SEO vs Content: Why you should stop trying to second-guess Google
The science of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) has changed dramatically since the early days, where it was de rigeur to employ a series of techniques to attempt to fool – or at east second-guess – the search engines. And this can only really be a good thing for everyone using the internet, as it makes results more relevant to the searcher.
Google has been at the head of the pack as across the board, the search giants have upped their game in terms of weeding out those sites that have resorted to an array of “black-hat” tricks to improve their search ranking. The upshot of all this is that a successful SEO strategy has to be underpinned by a solid content strategy.
Having said that, there is still a generation of content producers and marketers who remain entrenched in the SEO doctrine of a decade ago. And this explains the still frequent emails in circulation that offer “an ideal” reciprocal linking or link sharing opportunity.
Search engines have been onto this tactic for some time, and cheap links, especially in any quantity, are easily detectable. Of course, good quality links are still a powerful SEO tool, but anyone foolish enough to resort to “old-fashioned” link harvesting techniques is more likely to find they have a negative effect on their search ranking. So, while it is still crucial to make sure that basic SEO best practice is followed in the design and creation of a website, today the key weapon in a brand’s SEO armoury is content.
But not just any content.
Your focus has to be on creating good, quality content that is engaging for its target audience. This means that an over-reliance on keywords and SEO-dictionary constructs that say very little to anybody are out. Whereas content that centres on relevancy and reality is very much in. The importance of investing in strong, link- and share-worthy content cannot be overestimated. And the right editorial resource will know how to write for an audience, and not just for a search engine.
Relevant content and real people is the backbone of Google’s approach. This was highlighted by the fabled ‘Penguin’ release of last summer that promised to downgrade the rankings of companies that are seen to deliberately outrank the ranking algorithms.
We live in a world where supposedly half of Justin Beiber’s twitter followers are inactive accounts, and Facebook’s monthly active user measurement continues to take significant hits both in the US and UK, as spam, spurious and suspicious accounts are weeded out the system.
So, if they’re closing in on faked social media, surely that means that all conscious SEO efforts are also on decidedly shaky ground. Except that is for the writing, designing and recording of relevant, real and rewarding content that is created with a specific audience in mind.
So the new SEO message is simple: “keep it real”. And lets leave the cowboys where they belong – in stories.
Choosing a Commerce Platform
Choosing an e-commerce platform can be a very complex and painful ordeal and have left many with “buyers remorse”. The reason why companies falter is primarily because they rely on some very old and traditional techniques in selecting commerce platforms
The traditional parameters that are applied by business and technology executive have followed classical approach that has proven acceptable when it comes to enterprise wide systems like ERP, CRM packages. The decision-making framework is usually based on 3 key points
• Functionality/Features
• Cost
• Technology
In the classical approach the process of selection and the complexity of balanced scorecard depended on the size of the initiative, budget etc. but essentially addressed – which system/platforms gives me functionalities and features I need to run the business at the least possible cost (total cost of ownership) on a technology that is scalable and would be easy to source for professional services
The key to success in traditional technology selection was primarily based on how good the executives grasped their business requirements, budgetary constraints and their understanding of the technology landscape. The chances of going wrong minimized progressively as companies and executives traversed the learning curve.
The roles that business and technology executives played in the traditional platform selection was also very well defined, business laid out the functional requirements and features, while technology folks focused on technology, architecture and professional services. The budgeting exercise was collaborative in many cases or left to technology executives to be approved by business executives
When Conventional Approach is not Enough…
So it was but natural that business executives leaned on the same model and their friends in IT department of the company when it came to implementing e-commerce platform.
Very few business executives (marketing and sales organization) and even fewer technology executives realized that in selection of e-commerce or multi channel commerce the business requirements are neither easy to articulate or finite. There are endless possibilities, which are only constrained by time, and money it would take to implement/incorporate. The traditional framework in selecting such platforms will not work because
- Business requirements are hard to define and are amorphous
- One time cost of implementation dwarfs in comparison to ongoing cost of keeping the platform aligned to business needs
- Technology criteria though still same (scalable, easy to find etc.) is not that complex since most of the platforms are either Java based or ZEND based and can interface with any or most 3rd party system
In our experience we have found that applying inverted of traditional framework will usually give companies better result
Here is how this works
- Figure out the budget
- Prioritize your business needs
- Select platform and allied professional services that gives you maximum bang for your investment
Cost of platform is finite and many a times one time or annual and its capabilities in terms basic functionalities will not significantly alter over its lifetime, the most volatile will be professional services and its associated cost.
