes remember to monitor it for positive and negative comment management, or in case someone asks a question as they expect a quick response. Social media is not a Mon-Fri, 9-5 task.

Other schedule tools we recommend are Hootsuite and Later.com to name a couple.

Instagram Stories | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Stories Feature

Instagram Stories is one of the channel’s most popular features to the user. These photos and videos currently disappear 24 hours after they are posted. Businesses should leverage Instagram Stories to market their products and services, getting their messages to followers that otherwise might not see regular Instagram posts in their feed due to the latest way that Instagram shows content to the user.

You can post recorded videos, still photos, live videos, videos that loop back and forth called Boomerangs. You can also add stickers to spice things up but do not overdo it and stay within your brand. You can also add very useful user tags and hashtags to drive engagement.

The stickers for polls, questions and sliding bars make it easy to interact with your users and get feedback. A good idea is to use the questions feature to hold a weekly Ask Me Anything series, a great way to engage with your audience.

 

Another way to draw attention to your brand is with Stories Highlights, which stay on your profile until you remove them. Use them wisely and select your best moments on Instagram and products if you want to attract attention.

 
Instagram Live| Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Why Not Go Live

In addition to Instagram Stories, users can take and stream live video that disappears, like Facebook Live and Snapchat. You can give customers a live look behind the scenes of interesting aspects of your business, show products or answer live questions through the comments. Like anything live there is more risk running live activity, from internet drop out, poor sound, to much camera movement, so our advice is test and get good at this before you attempt it or outsource and get help from a professional. Once the video ends, it lives in your Instagram Stories for 24 hours.

You can of course upload a video you have taken or shoot one directly through the app to post. If you choose to shoot or upload a video, you can still add filters and change the cover.

 

Interact and Engage

As with any social media platform, it is important to engage and interact with your followers on Instagram.

  • Liking content is a simple way to connect with other users. To like a photo, either double tap the image or tap the heart button under the post.

  • Commenting on posts. just the comments button and the app will take you to the comments page for that photo.

  • Mentioning another user using the @ symbol to tag other users in your Instagram comments or post captions.

  • You can tag users before you post content. Tap Tag People before sharing your photo, and then tap where in the photo you want to add a tag. The app then prompts you to type in the person’s name to search for their account. Once you have tagged other users in your photo and shared the image, other users can tap on the photo to see the people who are tagged.

  • Direct messaging to other users we have found to be a great tool on Instagram and other social media platforms: To access Instagram Direct, go to the homepage and tap the button in the top right corner. Here, you can send private instant messages, photos, and videos to other users. To send a new Direct message or DM as they are called, tap the + button in the top right corner and select Send Photo or Video, or Send Message. Once you have sent the message, you and the recipients can message back and forth. Users who are not already following you will be asked whether they want to allow you to send them photos and videos before they can view your DM.

Instagram Hastags | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Get in on the Trending Content

Hashtags are a great way to help users find content on Instagram. Hashtags can include letters and numbers, only. So do not use other symbols, as they do not work.

 

Relevant hashtags can be a highly effective tool for getting noticed. However, make sure you are using the right hashtags for your brand. Run some tests, searches and see what others are using. Use a tool like Ritetag.com to find the best results and other options.

Look at trending hashtags or popular weekly hashtags such as #WednesayWisdom or #ThrowbackThursday. These will be busy and hard to get noticed but if you need a fille or stuck for content ideas. it is a good way forward.

 

Instagram allows a maximum of 30 hashtags in a post or comment, but we recommend approximately 10 hashtags per post. The fewer hashtags you can use to get quality responses, the better. Using a lot of popular hashtags might earn you a lot of likes from other users, but it probably will not increase your following all that much, and the interactions you get will likely not be from people who are interested in your brand but rather those who just saw and liked your image.

 

Get in amongst the hashtags and branch out and experiment to find which ones work best for you. One good idea is to create a custom hashtag for your brand and use it all the time to drive engagement. Overtime it will start to get noticed and pull our content to other users.

Instagram Hastags | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Using the Paid for Advertising Options on Instagram

Like on other social channels paid advertising is becoming a must to get exposure to your target audience, especially for non-established brands fighting the sheer amount of content on Instagram.

 

There are three formats for advertising:

 
  • Photo ads. These look like regular photo posts, but they have a Sponsored label above the photo. They also have a Learn More button in the bottom right corner under the photo.
  • Video ads. Look like regular video posts, but with a Sponsored label on top.

