The strength of your brand is built on consumer interactions with you. They browse, compare product features and ultimately decide whether to buy based on how much confidence they have in the shopping experience you provide.
We’ve talked before about how retailers faced with the squeeze of Amazon’s ecommerce dominance and the nimble, digital-native vertical brands can build stronger shopping experiences. Brands must also embrace differentiating based on experience. Your starting place is to ensure you have the product content needed to engage shoppers no matter where they are. You can build strong shopping experiences by using product content to create meaningful experiences in these moments.
Discovery: Ensure your brand is getting found online. If the shopper can’t find basic information, nothing else matters. Build a process for getting new products to market as well as a process for refreshing content with a regular update schedule to insure its accuracy. Shoppers most frequently start with search and will search in their own terms. Analyze your site’s most frequently used SEM, SEO, and internal site search terms. This information is the purest indication of what consumers are wanting.
Research: Answer consumer’s questions. Consumers want to know exactly what they will receive when they research or buy online. By providing high resolution images, detailed product descriptions, relevant dimensions, accurate color and sizing guides, you can make the research process even easier for them. Look at your most frequently asked questions and dig into the whys behind your product returns. Enhancing product content to answer these questions is a great way to think about your refresh process and enhance the shopping experience.
Buying: Build confidence with consistent product detail. In the digital age, comparison shopping for price is inevitable. Shoppers will buy when they are confident about what they are buying and who they are buying from. Predictable shipping costs, clear information about what is included and accurate information across retailers can help brands build buyer confidence.
Post-sale: Anticipate your customers’ needs. Your goal is to enrich or simplify your customers' lives and make them supported even after they have bought your product. Provide how-to-assemble or how-to-use videos, tutorials, printable set-up instructions, recipes, FAQs, care instructions, warranty details, and styling ideas. Additional content and useful follow-up can build loyalty.
Providing the content that shoppers are looking for across the full spectrum of digital options takes a consistent process and a flexible, trust-worthy source of truth containing your product content. Learn more about how to get started with our Guide for Brands.