The good news is that you can always change your professional services vendor. What to look for in a professional services vendor is a story for some other day, but for now let us focus on selection of platform, and it doesn’t take a genius to guess that a platform that gives you the flexibility to customize, integrate and extend at the lowest cost of ownership and which is based on a technology that is easy and inexpensive to procure
Holy Grail
Never implement something that is too expensive to change (customize), integrate and implement. Don’t be tempted by open source systems as it may end up costing you a limb to implement and maintain, further it will be entirely up to you to keep on adding functionalities that you believe are critical for your success, again at a relatively higher cost than you would get from a packaged platform
Don’t spend all your money in implementation, allocate at-least 50% or more of budget to upgrade and enhancement of the system on a ongoing basis, you will see that such a strategy will help your system be in line with your business goals. E-Commerce system is not an ERP, which does the same thing every single day; it is a dynamic platform that you use to sell your products and services to your customers
Don’t get blindsided by the technology it is overrated
Content driven commerce and the rise of digital integration
It may seem like a bold claim, but the days of budget-busting ecommerce partnerships, where an international retailer would be expecting to pay in the region of 20%-30% of its revenue to a large roster of agencies and technology companies simply to keep its online presence running are over, all thanks to the rise of digital integration.
Up until now, there has been a fundamental disconnect within the ecommerce industry. The problem being that while creative agencies can design a great-looking site with good content, they are let down by their technology skills when it comes to actually building the site. Meanwhile, tech companies and ecommerce platform providers can build a secure, reliable and functional site, but often, despite many claiming to the contrary they have little eye for the creative or more importantly ‘the’ perfect user experience.
On top of this you have another problem, the multitude of smaller 3rd party solutions that now compliment the traditional ecommerce platforms; social, mobile, private sales, market places, personalisation, outfit builders, in store assisted selling, shoppable digital catalogues, mobile payments, the list goes on and on and believe me neither the creative agencies or the tech companies can design or build all of these solutions to the degree of quality that’s needed to succeed in todays uber competitive online economy.
Oh yes and by the way, who’s going to drive traffic to the site once it’s built.? Who’s going to run the digital marketing in it’s dozen or so different guises: PPC, SEO, affiliates, email, retargeting, links, video, social, etc. that’s another half a dozen companies for the poor unfortunate aforementioned retailer to work with.
Is anyone keeping count..?
This leaves brands facing either an inevitable compromise before they’ve even started, or the looming spectre of having to work alongside a minimum of 8 best-in-class agency and tech companies to cover all the essential aspects of ecommerce: platform build; creative; content; mobile; and digital marketing. An often costly and resource consuming avenue for them to pursue.
Panic over, new companies are appearing in the market – like Group FMG – that offer a full end-to-end ecommerce service, which enables retailers to keep everything from defining online strategy, planning and creating content, to building the multi channel solution including its many various components and then helping to run it – all under one roof.
And this would appear to be reflecting a global brand-side trend. In the past 6 months we’ve seen a growing number of client pitches looking for a single agency to handle all content production and then it’s distribution across multiple channels, by one team and from one central location.
Not only are new markets coming online and opening up all the time, but consumers are becoming increasingly demanding in terms of their shopping experience. This means that retailers have to focus on taking a creative and inspirational approach to their sites. And by this we don’t just mean building a pretty and well presented website, this is about driving inspiration into the shopper journey. Ultimately bringing the online and offline shopping experiences closer together. The economies of scale offered by taking an integrated approach mean that retailers’ ecommerce budgets can be pushed elsewhere to help them do this.
Thankfully, today, working with a truly integrated ecommerce partner means that inspirational, interactive, multi-channel, multi-national retail no longer has to cost and arm and a leg; providing of course that you are prepared to think smart.
Geoff Wright is the head of ecommerce at Group FMG/Pod1
Why tablets represent the most seismic shift in publishing since the late eighties
The explosion of tablet usage is having huge implications for any industry that relies heavily on content – both online and offline. However, for the publishing industry it represents possibly the biggest challenge it has faced since the arrival of desktop publishing in the eighties. The impact of the tablet could well not only completely change the way publishers work, but also offer a real lifeline for what is a struggling business model.
Recently released stats by The Guardian show the scale of the shift, with 35% of its site visits now coming from mobile and tablet platforms – up from 10% less than two years ago. Of these, 94% are on the iPad.
