Six Indications You Are Doing A Terrific Job at Content Marketing

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e-commerce-shopping

Dear social marketers, have you connected with shoppers effectively?

During its first release, it seems like the QR code would solve all of your problems in terms of connecting with individuals on the path to purchase, plus reduce the need to pay the major grocers handsomely for in-store marketing? Still, QR codes rapidly dwindled into an underwhelming weapon, delivering a branded video at best, or a corporate website at worst.

As smartphone penetration rose, digital shopper marketing was born. With it, we saw virtual shops, branded applications, mobile commerce and proximity transmitters like iBeacon, each claiming to revolutionise the shopping journey and create a seamless omni-channel experience.

So, are you connecting with shoppers effectively? Here are some pointers you can follow to find out.

1. Shopper insights are necessary to encourage tech use

The trouble with the way brands used new technology platforms like QR codes was their failure to speak to a definitive shopper insight. They weren’t solving a genuine customer problem. Did people really want to order a litre of milk while waiting for the bus?

Did they really feel the instant need to download an app so they could be served a sales message based on their proximity to the frozen pizzas?

2. Customers need to be convinced, not sold

The second problem was the focus on the technology, not on the content. If your content has inherent value to your target audience, you reduce your risk of disappointing users and wasting existing and future brand lovers’ time.

As most brand-love research points out – the shoppers of today are only interested in brands that can offer utility, value or fun. There is no point in investing in Oculus Rift technology if the quality of the experience is neither relevant nor inspirational enough to change the behaviour of your target market.

3. Retailers will set both the agenda and the opportunity for brands

Retailers will control how brands can partner with communication flow and associated technology enablers in their own stores. With many iBeacon tests in pilot, it’s clear how a brand like a Woolworths can test and exploit opportunities from category management, creating richer, deeper shopping experiences to driving value, offers and promotions.

With mobile payments becoming more of a reality, it’s easy to imagine an experience that’s seamless in integrating loyalty rewards with targeted offers through basket IQ. The tech will be barely noticeable. New retail needs to be borderless and beyond channel. In store, retailers still hold the reins.

4. E-commerce has inspired in-store shopping

When the first e-commerce platforms launched, shopping was pretty basic: based largely on an expectation that people knew what they wanted through basic search functionality. As online shopping became a huge data play, cross sell, suggested sell, incentives, VIP areas, personalised services, 360° views enabling mouse touch-and-zoom and video catwalks all followed, providing a more rounded ‘instant’ experience right there in your home.

Australian e-commerce site Stylematch is adopting a new way to leverage content aggregation and curation to drive purchase. The platform aggregates more than 6,000 brands including ASOS, Neiman Marcus, Macy’s, David Jones and Topshop. Stylematch has become the first website to implement the new Shopspots developed by Stackla. Shopspots allows retailers to take user-generated images from social media and tag the products. We can expect more ‘socially powered’ shopping baskets in the future.

5. Content encourages more purchasing

Editorial and magazine-style approaches to shopping have never more popular within fashion retail. If you look what Net-A-Porter, ASOS and, more recently, Supré are doing, you can see that content is making spontaneous shoppers shop. With so much choice, it’s nice to be guided and inspired to shop, rather than wade through infinite virtual warehouses.

Take the humble recipe, which was has succeeded in driving sales in interesting ways since 1904 – not just by tapping into seasonal events, food trends and across categories, but by creating demand. Those from the UK may remember when Nigella spurred an overnight goose fat stampede in the aisles, just as Heston’s Christmas Pudding did here in Coles. Those in New Zealand will surely remember Marmageddon. Brand storytelling rarely gets better than when faced with influence, supply and demand.

6. Retailers need to build a genuine relationship

Brands are now looking for new ways to connect, rather than simply interrupt. Knowing your audience is more important than ever. And while serving relevant and timely content is hardly a new thought, distribution channels continue to multiply and evolve.

Hence our obsession with tech continues, just as it did with the QR code, as we look to how existing and new platforms can help inspire the modern-day shopper.