Content Strategy Archives

How Top U.S. Retailers Are Preparing for Holiday Shopping amid a Pandemic

This holiday shopping season is gearing up to be quite different from past years. As COVID-19 cases continue to surge across the country, many retailers aren’t sure if their brick-and-mortar locations will even be able to remain open during the holiday shopping season. And, even if they do open their doors, many customers still feel un-easy shopping in-stores.

The silver lining for brands? Digital transactions continue to soar and businesses don’t have to worry about websites and mobile apps closing down due to COVID. Plus, this year’s holiday season is expected to be a record-breaking period for eCommerce, with analysts expecting online sales to grow by 18%.

Even amid all the uncertainty, brands are doing their best to meet changing customer needs and capitalize on this new surge of digital traffic. We sat down with digital experience experts from e.l.f cosmetics, Dell, T. Mobile, Orvis, and VF Corporation to hear how they’re preparing for this untraditional holiday shopping season.

Here’s what they had to share:

1. Digital Activations with e.l.f. Cosmetics

“We take holidays, just like every retailer, very seriously. What’s really different about this year is that we were able to learn so much about our customers because of the pandemic. That’s going to inform the content we produce and how quickly we put it out there. I don’t think people will be comfortable walking into stores until the end of the year, so we’ll be focusing on bringing more products to our augmented reality experience, attracting new consumers, and figuring out how to engage and educate them on how our different products come together.

We’ll be focusing on bringing more products to our augmented reality experience.

In a way, our preparation is no different than last year, but this year, we’re going to be adapting more quickly and focusing more on digital activations. People are not going to be comfortable walking into stores so bringing even more activations online will be the key.”

— Etka Chopra, VP of Digital at e.l.f. Cosmetics

2. Year-Round Preparation with Dell

“I think the holiday season itself has been evolving a lot over the last several years. Once upon a time, it was all about Black Friday, then we had Cyber Monday, then there was Green Monday. Holiday transformed from a single day event into a whole season of holiday shopping. And it’s no longer restricted to the period after Thanksgiving anymore. You have Black Friday in July, Amazon Prime Day, Dads & Grads, Back to School, and at Dell, we do things like Ten Days of Deals. It’s always ongoing.

At Dell, we start holiday prep as soon as one holiday season ends. You must have a detailed plan from a merchandising, procurement, and fulfillment standpoint to assure that you have the right assortment of products that your customers are looking for next year. We were already deep into holiday season planning for Q4 when COVID started.

You must have a detailed plan from a merchandising, procurement, and fulfillment standpoint

Today, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where there will be long lines in physical stores and that again brings more focus to digital. Our focus is to make sure that we allow customers to be able to transact with us and find exactly what they’re looking for on our digital properties. We’re making sure deals.Dell.com is ready to go, which we actually use year-round. We’re always testing new ideas, seeing what is working, learning how customers interact with our site, and figuring out how we can impact their customer journey in a positive way.

For us, there’s never really downtime when it comes to prepping for the holidays because the sales cycle goes on all year long. The holiday calendar has transformed from that two-three week time period to being essentially all year long.”

— Vab Dwivedi, Director of Digital Customer Experiences at Dell

3. Finalizing Holiday Offers with T. Mobile

“Typically, we start our holiday planning process right about now. We decide what offers we’re going to have and what phones will be on sale. We always have to wait until the Apple Special Events, where they announce their new product releases, which happen in September/October. From there, we fly right from there into holiday preparation. That’s when we decide what phones we’ll have deals on and determine whether we focus on upgrades, prospects, a mix of both, etc.

Over the last few years, the whole idea of Black Friday and Cyber Monday has gone out the window.

Over the last few years, the whole idea of Black Friday and Cyber Monday has gone out the window. Last year, we started doing holiday messaging and offers a week before Black Friday then we change offers that run up until Christmas so as people are making last-minute decisions there are still great offers for them. It’s not just a weekend anymore. It’s almost a full month.”

— Kerry Sikora, Sr. Manager, Business and Performance Analytics at T-Mobile

4. Adopting a New Content Strategy with Orvis

“From a creative perspective, the majority of our holiday season assets are being produced now. We’re hypothesizing what the social climate will look like in November and beyond, and shifting our storytelling to incorporate those predictions. We’re focusing on ways to change the dialogue on what the season is going to be.

We’re hypothesizing what the social climate will look like in November and beyond, and shifting our storytelling to incorporate those predictions.

Orvis, being a family-owned company, takes a lot of pride in family gatherings. This year, we probably won’t see the large 20+ person gatherings around a large dinner table. The holidays will probably be more intimate and you might just be celebrating with the five people you’re closest with. This year, we’ve been leveraging the Perkins family, the family owners of Orvis, more and more. They live the brand and are Orvis in and out. We’re trying to capture the spirit of coming together with those who mean the most to you, and highlight the small things you can do to put a spin on your traditions and still make the holidays meaningful.”

— Dan Corby, Sr. UX Design Manager at Orvis

Want a more in-depth look at how the Orvis team is prepping for the holiday shopping season? Click here to hear more about their 2020 holiday strategy and website design overhaul.