From a pure production perspective, this means that it has never been more important for publishers to offer users a tailored and quality tablet experience. However, simply replicating a magazine on the tablet is not the way forward, not least because the smaller format means users find themselves zooming in and out to read the pages. Ultimately, this becomes a cumbersome and unrewarding experience.
On the other hand, completely redesigning a magazine as a bespoke iPad app can be hugely expensive and also time consuming; almost prohibitively so. This lack of choice has been extremely restrictive for publishers particularly if they have to do this on a weekly or monthly basis. But it is clearly something that they need to address, and fast.
Having worked closely with a number of leading publishers for many years, importing magazines over to this new format is an issue we have been helping brands solve with increasing regularity. One client, What Car? magazine, has been looking to embrace the growth of tablets for some time and is currently replicating a version of its magazine using a basic ‘page turner’ for its iPad app. The publisher has been forced down this route due to not being able to justify the cost of creating a bespoke app on a monthly basis.
However, we have been able to create a third alternative, which rather than replicating the magazine’s content, enables the title to repurpose what it already has and optimise it for use on the platform – both in terms of physical fit and in terms of the integration of interactivity. This creates a much more engaging experience for the end user, and the result is a product that has 80% of the interactivity of a bespoke app, but is created with 20% of the effort.
Although some titles may be able to warrant the cost of producing a bespoke app, the reality is that the vast majority of magazines can’t invest the necessary levels of cash upfront. This means publishers are crying out for a solution that enables them to ease themselves into the app market and decide whether they can afford to create a bespoke app. However, for those looking to effectively handle this shift, at the moment it’s not about replication or redesign, it’s about repurposing.
Of course, the shift to tablets is also having a huge impact for advertisers. As a case in point, a few months back News International announced plans to roll out a new advertising model – which it described as “a pioneering approach … that breaks down traditional barriers between print and digital”. The idea being that the publisher will automatically translate print creative to digital format allowing print advertisers access to its “full range of digital editions”.
While there are huge efficiencies and cost-saving opportunities in automating this process, the move seems to still be missing a further opportunity, one that stretches beyond simply taking an ad and automatically dropping it into a digital publication. That is for the advertisers to be able to do more with these ads.
Most people in the industry realise that the advent of digital ads in mobile environments is a real game changer for the whole industry. However, simply presenting cut down versions of print ads is only the beginning of the story and the start of the opportunity in terms of what can be done, because of the different way people interact with a digital publication compared to a printed version.
By making ads interactive or linking them to other content, or even directly to e-commerce channels, publishers finally have the opportunity to start to give advertisers answers to challenges that they have been setting since day one; namely proving a return on investment.
Our role is to guide publishers as they adapt to the changing needs of their audience and make sure that when they do manage the transition from print to digital they ensure that what they produce – from ads to editorial content – is fit for purpose. And this is without doubt the biggest challenge they have faced in some time.
Andy Berg is commercial director – publishing at Group FMG
The cost-effective future of e-commerce
It may seem like a bold claim, but the days of budget-busting e-commerce partnerships are over – all thanks to the rise of digital integration.
International retailers who would once expect to pay in the region of 20%-30% of their revenue to a large roster of agencies and technology companies simply to maintain their online presence can now look forward to a much more cost-efficient future.
Until now, there has been a fundamental disconnect within the e-commerce industry. While creative agencies can design a great-looking site with good content, they are let down by their technology skills when it comes to actually building it. Meanwhile, tech companies and e-commerce platform providers can build a secure, reliable and functional site, but often (despite many claiming to the contrary) they have little eye for the creative or, more importantly, the perfect user experience.
And then there’s another problem: the multitude of smaller 3rd party solutions that now compliment the traditional e-commerce platforms. From social, mobile, private sales, marketplaces and personalisation to outfit builders, in-store assisted selling, shoppable digital catalogues, mobile payments and more, the list of solutions goes on and on. Neither the creative agencies nor the tech companies can deliver these to the degree of quality needed to succeed in today’s über-competitive online economy.
Then there’s the question of who will drive traffic to the site and run the digital marketing in its many different guises? PPC, SEO, affiliates, email, retargeting, links, video, social; that’s already another half a dozen extra companies for the retailer to work with – and pay for.
Is anyone keeping count?
This leaves brands facing either an inevitable compromise before they’ve even started, or the looming spectre of having to work alongside a minimum of 8 best-in-class agency and tech companies to cover all the essential aspects of e-commerce: platform build, creative, content, mobile and digital marketing. This is of course often a costly and resource-consuming approach for them to pursue.