  • Carousel ads. Feature multiple photos that users can swipe through.

  • All three ad formats appear in users’ home feeds.
Instagram Hastags | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Selling on Instagram

As recently as November 2020, Instagram added the Shop tab, which allows users to discover and purchase products from brands directly through the app. All a user has to do to complete a purchase is name, email address, billing info and shipping addresses. Instagram (or in fact Facebook who own Instagram) will then save that data for future transactions. There are the usual methods to pay such as credit card and PayPal.

Small businesses can also generate Shoppable posts to sell products through Instagram. A business simply creates a product catalogue connected to their account. Then you tag the product. To create a shoppable post you must have a business account and you must sell physical goods that comply with Instagram’s merchant agreement and commerce policies. We do suggest you read the policies to avoid issues further down the line. You can create your catalogue through Facebook, Shopify or BigCommerce currently, but we suspect more options will come online as Instagram develops this area of business.

Instagram Top Tips | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Few More Points to Note

  • Links to websites etc. do not work in Instagram captions or comments. The only place you can share a working link that takes users to a website is in your profile. If you are trying to direct people to a specific webpage, you can change the default link in your bio.

  • Make sure you BIO is strong and has a link to a page on your website you want them to land on. This might not be your landing page but could be a product page or a focused content page.

  • Stay on brand. Make sure your posts relate to your brand. It can be tempting to share photos of food, fashion, and animals because they’re popular on the platform. It can make you look disjointed and confuse your followers and turn them away.

  • Run giveaways and promotions. Post an image advertising your giveaway, sale, or contest, and ask users to repost that image with a specific, custom hashtag to enter. You can then search that hashtag to see who has reposted it and pick a winner. Remember to check the current policies for running a contest or sweepstakes, both on Instagram and your own company views.

  • Respond to other users’ comments quickly! When people comment on your photos, reply to them they want you to engage them and its look to engage. Interacting with customers and followers shows you are paying attention and care about what they say.

  • Embed Instagram posts on your website. Most websites can have an Instagram feed added to every time you post on Instagram in appears on your Website, keeping it fresh and engaging. From the desktop version of Instagram, you can get an embed code to add specific images and videos to your company’s website.

  • Look for and engage potential influencers for your brand to promote your business. It does not have to be necessarily users with huge follower numbers, although that can help, but other users will have different followers to you, and you can reach into their audience circles with your brand using influencers. This extends your reach. If you need help on this get in touch, we can help.

  • Share your posts directly to your story. With this feature, small businesses can interact with their followers while promoting their products or services. If another user posts a photo of your product or service then share if to your story, instant content, and a chance to engage your audience.

  • Use polls and other features in your stories. Instagram offers many interactive features that you can use to build online conversations and relationships. For instance, you can use the interactive questions sticker in Instagram Stories. This feature lets followers submit questions for you to answer. This is a fun and simple way to interact with your followers.

  • If you have long content, then engage IGTV. IGTV is a feature that shows long-form, vertical videos. IGTV is available in a stand-alone app and within Instagram’s app, and each video can be up to an hour long. If you get creative, you can use IGTV to market your business. Only go to this space if you have the content and capacity.

  • Use Reels. Only launched in August 2020. Reels are short-form videos (no longer than 15 seconds) that you can edit with audio, effects, and creative tools. You can use Reels to feature new products, promote your service, quick messages. This area will develop in time so come back as it gains popularity for updates on how to make this work for you.

Instagram Warning | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Do not be tempted to go off and buy Instagram followers. What you ask? Yes, you can buy thousands of followers and likes for your content even comments, for just a few pounds but Instagram is now wise to that and will:

The Instagram system will delete them as fast as you buy them.

They will not add value to your account as they will not engage your content.

Users have got wise and see when followers are real and false, so it makes you less credible as a brand.

Eventually Instagram may even shut your account down.

Final Points

  • You should also share posts to your story and be sure that your posts fit in well with your brand.
  • To get the most out of Instagram, be sure to interact with other users, use hashtags thoughtfully, post quality photos and use the Stories feature.
  • Stay true to your brand and aims.
  • Post regular content, we recommend daily.
  • Look at the paid options to get real engagement and potential traffic to your website and sales.
  • If you need help in this area of business, we would be happy to talk through the options of support with you.
 