5. Enhanced Product Imagery with VF Corporation

“We’ve started to push out more 3D product photography. One of the best things about offline shopping is that you can touch the product, see it, try it one, and hold it next to you. People value being able to spin a product, open a suitcase, and see what’s in it. We also have a separate experience that lets you view a product’s size in comparison to a Nalgene, an iPad, and other tangible everyday items. There’s nothing worse than getting a backpack, realizing it’s smaller than you need it to be, and having to go through the hassle of returning it and waiting for a new one.

Eagle Creek is really where we’re pushing 3D product imagery hard. Our luggage pieces have a lot of really cool features that you can’t really portray with just flat product images. A 3D product image lets customers spin the product around on their screen, click on it, and discover a cool locking feature or something else. People are visual—we could put the words on the page, but people don’t always read them.

People like to see what a product looks like in the real world and on other people, especially if they can’t see it in a store.

The other thing we’re prioritizing is user-generated content. People like to see what a product looks like in the real world and on other people, especially if they can’t see it in a store. We’re putting a lot more emphasis on lifestyle product shoots so we can show products in a tangible experience even though it’s on their computer screen.”

— Ashley Peterson, eCommerce Analyst with VF Corporation, the parent company of JanSport and Eagle Creek

Interested in hearing how more retail brands are preparing for this year’s holiday season? Check out our Holiday Readiness Hub for brand success stories, interviews with digital experts, helpful UX/UI tips, actionable workshops, and more.

How Top Retailers Are Preparing for Peak Season amid a Pandemic

This holiday shopping season is gearing up to be quite different from past years. As COVID-19 cases continue to surge, many retailers aren’t sure if their brick-and-mortar locations will even be able to remain open during the holiday shopping season. And, even if they do open their doors, many customers still feel un-easy shopping in-stores.

Here’s what they had to share:

1. Digital Activations with e.l.f. Cosmetics

We’ll be focusing on bringing more products to our augmented reality experience.

— Etka Chopra, VP of Digital at e.l.f. Cosmetics

2. Year-Round Preparation with Dell

You must have a detailed plan from a merchandising, procurement, and fulfillment standpoint

— Vab Dwivedi, Director of Digital Customer Experiences at Dell

3. Finalising Holiday Offers with T. Mobile

Over the last few years, the whole idea of Black Friday and Cyber Monday has gone out the window.

— Kerry Sikora, Sr. Manager, Business and Performance Analytics at T-Mobile

4. Adopting a New Content Strategy with Orvis

We’re hypothesizing what the social climate will look like in November and beyond, and shifting our storytelling to incorporate those predictions.

— Dan Corby, Sr. UX Design Manager at Orvis

Want a more in-depth look at how the Orvis team is prepping for the holiday shopping season? Click here to hear more about their 2020 holiday strategy and website design overhaul.

5. Enhanced Product Imagery with VF Corporation

People like to see what a product looks like in the real world and on other people, especially if they can’t see it in a store.

The other thing we’re prioritising is user-generated content. People like to see what a product looks like in the real world and on other people, especially if they can’t see it in a store. We’re putting a lot more emphasis on lifestyle product shoots so we can show products in a tangible experience even though it’s on their computer screen.”

— Ashley Peterson, eCommerce Analyst with VF Corporation, the parent company of JanSport and Eagle Creek

Interested in hearing how more retail brands are preparing for this year’s holiday season? Check out our Preparing for Peak Hub for brand success stories, interviews with digital experts, helpful UX/UI tips, actionable workshops, and more.

Digital Predictions: Recipes for Conversion Health in 2020

You’ve spent the last few weeks making merry with friends and family, and it’s likely you overindulged. Today, you don’t want to look at another cookie, and you’ve swapped the booze for green juice. You’ve resolved to fill the next decade with yoga and maybe even meditation.

But what are you going to do to improve your digital strategy in 2020? How are you going to go about building a healthier, nourishing, more blissful experience for your customers?

Here is our roundup of 7 trends we think should guide your digital resolutions this year.

1. The experience wars heat up

The numbers have been out for a while: the gulf between businesses’ perception of their own customer satisfaction versus the consumer’s reality is widening. On the other hand, brands that are synonymous with excellent Customer Experience (CX) are reaping outsized benefits. According to a Forrester report, insight-driven companies are growing 7-10x faster than the average enterprise.

The key to a great CX lies with… your customers. The new standards of experience demand greater, smarter customer proximity — one that hinges on a true understanding of what your audience expects and how it wants to connect with you in 2020 and beyond. If you choose not to go all-in on creating an unexpectedly great experience this year, you do so at your own peril.

2. Leaders scramble for new metrics

Knowing how your brand stacks up to customer expectations — and how many different factors from price, to app ease of use, to customer support — contribute to the experience is still a challenge. This is the year many digital professionals will rebel and demand meaningful analytics that are easy-to-consume. Many brands are finding themselves constrained by old metrics, which can tell you how many people visited your site, and how many converted, but don’t offer many clues as to why they left without buying, or if a purchase was in fact the primary goal of their visit.

