Today, eCommerce is more important for brands than ever. With physical limitations in place for the foreseeable future, having a strong online presence is crucial. 

Your eCommerce platform needs to accurately reflect your business and its values, as well as your services or products. But it also needs to adhere to industry standards. With Google Search recently announcing it will be favoring websites with great UX, now is the time to translate the positive experience your customers have with you and your products into a positive user experience, or UX, on your website.

Fortunately, we are all in “an environment where imagination and technical ability, not wealth, are the only barriers.” That means if you’re driven and committed to succeeding online, you can. 

Here are six actionable tips for how to take your apparel brand online.

Choose a clean, simple design

For a strong first impression, choose a clean, minimal theme for your website. This makes it easier for customers to immediately identify your central product(s) and ethos. If your brand already has a visual identity in terms of colors, patterns or textures, these should be incorporated into your website’s design. This is key to creating a positive brand experience. It also gives your returning customers the assurance that they’re in the right place. New customers will feel confident when they see this consistency across your website, social media pages and in photos of your operations. With this consistency, you’re sending a visual message that this same commitment to quality translates to your products or services. A streamlined homepage also ensures a faster load time for your website, which is another crucial element of good UX, especially when considering the fact that 57% of visitors will leave a website if it takes longer than 3 seconds to load.

Have a strong logo and high-quality photos

Make it clear who you are by putting your logo front and center on your homepage. It should be high resolution and scalable for mobile. Test your website on as many different devices as possible—on desktop and mobile, as well as tablets and Android and iPhone devices. This will help you identify and minimize any bugs. It may sound obvious, but by taking the time to brand your eCommerce store consistently and clearly, you’re ensuring it communicates the same level of professionalism that you have in every one of your client interactions. Represent your products and services well with clear, high quality and relevant photos. Clients will be much more likely to place an order if they know exactly what they’re getting. If you can, invest in original photography, instead of stock photography. It’s another way to stand out among your competitors, and adds a personal touch.

Be mindful of your SEO

Alongside your quality photos, you’ll need descriptions of your products or services. These should be short and sweet, and employ sound SEO tactics. Try to strike a balance between natural language and industry terminology. You want to attract people who are looking for your services and products, but not drive people away who may be unfamiliar with the lingo. Whatever you do, don’t go overboard and jam a bunch of jargony search terms in a sentence. Google can and does punish websites that try to trick the system with keyword overload. So remember, like your visual design, clean and simple is key.

Have an awesome ‘about’ page

Clients and customers want to know and trust the people behind the brands they’re supporting. They are searching for brands whose values align with their own. This doesn’t mean you need to divulge your life story on your website (unless it’s relevant to your business). But a few personal touches can go a long way in garnering loyal clients. Let them get to know you by adding an ‘About’ page to your eCommerce platform, and share a bit about who you are and what you do. We recommend adding staff photos and short biographies for your ‘higher profile’ employees.

Ensure your website is mobile-friendly

Nowadays we use our cellphones for almost everything, so you can be sure a lot of your clients will be coming to you that way. More than half of online shoppers make purchases using a mobile device, so while you spend hours sharpening your desktop site, ensure you also pay attention to how it scales, and optimize each page for mobile. Users who have a negative experience in your mobile store are said to be 62% less likely to purchase from you in the future. So try to ensure your mobile site loads as smoothly and quickly as possible. An effective, simple and cost-effective way to do this is by implementing a Progessive Web App (PWA) to your mobile site, which replicates the app experience on a mobile browser, for a fraction of the cost and commitment of a Native App. Learn more about PWAs in our recent blogs.

Keep track of your analytics

Once your website is up and running, keep track of its performance via analytics, and adjust where necessary. Not getting many visitors for a certain product or service? Try adjusting your SEO in that area by researching the latest popular search terms and updating your copy. Ensure you keep your website up to date with any new services or products you add, and consider adding these to your homepage, for visibility. It pays to check in regularly on how your website is performing. Consider making a calendar reminder for yourself to look at your analytics. Keeping your SEO strong will help keep your business strong, too.

Conclusion

By taking the time to get the basics right, you’ll be well on your way to having a successful eCommerce platform for your apparel business. Represent your brand online as you would in-person—with your unique style, care and attention to detail. If you’d like some extra help with taking your apparel brand online, click here to speak to a member of our team.

Your apparel and accessories eCommerce’s main communication with customers is through your webstore’s content. Content encompasses all the digital assets (written copy, images, graphics and videos) created for a brand whether it is for your website, social media, text messages or emails. Consumers prefer companies that have content that not only is memorable but adds some type of value to their lives. Having a successful and efficient content strategy will put your brand a step above your competitors. In this guide, you will learn different content strategy tactics to improve your apparel and accessories eCommerce.