For more advice view here or contact us 

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Global Digital Analysis Jan 21

Global Digital Analysis Jan 21

Digital Around the World, Essential Headlines for Mobile, Internet and Social Media Use

  • The world’s population stood at 7.83 billion at the start of 2021. The United Nations reports that this figure is currently growing by 1 percent per year, which means that the global total has increased by more than 80 million people since the start of 2020.

  • 5.22 billion people use a mobile phone today, equating to 66.6 percent of the world’s total population. Unique mobile users have grown by 1.8 percent (93 million) since January 2020, while the total number of mobile connections has increased by 72 million (0.9 percent) to reach a total of 8.02 billion at the start of 2021.

  • 4.66 billion people around the world use the internet in January 2021, up by 316 million (7.3 percent) since this time last year. Global internet penetration now stands at 59.5 percent.

  • There are now 4.20 billion social media users around the world. This figure has grown by 490 million over the past 12 months, delivering year-on-year growth of more than 13 percent. The number of social media users is now equivalent to more than 53 percent of the world’s total population.

Access to website by device

Global Digital Analysis| Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

How users access content

  • 98 percent of the users of any given social media platform use at least one other social platform

  • The audiences of individual social platforms are also subject to significant overlaps

  • 85 percent of TikTok users aged 16 to 64 also use Facebook

  • 95 percent of Instagram users also use YouTube

Global Digital Analysis| Focus Ecommerce and Marketing
Global Digital Analysis| Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Why do people use social media?

When you are planning a marketing using social media, consider the following:

 

  • Target audience who do I want to engage?

  • Why are they using social media?

  • Which social media channels might that target audience be on?

  • How can I reach and engage them?

  • What types of content are they engaging with?

Global Digital Analysis| Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

Data supplied by Hootsuite

 

If you need any advice on the use of social media, campaigns, advertising, setting up accounts and pages, training or need to outsource your social media to an expert, and we are here to assist in that area.

 

For more advice view here or contact us 

 
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Mick Latter

The Beginner’s Guide to B2B Content Marketing:

Beginners guide to B2B Marketing

Read our guide to B2B content Marketing to learn the Tactics You Need to Know to Get It Right the First Time

B2B content Marketing | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

B2B doesn’t have to mean boring. All too often, B2B content marketing is assumed to be dull, boring, and massively uninteresting when compared with B2C.

But scratch that – For many B2B brands, content marketing provides the backbone of their customer acquisition strategy. When a solid strategy in place, it can be a phenomenal growth engine.

At Focus Ecommerce and Marketing, we will show you everything you need to know about driving growth for your business with content marketing.

What is B2B Content Marketing?

B2B content Marketing | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

B2B content marketing acts as a critical elemental tool that leverages content as the core strategy to engage with prospects and customers.

The content surges typically in digital formats such as blogs, videos, articles, buyers’ guides, white papers, research reports or even social media posts, which is intelligently framed so as to entice its target audience with purposeful, focused content around topics of their interest.

Since the B2B purchase cycle is more complex than the B2C purchase cycle, buyers in B2B buying panel tend to do more research around the company, its products, its reputation, certifications and more. That’s why B2B marketers try to provide informative, non-promotional content that helps buyers make informed choices.

Who is Content Marketing aimed at?

B2B marketing campaigns are aimed at individuals with control or influence on purchasing decisions. Hence the content is also customised to provide relevant data and facts to the individual.

B2B Content Creation

The content-focus of B2B content marketing is to make sure that it is useful and practical for other companies. B2B content marketing has to be engaging and compelling over a sustained period, ensuring it can keep pace with the evolution of the buyers’ journey and beyond.

B2B Content Marketing Implementation

B2B content Marketing | Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

1. Identify your ideal audience

It is important to have an in-depth understanding and analysis of your target audience before you kickstart your content creation that will entice and attract prospects.

2. Create buyer personas

Segment the audience as per the stage of the buyer’s funnel. This is where the reader personas become significant. You have to identify potential buyers from the people that are visiting your website. By the use of Google Analytics, you can find out their necessary demographic details, such as name, age, gender, location, as well as recurring themes of interest.

Regularly coming up with new content ideas can often be one of the most significant challenges for content marketers. Here is a crucial insight which you can implement in your overall content marketing plan.

3. Content always works

Create content which will always be useful to your B2B audiences. Typically, content itself should be elaborative; it should cover the entire gamut of the topic so that your readers can stay on your content page to get all the relevant information.