But these days are coming to an end. New companies like Group FMG are appearing in the market who offer a full end-to-end e-commerce service, enabling retailers to keep everything – from defining online strategy and planning and creating content, to building a multi channel solution with its many components, and then helping to run it – all under one roof.
And this would appear to be reflecting a global brand-side trend. In the past 6 months we’ve seen a growing number of client pitches looking for a single agency to handle all content production and then its distribution across multiple channels by one team and from one central location.
Not only are new markets coming online and opening up all the time, but consumers are becoming increasingly demanding in terms of their shopping experience. This means that retailers have to focus on taking a creative and inspirational approach to their sites. And by this, we don’t just mean building a pretty and well presented website – this is about driving inspiration into the shopper journey and ultimately bringing the online and offline shopping experiences closer together. The economies of scale offered by taking an integrated approach mean that retailers’ e-commerce budgets can be pushed elsewhere to help them do this.
Thankfully today, working with a truly integrated e-commerce partner means that inspirational, interactive, multi-channel, multi-national retail no longer has to cost and arm and a leg; providing of course that retailers are prepared to think smart.
Geoff Wright is the head of e-commerce at Group FMG/Pod1
The evolution of storytelling: why retailers and brands need to create a unified multi-channel content experience
The rapid pace of change within the consumer technology sector has left many marketers struggling to keep pace. With so many different devices and channels available, making sure you are sending out consistent messaging across all your channels and effectively managing information and associated rich media assets, such as photos and videos, for all of your products is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today. Now more than ever, brands and retailers need to think like publishers and explore their workflows, publishing tools and business models to deliver their content consistently to the right media channels at the right time… and for most these aren’t necessarily skills that come naturally.
Managing customer-facing content has evolved into an extremely complex process, driven in no small part by the fact that consumer expectations have risen exponentially. We now all want to be able to see the same content and have the same level of experience and engagement whether we are viewing a website or webshop on a laptop, a tablet or a smart phone.
To be able to cope with this, retailers and brands need to have a fully integrated approach to their content marketing, which covers all the channels they operate in, and ensures their story is told not only in an interactive way, but also a consistent way. Once an overall content strategy has been created – which will be very much determined by your business objectives – only then can you focus on individual platforms and look at distributing your content across all channels.
A key part of this process involves putting in place a detailed editorial plan to ensure that customers are taken on an engaging journey and that the right content is distributed across the right channels. Too many of today’s brands have lost track of where they came from and what made them special. Many have got so caught up in “selling things” that they have forgotten that people buy from brands they like, and it’s hard to like something if you don’t know anything about it – or, worse, don’t care about it. Since time began people have been captivated and inspired by great stories. Brands need to employ the old tried and trusted rules of story telling to get their message across, and focus on creating characters and get caught up in a storyline they can get caught up in. And, as stated above, you need to remember you’re not just telling your story through words, but also pictures, video, info graphics, competitions and even coupons.
So what’s all the fuss about? Effectively managing multi-channel content is crucial to your business on two distinct levels:
• Done correctly, it is one of the most effective forms of marketing: firstly, because it is pull rather than push marketing; secondly, because it drives engagement and word of mouth; and, thirdly, because it takes customers on a real and seamless journey of discovery through your brand.
• On top of this, it is hugely cost and time efficient as it means you simply create the content once and then distribute it across all relevant channels rather than constantly being forced to re-invent the wheel. For example, a video shoot can also involve photography that can be used across digital, mobile and print, driving return on investment and ensuring you get the most value from your marketing activities.
So, how can marketers effectively handle multichannel content?
Before you do anything, decide on your business objectives first, what is it that you want your content to achieve?
Only then can you drill down to focus on the individual channels. Furthermore, you need to remember that relevancy is critical; if your content isn’t relevant for any particular channel it will just get lost, or worse ignored.
Once you’ve made it that far, it’s about systems and people; making sure that your team understands how to manage, create and distribute content and that they have the technologies in place to manage this. Ultimately, effectively managing your content flow is also about process management.
For most businesses, the content they produce is for their customers, and the harsh reality is that if these people aren’t getting the information they need from your online systems, they will simply go somewhere else. As the competition for people’s attention becomes more fiercely contested online and people demand more of their online experience, so getting your content in order is becoming increasingly important to your business.
