The document discusses strategies for using content marketing to drive ecommerce sales. It provides examples of how retailers create engaging editorial content to educate and inspire customers throughout the purchasing process. Retailers are focusing on generating unique content and prioritizing SEO to reach customers. Metrics like conversion rates, engagement, and offline impacts are used to measure the success of content marketing.

2. 6 years ago

5. today

8. “How Google’s Move to 100% (Not Provided) Helps You
Become a Much Better Marketer”

10. “Why Content Marketing is the New SEO”

20. Budgets - Digital Marketing Channels / Disciplines in 2014

21. Techniques to support content
marketing activities
Resources you should consider
having in-house
Where other ecommerce teams are
focusing their efforts in 2014

22. Source: blog.seven.co.uk
Marketers - Media Budgets

23. Engagement with Content is Increasing

24. Investment in Content Marketing in 2014

25. Primary Drivers for Content Marketing

26. SEO
• Search still dominates buying journeys
– Original and unique content for your audience to stay ahead
of the competition
• Some retailers - Major focus on SEO as part of its
overall business roadmap
– Permeates the ecommerce team - editorial and product
content

27. Connected Customers are on a
continuous path-to-purchase

28. FORMULATION:
Consideration
• Self-identified need
• Provoked need
PRE-COMMERCE:
Evaluation
• Value Proposition/PODs
• 1:1 relevancy
COMMERCE:
Transaction
• Self-actualization
• Validation
POST-COMMERCE:
Express
• Experience evaluation
• Advocacy and loyalty

29. Provide the whole picture and elevate
your offering
CONTENT + COMMERCE

30. Customer Engagement or Sales?
• Retail Focus
– Editorial content used to drive sales
– Reactive to trade patterns - Targeted features within 1-2 days
of previous week’s trading
– Merchandising goals - Pushing poor performing categories or
highlighting under-performing products
– Coordination with offline sales - Highlight through content
spots if it’s not performing as well online

31. Rise of Editorial
• Brands have identified the need to engage customers
around lifestyle elements / interest areas, not just sell
them product
• Content is playing a vital role - used to educate,
inspire and even seduce

32. “…Understanding the customer and
the type of content they are
looking for is crucial…The Journal
provides this information in an
informing and engaging way.
Yes, it’s about selling product but
more so about inspiring
consumers. Content helps build
trust with readers and customers; it
provides context for the brands they
engage with on the site and for the
products they are interested in.
Nowadays customers expect for a
luxury retailer to create an
experience beyond shopping.”
Director of Sales & Marketing

33. Dedicated editorial team -
Editorial Integrity
Best names in journalism and
fashion – Ensures features,
shoots and interviews are
topical and engaging
Operates closely alongside
marketing and buying
functions - Editorialise
forthcoming launches and
initiatives

34. “The site is curated, edited and
served by an independent world-
class team”
John Brody - Editor in Chief
(Previously at GQ)

35. “I’ve worked on other websites where
content ghettos have been created,
where you go left to read and right
to buy. We wanted to avoid that
separation so throughout the
customer journey, whatever your
landing page or the marketing
campaign you’re viewing, the
editorial focus is both contextual
and relevant.”
Director - M&S

36. Multiple Markets with localised
content
Physical retail stores
Expert advice and guidance
content
Positive customer feedback

37. Status of Company Content Strategy

38. Content Guidelines used by Content Teams

39. Driving Commerce through Content
• Challenges:
– Adding the commercial ‘shopability’ to content on ecommerce
websites
– Ensuring the editorial or content team is in sync with
commercial production
– Platform and team to support the content marketing plan and
scale

40. Content Marketing KPIs
Revenue and conversion
– Conversion rate (basket-to-order and visit-to-order)
– Average order value
– Revenue
Traffic
– Total visits
– Unique visitors
– New vs. return visits

41. Content Marketing KPIs
Engagement
– Dwell time (time on site)
– Pages per visit
– Bounce rate
– Social shares
– Comments and Likes (including ‘favouriting’ individual
content assets)
– Product reviews
– Banner click-through rate

42. Content Marketing KPIs
Offline
– Visits to store (hard to track accurately)
– In-store purchases
– In-store content usage (e.g. scanning a QR code for a
product to watch a video)
– Call tracking

43. Attribution Analysis
• Not enough use of attribution analysis for content
marketing activity
• Multi-path analysis
• Understand the full contribution of content rather than
relying on the limiting last click view
• Attribution of content to future conversion
• Users who regularly view content have higher AOV

44. Commercial Benefits of Content Marketing

45. The Editor’s Pick -one
of four key content
formats
Ecommerce team can
see products featured
in this list hit the top
10 bestsellers across
the business, not just
online

46. Business Results
Increased spend
– 50% of companies experienced higher AOV as a result of
content marketing activity
Positive customer feedback
– 50% of companies experienced positive results from an
investment in content marketing.
• Visible feedback (e.g. a customer review added to the website)
• Invisible feedback (e.g. a customer telling an in-store employee
that a buying guide on the website helped them decide what
product to buy)

47. Focus Areas

48. Roadblocks

49. The EPiServer Difference
Agility
to respond quickly to
market opportunities
Experience is
the differentiator today
Business
Efficiency
through simplicity

50. Deliver an Exceptional Experience

55. Near term
Roadmap

56. EPiServer is the coice for leaders in the
digital world.
Digital Leaders
Emerging devices
Automatic upgrades
Customer centric service
Relevance marketing
Profile Store
Advanced orders
Campaigns
Connections
Cloud

57. Campaigns

58. Campaigns

59. Connections

60. Cloud

61. Delivery Model
EPiServer
Software
EPiServer
Add-ons
Managed Web Operations
Sites
On-premise solution
Scales by sites/servers
Cloud solution
Scales by sites/servers
Recurring monthly

62. Roadmap Summary
Emerging devices
Automatic upgrades
Customer centric service
Relevance marketing
Profile Store
Advanced orders
Campaigns
Connections
Cloud

63. Thank you!
David Bowen
Product Manager
@dmbowen
david.bowen@episerver.com
Peter Sunna
Product Manager
@sunnaster
peter.sunna@episerver.com
The Choice for Leaders in Digital