Leading content first growth strategy for a few good brands

Is there a better way to grow your ecommerce business?

The best practice routine of outsourcing is not healthy for business. It's not healthy for you.

It restricts creativity. And right now, that's the last thing you want to be doing.

There's a key element missing to drive real ecommerce growth. You've created products. Now create authority.

I've tried to figure out how many UK-based founders I've worked with or spoken with in my 14 year career as an ecommerce consultant (I only meant to do this as stop-gap after selling my own ecommerce business, but that's a whole other story).

It's a lot. 500+.

All making great products and delivering a good level of service to their clients. All with the same struggle... building quality audience and getting product into people's hands. Growth ambitions that don't (yet) meet marketing output.

There's a pattern that forms through those conversations - especially when you talk strategy. There is no real strategy. Lots of begrudged outsourcing to agencies. Lots of great ideas and 'we really should be doing this...' comments. But no real strategy.

And again and again I ask founders the same questions;

1. Who knows your product best?  You.
2. Who knows your customer best? You.
3. Who knows your market best? Probably you.

This is your strategy: Turn Knowledge Into Authority.

An absolute bucket-load of insights, stories, opinions, knowledge shares all ready to be extracted from your's and your team's heads and turned into valuable content.

So, what if, with all your knowledge you forget, just for a moment, about outsourcing marketing? What if you just learn how to make use the channels available to you (it's not difficult when you know how) and create the content yourself? ... and then optimise the hell out of it?

Your focus is on telling your story, sharing your view, sharing your know how, building audience and nurturing community. This is what, ultimately drives ecommerce growth as you build your brand for the long haul. I'm here to guide every step of the way.

Rather than paying out to influencers, what if you become the influencer?

You follow the steps needed to position yourself in the market as the authority in your industry.

You practice. You preach. You do the work that drives your ecommerce growth.

I know this process works. It makes you feel uncomfortable ("seriously, video?") but it just works.

We'll address the questions and hesitancies you may have;

• we're not videographers... who does the shooting and the editing?
• we're not writers... who creates the content?
• we don't have the time... so again, who is going to do the doing?

I've been running SEO for ecommerce brands for 25 years. You get to know what your audience is looking for and what Google is looking for.  I've worked with brands that have built and live off their YouTube channels and organic search. It's not about presenting the perfect curated brand. It's about being genuinely useful. It's about being found. It's about, in it's simplest terms, people buying into people & people buying from people.

Nothing is stopping you from building your authority brand.

Your job is to create a content. And beyond the confines of the bottom of the funnel. You're going upstream. Where you're answering the questions people are asking. You create a hub, whether that be within Shopify or WordPress, that centralises the entire process.  Your hub. You call it home.

Because your content strategy adopts a blended approach across Search, Social and Email, you will make full use of the channels available to you building audience where your audience lives...

• TikTok
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Google

You grow subscribers. You create community. You create interest. You build trust. You grow sales.

Content inspiration ("we're stuck for ideas on what to write about") is delivered to you on a plate as you gather valuable customer insights through;

• post-purchase qualitative questions (gold dust)
• customer reviews
• strategic keyword research
• Google Search Console
• gathering data from Google's 'People Also Ask'
• insights from your customer service team
• AI tools that interrogate search intent and keyword cluster data

You don't need to look at what the competition are doing. You'll be well ahead of their strategic thinking to be concerned. 

All through the process, and it is a process, you'll be creating valuable content that gets found (I'll take care of that part).

As your content strategy turns into action, you think of yourself as a media company. You act like a media company. A media company you monetise through physical products.

The end goal is owning your growth. Being less reliant (if you need them at all) on ads to generate artificial growth and you focus on delivering real ecommerce growth (the kind that grows your bank balance and not Zuckerberg's).

It's a tremendously intrinsic experience for you and your team knowing that the work you put out to market has a direct impact on the growth of your business. You don't get it right from the off, there is a learning curve ahead. But the feeling when you dominate the search results on Google in your niche? When you see the growth in YouTube subscribers? It's a good feeling.

My role?

I'm here to help you make this happen. It's what I do. Working with just a few brands at anyone time. I'm here to provide the direction, leadership and (hopefully) motivation to help you take a content first approach to growing your ecommerce business. . I'll deliver the strategy you need and equip you with the tools and processes so you can successfully write the articles, create the videos and (key point) distribute across channels to ensure you're reaching the right audience. People who need your products in their life.

I'll show you how to make proper use of the data you need. We'll figure out how to optimise the entire process and you'll have full access to all the necessary reports that show the impact this content-first approach is having in terms of real business objectives.

So, what's next? Get in touch using the form below or email me at [email protected] and let's see what happens when we put our heads together. I'm working with startups, early-stage brands and premium/specialist brands who are ready to fuel their next round of growth profitably and sustainably. Brands ready to build for the long haul (and have a bit of fun along the way)