Julia Hutchison is head of content at group FMG and former COO of the Content Marketing Association
How to tell the perfect brand story
We all love a good story. It’s part of our make-up. Part of our DNA. Before the advent of modern communciations, stories were the only way that we were able to impart information to each other. And against the clamour of marketing messages across a rapidly increasing number of channels in today’s marketplace, that ancient art of storytelling has never been more important.
People are tired of being talked at; and instead are desperate to be valued and engaged. A great story will do this. It will also fire emotions and will motivate people into action. Essentially, if you engage people in this way you can get them to do anything. Put simply, and in terms marketers can understand, the most successful brands tell their consumers compelling stories and the best stories win.
While on the surface, every brand’s story appears different, there are a number of core steps you can take to ensure you tell yours in a way that will make it stand out and really connect with your audience.
1/ Understand your story
Starting with the obvious… every story has a beginning, middle and end. Either side of that you have a conflict and resolution or a problem and solution.
Start with a call to action, something that sets the characters and action in motion. This is your opportunity to get the reader’s attention and give them a reason to keep reading
Then move onto your conflict (or problem). This needs to be some sort of challenge that the main characters face and are able to resolve at the end of the story before gaining closure and living happily ever after.
One key area where people fall short with their story telling is creating a conflict and resolution which seemingly have no connection to each other. Often this comes from trying to be too clever with your storylines… so keep it simple.
2/ Choose your plot
We all think our stories are original and different, but the reality is there are just seven key story archetypes – and it doesn’t matter if you’re Spielberg or Shakespeare. The challenge for brands is to find out which archetype best suits their brand, and then skillfully, believably and carefully weave their story around this.
The seven basic plotlines are:
• Overcoming the Monster. think everything from Beowulf to David and Goliath to Star Wars.
• Rebirth. A story of renewal, so Sleeping Beauty, A Christmas Carol or The Secret Garden.
• Quest. A mission from point A to point B. The Lord of the Rings is the classic example. But also The Odyssey and Watership Down fall into this category.
• Journey and Return. A story about transformation through travel and homecoming. Alice in Wonderland The Third Man and The Time Machine are all examples of this arhcetype.
• Rags to Riches. Cinderella, Aladdin and Great Expectations all capture this essence of this.
• Tragedy. From the Greeks through Shakespeare, these are stories of the dark side of humanity and the futile nature of human experience. Think Macbeth, Bonnie & Clyde and Julius Caesar.
• Comedy. The antithesis of tragedy, is perhaps the hardest to do well, but is hugely popular and effective when done correctly.
3/ Observe the rule of three
Wikipedia defines the rule of three as “a writing principle that suggests that things that come in threes are inherently funnier, more satisfying, or more effective than other numbers of things. The reader or audience of this form of text is also more likely to consume information if it is written in groups of threes. From slogans (“Go, fight, win!”) to films, many things are structured in threes.”
Think: The Three Stooges, Three Little Pigs, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Three Blind Mice.
A series of three often creates a progression in which the tension is created, built up, and finally released. Similarly, adjectives are often grouped in threes to emphasise an idea.
The American Declaration of Independence is a perfect example of how to use this in practice: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
4/ Choose your medium
Today it’s not just about the written word, you have a number of other effective media at your disposal through which to convey your message – audio, video and photographic are increasingly important, especially as the web becomes more powerful. All of these different media will affect how you tell your story. So make sure you know what media you intend to use and how your message is going to port across into these formats.
5/ Keep ‘em guessing
Andrew Stanton the director of Hollywood blockbuster WALL-E sums this up perfectly: “Don’t give the audience 4, give them 2 plus 2.”
Or in other words don’t give your readers on a plate, let them work stuff our for themselves. This makes for a much more enjoyable and engaging experience overall.
Why brands and retailers need to rise quickly to the challenge of multi-channel content
With so many different channels of communication available, ensuring you are getting the right message to the right people, at the right time has never been more complex. Julia Hutchison looks at how and why marketers should invest time and energy in getting their web content strategies in place.
The rapid pace of change within the consumer technology sector has left many marketers struggling to keep pace. With so many different devices and channels available, making sure you are sending out consistent messaging across all your channels and effectively managing information and associated rich media assets, such as photos and videos, for all of your products is one of the biggest challenges facing marketers today. Now more than ever, brands and retailers need to think like publishers and explore their workflows, publishing tools and business models to deliver their content consistently to the right media channels at the right time… and for most these aren’t necessarily skills that come naturally.
