Analysis: How can retailers become digital publishers?

When Liz Earle Beauty Company, a British brand owned by Avon, launched a new make-up line to complement its existing range of skincare products in May, it already had the ideal platform for showcasing the products, advising customers on how to use them and encouraging them to buy: Liz Earle TV.

Launched seven months earlier, the online channel offers video content that includes company and product news, expert beauty tips and ‘how-to’ demonstrations of products – but more importantly, it features ‘click to buy’ functionality, which means that customers can quickly add any item they see in the videos to their basket. And they can do that whether they’re watching them on the Liz Earle website, on it’s Facebook page which has 42,670 ‘likes’, or on YouTube.

“Liz Earle TV affords us a huge opportunity to engage with our customers in a new and unique way, highlighting our company philosophy and history, plus the quick and easy-to-use nature of our products,” said Liz Earle’s global brand director Hannah Webley-Smith at the channel’s launch in October last year.

The credit for creating the video content and integrating it with Liz Earle’s ecommerce systems goes to Adjust Your Set, a London-based multichannel video agency that also works for Marks & Spencer, Debenhams and Thomas Pink.

“If content is king, then context is queen,” says Chris Gorell Barnes, chief executive of Adjust Your Set. Online content, he says, should be designed and delivered in a way that sparks emotion in a customer but, more importantly, spurs them to action – preferably to make a purchase. “A customer’s click on a piece of content, if it’s compelling enough and gives the right information about a product to make it appeal to the customer, should trigger a second click, a buy click,” he says.

Video content, when used effectively, increases customer dwell time on a site, ups conversion rates and repeat business and can dramatically boost a retailer’s search rankings, according to Gorell Barnes. Asos was an early adopter – its catwalk fashion videos helped to increase conversion and made it stand out from other online players. The service remains one of Asos’ most successful innovations because it allows shoppers to see how the clothes move on models as they walk.

Those are all appealing prospects for retailers – especially the promise of higher conversion rates. It’s a goal that has already been achieved by foot-wear retailer Dune, which began piloting product videos on selected lines in May 2011. It decided to roll out videos of its entire range later that year after seeing a “significant impact” on conversion rates.

Dune uses Adobe’s hosted digital asset management platform Scene7 to manage  videos for its commerce site. It can also deliver product views and zooms, colour swatches and click-through promotional banners and is used by retailers including Boots, Shop Direct, Harrods and Debenhams.

All these elements are vital to create a compelling user experience, says Jamie Brighton, EMEA product marketing manager at Adobe. “Digital content for retailers is all about bridging the gap for customers between their offline and online shopping experiences,” he says. Shoppers like to get a really good look at the product that they’re thinking of buying, he says and, if they can’t see it properly, they won’t buy. “Retail brands need to remember that because, historically, this gap in experience – getting a good, hard look at a product – is one of the main areas where online retail has struggled to match the in-store experience.”

World play

But in an increasingly social and connected world, compelling digital content isn’t just a matter of what product features a retailer chooses to show customers. What others say about them matters too.

These ‘others’ might be well-known fashion journalists, for example. In the US, department store group Nordstrom struck a partnership with men’s magazine GQ in May 2011 in which products from the pages of the magazine were sold in a dedicated shop at norstrommen.com, which directs shoppers to the Nordstrom men’s ecommerce site. Closer to home, clothing retailer Boden partnered with Grazia magazine on its autumn 2012 collection. In both Boden’s print catalogue and online site, Grazia fashion editors now pick out the items they like the most from that collection. Such alliances bring fresh content to a transaction between shopper and retailer.

More important still is what customers say about a product. According to research conducted by market analyst Forrester Research, on behalf of digital commerce specialists Bazaarvoice and RichRelevance, today’s online shoppers are looking for three kinds of content when deciding to buy: product details, certainly, but also peer reviews and personalised recommendations.

According to the research, in which more than 500 UK-based online customers were surveyed, 86% rely on product ratings and reviews by other customers before making an online purchase. Personalised product recommendations are also widely used for purchases – 93% of UK shoppers surveyed said that they had seen recommendations on retailers’ sites and 42% said they had made a purchase based on personalised product recommendations.

User-generated content (UGC) in the form of customer reviews is an increasingly common type of digital content on UK online retail sites. Argos, Boots and Cath Kidston, for instance, all use Bazaarvoice’s hosted platform integrated with their ecommerce sites for handling this kind of content. The online review sites of Boden, Superdry and Millets, meanwhile, are powered by Shopzilla.

Spread the message

The content retailers create themselves should be distributed to as wide an audience as possible. This can be posted on a retailer’s Facebook page, on YouTube and linked to on Twitter, as is the case at Liz Earle. Electricals retailers Currys and PC World regularly tweet links to promotions and discount codes on their website from its Twitter account @curryspcworlduk. This drives traffic to content that might not otherwise be seen by potential customers.

Retailers should also target ‘key influencers’, particularly bloggers, says Trisha Brandon, head of content at digital marketing agency iCrossing, where she works with retailers John Lewis, TK Maxx, Land’s End and Lipsy. “There needs to be a mix when it comes to how you distribute your best content,” she says. Retailers need to engage influencers by creating exclusive content for them or giving them hooks around which they can create their own content – a video clip of a fashion shoot, an interview with a hot designer or simply previously unseen product photography.

Brandon says: “Providing these influencers are given something of value, it’s a win-win situation for both sides. By forging connections and sharing content with them, stories are told about a brand in fresh ways.”

This approach is used by iCrossing for retailers including John Lewis. The agency shares exclusive video content with bloggers, such as Kristin Knox at theclotheswhisperer.co.uk, who attend the annual Vogue Fashion Night Out event in September in London.

But the first place to start is still with the company’s own product pages, according to a recent report by Lauren Freedman of US-based ecommerce consulting firm E-tailing Group. “Creative how-to guides, video, alternative views and interactive tools all support a more sophisticated, content-rich experience,” she says. The company’s survey of 147 online merchants found that 87% plan to invest more in category content over the course of 2012.

It’s an investment worth making, Freedman says. The result will be more compelling and memorable brand experiences for customers, which more retailers will need to provide as online and multichannel sales grow. As customers become more astute and demanding, and the retail landscape gets more competitive, good quality digital content will become crucial to stand out from the crowd.