We are all so used to it now that it is often easy to forget just how much the world of business and retail has been changed by the internet revolution. In the realm of retail, it’s undoubtedly the rise of the ecommerce site that has ushered in a truly new era, one that we all take for granted today.
It certainly wasn’t like that before, even if the essential business model bears some striking similarities to how things have always been. Business is still business, but it works differently these days.
One of things that marks out ecommerce sites is the way they are marketed. Now, geographical location is scarcely an issue, which means you can reach many more customers than ever before. However, those running ecommerce sites have more of a challenge standing out than the store owner of old did.
Marketing for ecommerce is only effective if it can reach the right people. Where they are doesn’t matter so much, but it’s easy to be a drop in the ocean if you don’t properly target.
The Niche, The Blog, and The Podcast
Any ecommerce site just starting out needs to find its niche. In order to do so, its marketing needs to be tailored towards a specific group of people. One of the ways ecommerce sites do that is to diversify what they offer. Most ecommerce sites today have some type of blog, and a less common (though still common) feature is the podcast.
These features offer something different to only the products that are sold and draw in traffic by offering interesting content. The trick to a successful ecommerce blog or podcast is the same: make the content relevant to the product, but not solely about it.
If the content is irrelevant to the content, then the visitors to your website might be completely uninterested in it, orif they areit will never lead to a sale. If the content of the blog or podcast is too much about the products, then it will come off as merely excessive marketing – and ignored.
So, this is the trick, but one question remains unanswered – what’s better, a podcast or a blog? The bog is certainly more popular, but that can be simply explained away by the fact that these are easier and cheaper to produce. If you have the resources for the podcast too, you might be wondering what you should go for.
Plurawl, a company producing aoc shirts as well as Hispanic T-shirts for the Latino community also produce a podcast.They say that this podcast covers issues relevant to that community – which is a form of leaning into the niche. But is it really preferable to a blog?
Podcast Versus Blog
So what is actually better? Let us look at each in turn:
Advantages of a Blog
The great advantage of a blog is that it’s easy and cheap to produce, and it can draw traffic to the site and keep visitors there once they arrive. A blog can also set out clear information about products and therefore it can be more informative – you need to listen through a podcast.
Advantages of Podcast
A podcast is more a matter of diversification, and it requires more commitment from the visitor to the site. They cannot just browse it for product info. However, a podcast can become much more popular in its own right and thereby offer a whole new reason to visit a site. A blog, on the other hand, is usually subordinate to the products.
If you still cannot decide on which is better, there is one additional option – do both!