Managing customer facing content has evolved into an extremely complex process, driven in no small part by the fact that consumer expectations have risen exponentially. We now all want to be able to see the same content and have the same level of experience and engagement whether we are viewing a website or webshop on a laptop, a tablet or a smart phone.
To be able to cope with this, retailers and brands need to have a fully integrated approach to their content marketing, which covers all the channels they operate in, and ensures their story is told not only in an interactive way, but also a consistent way. Once an overall content strategy has been created – which will be very much determined by your business objectives – only then can you focus on individual platforms and look at distributing your content across all channels.
A key part of this process involves putting in place a detailed editorial plan to ensure that customers are taken on an engaging journey and that the right content is distributed across on the right channels. And, as stated above, you need to remember that this content isn’t just words, but also pictures, video, info graphics, content to share, competitions and even coupons.
So what’s all the fuss about? Effectively managing multi-channel content is crucial to your business on two distinct levels:
• Done correctly, it is one of the most effective forms of marketing: firstly, because it is pull rather than push marketing; secondly, because it drives engagement and word of mouth; and, thirdly, because it takes customers on a real and seamless journey of discovery through your brand.
• On top of this, it is hugely cost and time efficient as it means you simply create the content once and then distribute it across all relevant channels rather than constantly being forced to re-invent the wheel. For example, a video shoot can also involve photography that can be used across digital, mobile and print, driving return on investment and ensuring you get the most value from your marketing activities.
So, how can marketers effectively handle multichannel content?
Before you do anything, decide on your business objectives first, what is it that you want your content to achieve? Only then can you drill down to focus on the individual channels. Furthermore, you need to remember that relevancy is critical; if your content isn’t relevant for any particular channel it will just get lost, or worse ignored.
Once you’ve made it that far, it’s about systems and people; making sure that your team understands how to manage, create and distribute content and that they have the technologies in place to manage this. Ultimately, effectively managing your content flow is also about process management.
For most businesses, the content they produce is for their customers, and the harsh reality is that if these people aren’t getting the information they need from your online systems, they will simply go somewhere else. As the competition for people’s attention becomes more fiercely contested online and people demand more of their online experience, so getting your content in order is becoming increasingly important to your business.
Julia Hutchison is head of content at group FMG and former COO of the Content Marketing Association
Why content and ecommerce are the perfect fit
One of today’s digital truisms is that the websites consumers visit most often and spend the most time on are the ones they find most enjoyable and valuable. From an e-commerce perspective, the sites where consumers buy the most are those that carry engaging content that keeps them coming back until they are ready to buy. These sites understand that consumers want useful information and not just a sales pitch.
Increasingly, we expect more from our online shopping experience and e-commerce sites need to reflect the fact that a large number of visitors shop because they enjoy the experience not always because they want to buy. To create and leverage when creating a unique brand personality that excites visitors and differentiates your site from the competition. “Good” content will help bring in more warm prospects and help you build relationships with them; and ultimately convert them to sales.
But what exactly is “good” content? Once it was enough to have a few high-resolution images on your site and a blog to share your views, but as user experience has become increasingly important, shoppers are looking for more compelling content. This is where regularly updated magazine-style articles across a range of different media – video, audio and written – can and will play an increasingly important role in e-commerce. Not only does it allow you to build a closer bond with your customers by giving them the content that they are interested in and that reflects their lifestyles and interests, but it also allows you to upsell and cross-sell to your shoppers – not that I’m in any way advocating that content should be sales driven.
There are some great examples out there of retailers using content in this way; Net-a-Porter is still held up as one of the leading examples. Founder Natalie Massanet – a former fashion editor of Vogue – uses the content as a key driver for sales across the site. Not only does the site offer a rich mix of media it also provides sections covering areas such as new arrivals and trends, helping to engage the viewer and push them to purchase items that they wouldn’t otherwise be browsing.
For maximum impact, it’s crucial that all this content is searchable and linked to the relevant items so shoppers can get the most benefit from this functionality. By using content in this way your average e-commerce site ceases to be just a shop window or glorified catalogue, but instead becomes a powerful sales tool that draws people back and directs them to new and interesting things to buy.
However, there are two key challenges that retailers need to address before they can successfully move down this route: The first is relevance. Any content you deliver needs to be relevant to your customer otherwise they will just dismiss it. You need to know your customer and know what they are interested in.