Create a Content Marketing Funnel

It’s best to have a content marketing funnel that will guide you and your customers. A content funnel visualizes the process or journey that potential customers go through while making a purchase decision. This content marketing funnel splits into three main sections: the top of the funnel, the middle of the funnel and the bottom of the funnel. Each section has a specific purpose and action that it pushes your customers to perform.

 Top of the Funnel (TOFU)

The top of the content funnel is where you grab your customers’ attention. The main focus of the TOFU is to show brand awareness and increase site traffic. To show brand awareness, you’ll want to include content with value that answer questions or solve problems. The main content of this section of the funnel includes blog posts, videos, podcasts, social media updates and infographics. As a way to increase site traffic, your company needs to consider implementing email marketing and social media marketing to gain a wide range of customers.

Middle of the Funnel (MOFU)

Once customers know your brand and have received some type of free value, it’s time to convert them into a lead. The middle of the funnel is where your company focuses on lead generation and building a deeper relationship with your customers by creating content that educates and informs. You can build trust by sending personalized emails to your shoppers. Educating and informing customers can come in many forms like offers, your brand’s story, shipping or return guidelines. The type of content you will use in this section of the funnel includes white papers, ebooks, reports, studies, quizzes, webinars, guides and emails.

Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU)

The bottom of the funnel persuades leads to complete a purchase. Conversions through a paid service or product by using personalized content is the main focus of the BOFU. It takes more than just building a relationship with your customers to gain a sale. The BOFU is also where your webstore should utilize discounts and offers to convert shoppers into leads. Customer reviews, promo codes, discounts and demos are types of content you will see in this section of the funnel. 

Once you have a solid content marketing funnel, you will have an easier time reaching a larger audience. Creating a successful content funnel can be tedious and time-consuming, that’s why we recommend working with a marketing firm that understands and can implement an efficient content funnel.

Focus on Value

Focusing on value is where you understand where your customer is coming from and what they are looking for. Simply put, you need to understand what they ‘value’. This is the first step in building a deeper connection with your audience. Instead of sending out emails and posts that are promotion-heavy, create content that can help your brand gain credibility. One of the ways your eCommerce webstore can focus on value is to tell interesting stories through customer reviews, videos and influencers using your products. By creating an interesting story about your apparel company, you are allowing customers to relate and build a deeper relationship.

Keep Content Concise, Compelling and Impactful

Your apparel and accessories brand will communicate with your customers through content. This communication needs to include all aspects of your brand, any discounts or any other relevant information. The best way to communicate to your customers  all the elements your company needs to display is by keeping your content concise and compelling yet impactful. Users don’t want to spend too much time trying to find the product or information they are looking for. Ideally, they want the information in 30 seconds of less. However, this doesn’t mean you have to abandon creative assets. Instead, your brand needs to have a way to create content that is memorable and fun but still has an impact on your customers. You’ll want all your content to persuade shoppers to purchase. 

Schuler Shoes has a great example of content that is concise, compelling yet impactful:

Create Shoppable Social Media Content

Shoppable social media content can give your company an additional channel from which to make  sales. Social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest allow customers to shop for products from the original post. Just as a reference of how powerful shoppable posts are, over 130 million users tap and shop on shoppable Instagram posts per month. While creating any type of shoppable content on social media, you need to include clear call-to-action like buy now or shop now. Also, include enticing and memorable written copy, videos or photos. We know that social media isn’t for every company; however, if you want tips on how to improve your social media platforms, keep reading here.

Use Email Marketing Personalization

80% of customers are more likely to complete a purchase from a company that offers personalized experiences. A great way to offer your customers this personalized experience is through email marketing personalization. Creating a personalized email doesn’t mean you have to individually design every email to cater specifically to each customer. Instead, you can personalize an email’s content based on demographics, geological location and what the customer has viewed or bought in the past. Emails like cart abandonment and seasonal themes or promotions work well with personalization. These types of emails not only give customers a personalized experience but also give them an action to complete. To make email marketing easier, you can work with a knowledgeable marketing firm or utilize one of the many email marketing extensions that can help you manage your emails and their performance.

Improve Customer Service

Content doesn’t end with social media posts, emails and your website, instead, it also boosts  your brand’s customer service. The outcomes, whether it is a positive or negative interaction, of your brand’s customer service affect how shoppers view your company. 78% of consumers have backed out of a purchase due to negative customer service. So how does an apparel webstore have great customer service through content? In general, customers want content that answers questions on multiple channels including mobile, emails and social media. The answers to these questions shouldn’t take long and should in turn help the user. Studies show that 40% of customers want information, answers, offers and deals from chatbots. These chatbots give them automatic answers without having to wait a long time for real customer service representatives to solve any of their issues. 

Conclusion

Your webstore’s content encompasses many different elements of your company. These were just some of the content strategy tactics to help improve your apparel and accessories eCommerce. There are many more ways that content can help your brand increase traffic and sales. To discover the best content strategy tactics for your company, contact us today.