Content That Helps You Sell: 9 Practical Tips for Your Store

To make content help you sell, explain whether a product is right for the customer, show important details, and provide a clear way to order. Start with the questions your sales staff hear in the store. Use them to prepare descriptions, photos, posts, and short videos. Before publishing, check the product details, price, availability, and offer terms.

For each piece of content, define one main action: view a product, ask about a size, or place an order. Track clicks, inquiries, purchases, and costs. Results from your own store will help you choose topics, formats, and publishing times. You can test the tips below gradually, starting with one product category.

1. Write for a customer with a specific need

The owner or marketer should decide who the content is for and what that person wants to find out. Shopify recommends addressing your target audience directly in product descriptions. For a store, that means starting with the customer’s situation.

For example, someone is looking for a backpack for their daily commute. They may want to know the laptop compartment dimensions, the backpack’s weight, and how easy it is to access their belongings on public transport. Gather these questions before writing.

• Ask sales staff to record recurring questions for a week.
• Review messages and questions about products.
• Choose one need for each post.
• Prepare an answer with specific product details.

Create separate content for different needs. A post about backpack capacity and care instructions may cover the same model but answer different questions.

2. Explain the value of product features and their limits

Shopify recommends explaining the benefits of each product feature. First name the feature, then show how the customer can use it in their situation. The seller should support this explanation with the product manual, manufacturer data, or their own testing.

These are illustrative examples of wording. Use them only for products with the relevant features. If a material is splash-resistant, do not promise protection in prolonged heavy rain without evidence. Limitations also help customers make a choice.

3. Give customers enough information to decide

Google suggests assessing content usefulness by whether readers get enough knowledge to meet their goal. Apply this criterion to a product page: after viewing it, can a customer choose a model, size, or configuration?

For clothing, customers may need garment measurements and fabric composition; for electronics, compatibility and included items; for furniture, dimensions and assembly requirements. The owner decides what information is needed, while the employee preparing the product page gathers it from the supplier and checks the product.

Before publishing, open the content on a phone. Make sure customers can see the price, available options, how to order, and links to payment and delivery terms. If the price depends on the configuration, explain that next to the price.

4. Start a post or video with a clear topic

For advertising videos, TikTok recommends a structure with an attention-grabbing opening, the offer’s benefits, and a clear call to action. You can try the same sequence in regular store content. Results will depend on the audience, product, and distribution method.

Consider an illustrative post about a backpack. It might begin: “Let’s see whether this backpack fits a laptop, a water bottle, and lunch.” The seller then puts the items inside, shows the compartments, and gives their dimensions. Customers immediately understand the topic and get an answer.

Prepare two opening lines. In one, name a customer question; in the other, name a specific product feature. Compare them using the same goal, such as clicks to the product page.

5. Offer one clear next step

A call to action should explain what to do and what the customer will get by doing it. On a product page, invite them to choose a size and add the item to their cart. For a comparison post, suggest viewing the models. For a more complex selection, ask them to send their requirements to a sales representative.

• “Check the measurements and choose a size on the product page.”
• “Send us your laptop model, and a sales representative will check whether it fits the compartment.”
• “Open the selection and compare the configurations.”

Before publishing, the manager checks the links and order process. If you invite customers to message the store, assign an employee to respond and state your business hours. If an offer has a deadline or limited stock, use only genuine terms and verify them before republishing.

6. Show the product from the angles customers need

Shopify recommends photographing products from several angles. Make a shot list based on customer questions: overall view, back, important detail, size, and included items. The photographer or salesperson should photograph the exact model the store is offering.

For example, show a bag from the outside, open, with items inside, and next to a ruler. Take separate photos of the clasp and strap attachment. If several colors are available, label the options and check that the photos do not give a misleading impression of the shade.

You can use stock images to illustrate general content. On a product page, customers need photos that let them assess the specific item. Before publishing, check the images on a phone: are the details visible, and is it easy to match each photo to the description?

7. Record short how-to videos

In its guide to advertising content, TikTok recommends how-to videos as a way to explain how to use a product and its benefits. For a store, this is an idea worth testing against your customers’ questions.

Choose one action: adjust a strap, fold a chair, or remove a cover. An employee demonstrates it step by step, explains any necessary conditions, and shows the result. Add readable captions for the main steps.

Before recording, check the steps against the manufacturer’s instructions. After editing, show the video to a colleague who was not involved in filming and ask them to repeat the action shown. If they need more explanation, add it to the relevant step. You can add the video to a product page and send it in response to questions.

8. Plan distribution and prepare messages for interested customers

Choose where each piece of content will appear in advance. Put a detailed description on the product page, a short demonstration on social media, and a selection with links in an email to subscribers. Adapt the length and ordering method to the channel.