Now there are many ways in which you can position your content to rank high on Google and generate traffic to your website. Such as leveraging social media insights, testing topical themes with content snippets on social media and finding topic popularity trends with Google Trends.

 

If you would like to find out more about content marketing, how we can help your business attract and maintain new customers, contact Sue Moscatelli or Ivan Latter at Focus E-Commerce & Marketing. Sue has over 25 years of experience in B2C and B2B marketing from branding, positioning, tone of voice, positioning through to promotional activity, POS, sales support tools, events and sponsorships.

Creating a Content Strategy for your Ecommerce Store

Creating a Content Strategy for your Ecommerce Store

Content marketing, clearly described, is the process of producing original, high-quality content targeted at a specific audience, attracting their interests and addressing their points of pain. Creating a content strategy means instead of making a hard sell, by offering useful information that earns goodwill and interaction, it usually promotes a brand, service, or product.

Creating a Content Strategy| Focus Ecommerce and Marketing

The primary objective of this initiative is to convert consumers to buyers, directing them through the process of meeting their needs in the sales funnel, to prove yourself to be a credible source of knowledge, to position yourself as the best placed authority to assist them, and then to convert interest to paid business and a valuable ongoing connection.

The advantages of a well-executed eCommerce content strategy include:

 

  • It drives new traffic to your website.
  • This promotes confidence in your brand.
  • With the all-important conversions, it can help.
  • It can create a separate revenue source.
  • It can provide enduring value with its evergreen material.

 

1: Identify Your Target Consumer

When your creating a content strategy you need to know who your buyer is in order to create e-commerce website content targeted to consumer needs. You can create content targeted at them by creating a character or fictionalized image of a customer or buyers based on real data and

marketing insights, refining it depending on what part of the sales funnel you position it and which part of the purchaser’s journey you are targeting.

For instance, without any sales message, you will provide content customized to their needs at the top of the sales funnel. Further down the funnel, once you’ve won their confidence, you might start providing potential solutions to customer problems and have a more tailored sales pitch to convert them to paying business.

The things you will want to know for your buyer persona include:

  • Demographics: Gender, age, location, or other concrete identifying information.
  • Personality: Whether they are lazy, super productive, sceptical, optimistic, or have other traits, the personality profile will help determine their shopping behaviour.
  • Motivation: Are they learning more about your goods and industry on your e-commerce site? Are they ready to buy, or are they just shopping for windows? Understanding customer motivation allows you to customize content accordingly.
  • Pain points: What do your customers find frustrating? If you understand this, you can provide a solution to their issues.
  • Preferred content channels: Knowing your customers’ preferred sites, social media channels, and apps can tell you how best to reach them.

2: How Does Your Audience Consumes Content

You should find out how your audience wants to consume content to target them the same way for your e-commerce website content by looking at your internal data or researching market trends.

Some questions you’ll want to answer include:

  • What’s the most popular social media channel for my target audience?
  • Is there a specific type of content they prefer, Images, video, long form content?
  • Does my target audience prefer to make purchases via a mobile or desktop?
  • What length of time is my target audience willing to spend reviewing content?
  • Use your Google Analytics to track how people are coming to your site

3: Research and Create Your Content

For creating a content strategy you need to do some research at the front end to build an efficient content strategy for e-commerce. For instance,

  • Brainstorm: Work with a small group of people invested in the process, with strong contributions.
  • Competitive SEO Evaluation, Looking at how rivals’ domain names work in search rankings and keyword gaps, to find out what choices are available to create content against fresh search words.
  • Understanding the content being produced by other brands: Use a tool like Google Alerts to keep notified about brand mentions online, keeps you up to date of trending content.
  • Think outside the box if an idea seems stale because it been done many times, try flipping it on its head to come up with a new perspective.

4: Publish Content Based on your Buyer’s Journey

The sales or marketing funnel is divided into three parts a top, middle, and bottom that corresponds to various parts of the purchaser’s path.

The top of the funnel is the process of customer exploration or understanding, where you prove that you know their points of pain. Your content is easily found and consumed at this stage.

The content offers solutions to issues without any particular sale of your product or service, whether by blogging, social media marketing, search engine marketing, or any other medium.