The second is having the skill set to develop the content. Natalie Massanet came from a magazine background, and has continued to develop her editorial team along those lines, hiring former Esquire editor Jeremy Langmead and Lucy Yeomans of Harper’s Bazaar to drive the Mr Porter and Net-a-Porter brands forward. The reality is that unless you’re a company like Sony that has its own editorial team, the chances are that you won’t have these skills in-house. So this means either buying this in or finding a partner to work with.
Whichever way you go, get it right and it can be one of the most powerful tools you as a retailer have to keep you customers coming back for more.
Shopping cart abandonment
If customer interaction is the moment of truth for a brand, successful transaction is the moment of truth for the business model behind that brand. Incomplete transactions due to shopping cart abandonment is one of the key pains of the ecommerce business model.
Customers abandon their shopping cart for a number of reasons, but the results are the same – lost revenue. In 2011, the revenue loss from abandoned shopping carts amounted to US $18 billion and it’s been growing since then.
Ecommerce businesses invest considerable money and effort to attract and interact with their prospects, leading them to a shopping cart. Yet statistics suggest almost 75 per cent of prospects abandon their carts without completing the transaction.
At Group FMG, our approach to building powerful ecommerce business models is with four fundamental aspects – attract, interact, transact & react. These four aspects guide content in the online mode. Brands need to attract consumers to their website using strategically crafted marketing mix consisting online and offline channels, then interact with them through relevant personalisation, provide a B2B or a B2C commerce platform to transact upon and then react based on consumer experience and user feedback. With the right blend of these four aspects and channels, we help brand and customers build effective and engaging solutions.
How to reduce the shopping cart abandonment rate?
There are four broad factors that make customers abandon their shopping cart:
* User experience
* Technical issues
* Product costs and additional fees
* Indecision
Addressing these factors will have moderate to major increase in the conversion rate of your website, for which the suggestions are detailed here:
User Experience:
Retailers have a tendency to ask for a lot of personal information upfront which consumers are reluctant to give. While an email address is essential to completing an online purchase, in-store purchases don’t require personal information to be shared. Some people want to shop quickly and efficiently; otherwise they’ll leave. There are several roadblocks in the online purchasing process such as required registration and too many pages and number of clicks to get to the purchase confirmation that can frustrate or confuse shoppers and lead them to abandon their purchases.
Thus, the sign up and login procedures must be simple and short, as well as intelligent in order to make the shoppers’ experience quick and easy. Having the complete checkout processing steps in a single page keeps the shopper focused and prevents breeding of disinterest fueled by navigating multiple pages. It is important to provide shoppers with the same experience as in rest of the site, keeping the checkout page simple and helping them in progressing toward purchase without becoming overwhelmed with options or clicking on a wrong link.Practices like displaying recommended accessories to a product in the cart rather than displaying a generic / distractive list of products to view will allow customers to add more relevant products to the cart.
Visual and brief descriptive references of the products selected can maintain enthusiasm throughout the purchase process. Providing options to change the quantity of items can calm an anxious shopper by enabling them to dwindle down their list to a reasonable purchase. Including a breadcrumb trail of the pages that a shopper will need to complete will avoid confusion and help them to keep the finish line in sight. A summary of the order should be continually shown and updated throughout the purchase process and a final review of the order, including payment and shipping information, should be provided before the purchase is completed.
Technical Issues:
In a world where identity theft is top of mind, if a site appears unstable or unreliable, there won’t be a sale. If load times are often long or if pages don’t give the product information expected, many visitors will get impatient and move on.
Displaying security certifications during the checkout process will show a commitment to protecting a customer’s personal information and the integrity of the site as a whole. The placement of these badges is also important, especially having them close to the area where a shopper enters their credit card information.
Product cost and additional fees:
According to a study by Paypal and ComScore, 36 per cent of purchasers didn’t pay for items because they felt the total cost of the purchase was higher than anticipated. State taxes, shipping and any other associated costs of the purchase can sometimes be unexpected and cause the shopper to abandon. Until a shopper views the cart, the focus may have been on selecting the product, viewing product images, and choosing a size, but once they view their cart, prices and fees become a reality.
Price Comparison: Online marketing has turned buyers into comparison shoppers. Consumers are looking for the best product with the best cost and the fastest, cheapest delivery and best offers through promotional codes.
By informing the customer of how much they are saving on the item they are purchasing, they feel they are better serviced. It is best to highlight features like price guarantee or price match policy, information on return policies, customer service, or warranty offerings as these can add value as well.