In your planning sheet, record the topic, product, audience, channel, employee responsible, date, and success metric. For example, over the course of a week, prepare a comparison of two models, a video about one difference, and an email linking to the comparison. Test send times with your own audience, and take into account when the store can respond to inquiries.

For advertising messages, obtain the customer’s prior written consent, including in electronic form, and provide a simple, free way to opt out of advertising. Article 14³ of Ukraine’s Law “On Advertising” sets these conditions for using telephone numbers and other network identifiers. The State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection also explains the ban on advertising in the form of spam. Keep proof of consent and exclude anyone who has opted out before every send.

SMS (Short Message Service) and email campaigns for customers in Torgsoft

The paid add-on feature “Bulk Messaging to Customers” lets you send SMS messages and emails from Torgsoft. It works with Torgsoft Ultra and Torgsoft Terminal version 7.6.4 (database version 354) or later. The license is valid for one year: for Torgsoft Ultra, you buy one for each workstation; for Torgsoft Terminal, you buy one per server. After activation, an employee opens “Marketing → Bulk Messaging,” selects customers, prepares a template, and creates a campaign. Before sending, they check the recipients, offer terms, and links, then click “Send Message.” To schedule delivery through a supported SMS service, they configure the “Delivery Time” field and manually transfer the campaign from Torgsoft to the service.

SMS requires an account and configuration for a supported messaging service; email requires a configured sending method, such as SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). Account for the selected service’s rates and limits. Setup instructions are available in the Torgsoft help guide. Having a contact in the software does not by itself prove consent to advertising.

On the “Bulk Messaging Analysis” tab, you can select a period, accounting center, and campaign, then view the number of purchases and revenue by customer. Use this data to compare results. Purchases by recipients during the selected period do not, by themselves, show how many additional sales the message generated.

9. Check results and change one element at a time

Define your main metric before launch. For a post with a link, it could be clicks to a product; for a consultation, inquiries with the required details; for an advertising campaign, cost per order. Record costs and purchases alongside it to assess the financial result.

Google Analytics lets you tag links with UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters and see which campaigns bring visitors. These are tags in a link address: the source, medium, and campaign name. For example, for an email, you could set utm_source=newsletter, utm_medium=email, and utm_campaign=backpack_guide. An employee should check the link and analytics setup. The tags alone do not track purchases; you need to separately configure tracking for relevant actions on the website.

Illustrative example: two advertising variants each received 200 clicks. Variant A generated 8 orders; variant B generated 12. The order rate from clicks is 8 ÷ 200 × 100% = 4% and 12 ÷ 200 × 100% = 6%. If each variant cost 600 Ukrainian hryvnias (UAH), the cost per order is 600 ÷ 8 = UAH 75 and 600 ÷ 12 = UAH 50. This is the result of a specific test. Before increasing your budget, account for cancellations, returns, and profit from the orders.

For your next test, change only the headline, photo, or call to action. Keep prices, delivery terms, and comparable audiences the same. You can use Google Ads campaign experiments to test changes. Set the period, budget, and decision metric in advance. If there are too few orders or the conditions differed significantly, do not rush to declare one variant better.

How to calculate the financial result

Consider another illustrative example. You attributed 12 completed orders of UAH 1,000 each to a campaign. Revenue is UAH 12,000. The cost of goods sold is UAH 7,200, variable costs for these orders are UAH 1,200, and content preparation and advertising cost UAH 1,800. The balance after the listed costs is 12,000 − 7,200 − 1,200 − 1,800 = UAH 1,800.

This amount is not yet the store’s net profit: the example does not include fixed costs or taxes. It also does not prove that all 12 orders resulted from the content. To assess additional sales, you need a sound comparison, for example with a similar group of customers who did not receive the message.

How to organize the first week

Start with one category for which the store has products in stock, verified product details, and the capacity to process orders. If the owner handles all the tasks, keep the same sequence and reduce the number of content pieces.

Keep the plan, original product specifications, finished content, tagged links, and results sheet together. For campaigns, include proof of consent and the opt-out list. These records will help you repeat an effective process and understand what to change.

Sources

• Shopify: product description recommendations, explaining the benefits of product features, product photography.
• Google Search Central: helpful content criteria.
• TikTok for Business: advertising video structure, how-to videos and product demonstrations.
• Google: UTM parameters in Analytics, Google Ads experiments.
• Torgsoft: “Bulk Messaging to Customers” and the guide to configuring and analyzing messaging campaigns.
• Law of Ukraine “On Advertising” No. 270/96-VR, Article 14³, Parts 1–2: the ban on advertising in the form of spam, prior written consent, and free opt-out. State Service of Ukraine on Food Safety and Consumer Protection guidance on advertising messages.