 

The middle section of the Sales & Marketing funnel is the step of evaluation, where you engage with your prospective clients more profoundly, building confidence. You have proven that you know their points of discomfort, and now you can start pointing to solutions that will assist them. Where you tried to educate customers before, you are now leading them to the right responses.

Here, the items you offer might include comparison guides, case studies, and even free samples. Consumers usually do extensive research on the subject at this point, including whether your approach is the right match for them.

 

The bottom of the sales funnel is the purchase stage, where people put their money where their interest is. Here is where you prove that your outstanding value is just too much to be passed by. At this purchase stage, you might use live chat, a chatbot, or emails to customers at the point of buying or retargeting/remarketing to keep your message in front of someone at the tipping point.

 

The Decision stage, where people put their money where their interest is. Here is where you prove that your offer is just too good to miss out on. At this decision stage, at the point of purchase or retargeting/remarketing, you might use live chat, a chatbot, or emails to customers to hold your message in front of someone at the tipping point.

 

5: Measure the Results

Since creating a content ctrategy on ecommerce websites is typically an ongoing operation, and not a one-off thing, you need to look at the results from past attempts to enhance those that are going forward.

 

Good metrics will inform you what sort of investment return (ROI) you have accomplished. Progress may be evaluated by such factors as:

Organic traffic, Leads, Conversion rate, Time on page, Social shares, Engagement, ROI, Backlinks

 

Bear in mind that the specific metrics you want to measure will vary depending on the content type. Some forms of content and the metrics on which you would want to base performance include:

  • Blog posts/articles: Key performance indicators (KPIs) range from website traffic and unique visitors to page views per visit and geographic trends.

  • Email: Indicators include open rate, conversion rate, and click-through rate.

  • Social media: Followers/fans, Likes, and post reach are among the KPIs.

  • Videos: These include unique viewers, shares, and average view duration.

  • Podcasts: Downloads, subscribers, and shares are included here.

  • Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns: The many KPIs range from cost per click and click-through rates to cost per sale and impressions.

At Focus Ecommerce & Marketing we have the tools to help you measure the performance of your content activity. We can analyse various pieces of content and tailor that content to meet your specific needs.

 

6: Ask for Customer Feedback

Listening to what your clients have to say is a huge part of enhancing the content you deliver and making sales. Knowing what your customer feels about your sales process is vital for potential progress, whether you send a follow-up note, review live chat recordings, perform customer interviews, evaluate documented sales calls, track social media networks, or employ other means.

Some ways customer feedback can help your ecommerce content strategy include:

 

  • Ensure you have an effective customer support service: Customer feedback is one way to help gauge whether you have a sustainable customer support system, which ultimately can help keep sales coming in.

  • Qualitative feedback about content: Although we have suggested ways to get data, qualitative feedback is also very valuable. Through customer surveys, you can figure out whether your content is helpful to your customers. The more helpful your content, the more likely you will find more people who want to use your product or service.

  • Potential to use feedback as promotional content: Arguably, the biggest benefit to customer feedback is the possibility of using it to persuade new customers. Testimonials are a great way to add value to your brand and hopefully increase your bottom line.

 

What Are Some Types of Effective Ecommerce Content Marketing?

When developing an ecommerce content strategy, there a variety of content types at your disposal. Focus Ecommerce & Marketing can assist you with any of the following:

 

  • Blogging: Blog posts are fundamental to the majority of content marketing strategies, building customer relationships, delivering leads, and lending themselves to search engine optimization (SEO) practices.

  • Original photography: In this digital age people are unable to touch what your goods, using photography helps to make up for this fact. Create a set of images for each product, tagging them correctly will help search engines understand what you are offering. Create lifestyle shots so people can imagine wearing or using the item.

  • Video content: Videos create an immersive experience and are proven to drive up the number and size of sales. Social media channels recommend the use of video as a way of increasing engagement.

  • Product guides: These can attract more traffic to your ecommerce website as people look for more information about products and services.

  • Customer stories: Customer testimonials, reviews, case studies and user generated content.

  • Email marketing: Even just confirming orders, notifying buyers about shipping and package delivery, and doing a follow-up gives you multiple chances to communicate with customers and build relationships.

 

The most effective ecommerce strategy combines all of these elements. All brands, large and small need to invest in content marketing because it is crucial to attracting new business and staying competitive.

We can provide a comprehensive, all-in-one solution to boost your online selling presence, whether it’s to get more traffic with organic and paid searches or create unique content that meets marketing and sales goals.