Content Marketing For Subscription Businesses

Content marketing is a form of marketing that any subscription business can use to its advantage. The great news is that there are very low barriers to entry, meaning any online subscription entrepreneur can give it a go.

When done well, content marketing can help you attract new customers to your online store. It can also allow you to add value to your existing customers’ experience.

There are four main areas of content marketing that we will cover in this post:

1. What is content content marketing?
2. Content is easy in WooCommerce/WordPress.
3. What is SEO and why does it matter?
4. What’s relevant? Making sure your content adds value for customers.

What is Content Marketing?

There are many different types of content: video; images; social media specific content (Vines, Pinterest pins); sound; blogging and articles. Unless you’re a video or photoshop expert, the most accessible of these is probably blog posts.

One example of a well-known subscription businesses that makes excellent use of content for attracting new customers and improving existing customer experience is Birchbox.

Birchbox has targeted content pages for women and men, which include relevant advice (for their customers) like How to Fill in Your Brows With a Brow Pencil (video content) and Advice from a Barber (written interview).

There are many resources available online for learning more about the basics of content and content marketing. For example, you can check out the Copyblogger blog, Contently’s Content Strategist, and our friends over at WP Curve often write about content marketing.

You might also like to download Contently’s Beginner’s Guide to Blogging & Content Strategy. Just note that you have to submit a few personal and professional details if you want to get access to this full report.

Content is Easy in WooCommerce/WordPress

Luckily, if you are reading this blog, you probably use WooCommerce to power your eCommerce business. Because WooCommerce is built on WordPress—which is after all, the most popular Content Management System (CMS) on the web—publishing a blog of written and other forms of content is easy.

If you need some advice on how to get started with publishing blog posts in WordPress, you can learn how by checking out a few of these online learning resources:

1. The WordPress Codex.
2. The Treehouse Learn WordPress course
3. Educational resources from Bob Dunn at BobWP

There are many other places where you can learn more about publishing content in WordPress, so just start exploring the web to find the advice that most suits your needs.

What is SEO and Why Does it Matter?

Search Engine Optimisation—or SEO—is important for positioning your content so that search engines like Google, Bing and Yahoo find it and serve it up to your existing and potential customers. Good SEO will improve your ability to attract organic traffic to your content and (along with social media promotion) will help you build a bigger audience.

Yoast is an excellent source of SEO information and advice for WordPress and WooCommerce Websites. For example, you can check out their Definitive Guide to WordPress SEO on their website (for free).

For even more detailed information, you can invest in one of Yoast’s SEO eBooks, such as the Content SEO eBook, for just $19.

Yoast also has SEO plugins available for both WordPress and WooCommerce websites. WordPress SEO by Yoast is a great plugin for helping you optimise your SEO for each blog post. Once you have chosen your keyword you can run a page analysis and then optimise your blog post according to the advice that the plugin gives you. Remember though, the quality of your content is most important. Don’t do so much SEO optimisation that your post becomes unintelligible (or unpleasant) for your human readers.

Another useful tool for SEO is the Google AdWords Keyword Planner. You can use this tool to see how many searches a particular keyword gets each month. It can also be used to help you generate keyword ideas if you are getting stuck.

What’s Relevant? Making Sure Your Content Adds Value for Customers.

The most important factor for content marketing in your subscription business is that your content adds value for your customers. Taking into account your unique value proposition and niche, your content should be a valuable resource that improves the experience your existing customers have in your store, and helps attract new customers.

For example, The Mr Collection (a subscription business we interviewed previously) produced a blog post to give their customers advice about the Men’s Spring 2015 [Fashion] Trends. Because The Mr Collection is all about helping men be more fashionable (at a low cost!), this content adds value to that proposition and is a great bonus for their regular subscribers. It might also encourage a potential customer to sign up, because clearly The Mr Collection knows what they are doing when it comes to fashion.

Similarly,Yousli (another subscription business we’ve interviewed) publishes useful content showing customers different ways they can use their muesli products, e.g. 5 Delicious Ways to Use Your Yousli. Other content on the Yousli website includes recipes, nutritional information and other resources that relate to their mission of getting food lovers excited about breakfast again.

Content Marketing for Subscription Businesses, Made Easy 

While content marketing is a great tool for any online business, it can be especially beneficial for subscriptions businesses, who by nature develop an ongoing relationship with their customers.

As long as you focus on creating relevant content that is useful for your existing and potential customers—and pay attention to important factors like SEO—over time you should start reaping the rewards of content marketing. These include improved brand perceptions, attracting new customers, and engendering the loyalty of your existing customers.