Shipping Costs: The downside of online marketing is non-instant gratification and shipping charges. People want to receive their purchases quickly and they’re only willing to pay a few dollars more in shipping. Not all are convinced that convenience should be charged a premium. It is important to clearly communicate shipping costs and show totals or estimated totals early in the checkout process to avoid abandonment related to sticker shock.
Enabling customer to see the complete overhead costs during the process of purchase and checkout will help them plan their shopping and purchases better, leading to a higher rate of checkout conversion.
Indecision:
There are other factors besides the site’s purchase process that could cause shoppers to abandon their purchases. Abandoners who are on the fence about completing a purchase can be some of the most responsive to post-abandonment messaging. Understanding the behaviors that surround purchase indecision can help to shape a post-abandonment marketing strategy.
Not ready: The lifespan of the cart should accommodate enough time for the shopper to complete the purchase when they are ready. While making the cart available from multiple computers may require the shopper to log in to an account, post- abandonment emails can include links that quickly take the shopper directly to their cart to avoid the login process. Automated contacting systems reminding shoppers that their cart’ lifespan may also enable them to convert incomplete carts.
Changed mind: A shopper is much less likely to abandon their shopping cart in the grocery store, but online they can come and go as they please without feeling any sense of guilt, so they feel free to change their minds.
A well-designed and planned site could possibly sustain a shopper’s interest based on their in-site browsing habits. Including additional product recommendations based on the original product category in post-abandonment communications can provide additional shopping opportunities that are highly targeted.
Decided to save product: When a shopper views their cart and sees all of the items that they have added, many will decide to remove products. Although the shopper may not want to purchase the items with this order, there may be future interest in buying the items.
Rather than only providing an option to remove a product from a cart, having the option to add the product to a wish list or to save for later will provide the opportunity to market those items to the customer in the future.
Winning Back The Abandoners:
Delivering a consistent user experience and technically sound payment mechanisms are fundamental to reduce the abandonment rate. Even still, it is better to have opportunities to win back the lost prospects that are going to cost lesser than acquiring a new customer. How do we go about winning back the prospects that we had lost in the transaction phase? Here are few solutions that can be carried out from the moment a customer shows propensity to abandon the shopping cart:
Retargeted advertising:
With retargeted advertising, you can target visitors while they still have their browser open on your site, but are comparison-shopping using multiple browser tabs. The approach here is to serve ads as soon as you can find the visitor on another site, and be prepared to pay extra if it means reaching them more quickly after an abandon.
Recovery emails:
Research shows that 20.8 per cent of the abandoners come back and buy when approached through a recovery email. From a customer perspective, a recovery email is the message triggered to understand the factors behind abandoning the shopping cart so that he or she can be served better. From the business perspective, it is a gentle nudge to have the customer pick his cart again.
Recovery emails should be incredibly relevant, true one-to-one marketing. They leverage both the detail of what the visitor was viewing only minutes previously and connect with the emotion of a purchase. Best practice is to send emails immediately after the abandonment as multiple studies show that that 90 per cent of leads go cold within the first hour.
If you had designed your shopping cart with putting customer experience first, it is likely that you had allowed your customers to skip the registration or do it as a post purchase step and had not captured email address as a result. In such scenarios, retargeted advertising and exit boxes are valuable techniques to win back the customer.
Incentivise:
Forty-four per cent of online buyers abandon shopping cart citing high shipping costs. For these customers and for others who had left because of other reasons, a discount or waiving off the shipping costs can be strategically good solution considering the high costs associated with acquiring new customers.
If you offer a promotion code, give it fair publicity in your social media profiles and emails so that the customer is aware of the reduction in cart value once the coupon is redeemed.
One of the key discussions surrounding shopping cart abandonment is whether to capture email addresses during the initial stages of the workflow or not. As you would have seen by now, it is important to be able to reach out to the customers once they abandon their cart. To circumvent the inconvenience of a visitor to create user account during shopping and to achieve the convenience of having a detailed log of the visitor activity, encourage a site level user account creation when a visitor comes to the website for the first time. Do not force the visitors to sign up but encourage them with incentives, reward points, loyalty bonus etc.
Social registration & logins:
User Registration through Social media credentials and social login is becoming standard almost with every website. Promise and deliver more reward points to users who sign up socially, for they have the ability to take your products viral and refer more customers to your website. You might even come across with social platforms that automatically trigger a private message to socially registered and logged in customers when they abandon the cart in the not so distant future, if not already available.
Also published on:InsideRetail.Asia