When it comes to understanding customers, metrics such as content attractiveness and engagement, friction scores and even an objective measure of consumers’ Digital Happiness paints the story between the clicks. You’ll see more CX Index and e-NPS type metrics coming out from agencies, consulting firms and analytics players this year to help meet the demand.

Having access to a system of insights that can capture the nuances and fluctuations of customer behavior, and translate these into actions is how you turn customer intelligence into intelligent CX.

3. More brands flip the acquisition model

Digital teams understand that getting as many people as possible through the door is no longer a viable business strategy. It’s simply too expensive and it is not in fact, a customer-centric approach. Why invite someone in unless you can actually deliver value to them? More brands are shifting their focus to analyzing what happens once customers are on their site in order to better understand who they should be marketing to in the first place, and how.

Think about it — not everyone will want to convert on your site (maybe they’re here to check out in-store availability, use the store locator, etc), and those who do will have a specific customer agenda (they might want to see if a coupon works, to check out fast on their smartphone, etc). The key is to understand: 1) what are your high-value segments, 2) how they like to browse.

By analyzing and understanding the journeys and behavior of customers who are already on your site or app, you can surface intelligence about what they’re trying to do, and in turn, use this intelligence to target specific segments with highly relevant experiences. Don’t forget: the best remedy for churn is a relevant customer experience.

4. Smarter content

Which brings us to content (…don’t all roads lead to content?).

Businesses invest a ton of time and resources into creating content that communicates the brand’s offering and helps customers connect with their values. But how do you measure the impact of content decisions? How do you know what content to display for which audience? How do you maximize your creative investments and merchandising strategy?

Well, it goes back to those smarter metrics. Your customers are giving you real-time feedback on your content with every swipe, tap, scroll, click, etc — each element of your site is either a relevant step in the journey, a distraction, or worse, an obstacle. Customer journey insights are finally becoming operational at scale. And, advanced AI-driven analytics will help translate this customer feedback into actions your team can take to improve the experience and your bottom line. Don’t be left behind.

5. Personalization partners with privacy

Brands in 2020 are going to become better at combining their personalization efforts with their customers’ privacy concerns. Why? Because consumers today want more of both. High profile data breaches and an overload of personalized marketing that isn’t in fact that relevant have made consumers wary of oversharing in the digital world.

But is it really possible to personalize without personal info? We think it is. The beauty of behavioral data is that it delivers on both these demands: privacy and personalization.

Because one consumer does not equate one way to browse a website. And just because a brand knows your name, birthday, address and a few of your interests, doesn’t mean they know what drives you crazy when you’re trying to refill a standing cat food order on your mobile. By analyzing and aggregating the behavior of specific customer segments (based on their context and intent) digital teams can unlock a much deeper, truer type of personalization than that made possible by demographic data.

And if you are going to collect data, the key is to use it well. Be transparent and clear about any request for personal information — customers are often willing to give information that is genuinely going to add value for them.

6. D2C is the new flagship store

Marketplaces don’t afford brands the same level of control over the end-to-end customer experience as direct-to-consumer (D2C) marketing. By entrusting others to promote and sell their products or services, businesses are not only settling for lower margins; they’re essentially giving away crucial customer intelligence they could be using to elevate and personalize the brand experience.

And when you’re competing on experience, as brands are today, owning the relationship with your customers so you can better meet their needs and expectations — and strengthen your community at the same time — is crucial.

This isn’t an entirely new phenomenon, and it’s not only reserved for new, agile startup companies. Leading brands like GoPro have shifted their strategy, and are putting more emphasis on owning the end to end experience, and cultivating a meaningful, enduring relationships with their customers on their digital properties.

7. Inclusivity becomes core to your digital strategy

According to the CDC, one in 4 U.S. adults has a disability that impacts major life activities. So if your website and app are not accessible to everyone, that’s 61 million people (in America only) you’re not including in your CX decisions.

The good news is when you design for disability first, you often come up with solutions that are more advanced and smarter than if you hadn’t. Brands everywhere are putting innovation at the service of inclusivity, and are leveraging new technology to future-proof the CX, improve accessibility, and ensure customer-centricity is not just for some, but for everyone.

Final thoughts

We’re heading into a new decade of innovation, digital creativity and intelligent technology. Your best strategists in 2020 and beyond will be your own customers. The key will be to tune into their expectations and align your experience strategy with their goals.

It’s time to get a new yoga mat, and a new solution to translate customer behavior into profitable CX actions. As you navigate your favorite sites to find the first, think of the dozens of micro-decisions you take as a consumer: click on this image over that one, filter by size, give up halfway through a scroll, login as guest, etc.

We help brands make the journey to digital wellness more seamless and satisfying. The rest is up to you.

Hero Image via Shutterstock, by Boiarkina Marina

Balancing Content and Product Investments for Retail Brands

Though an obvious goal of a business is to sell, the customer experience (CX) expectations that consumers have are not as obvious. Particularly in a landscape that is defined by digital innovation, it can be hard to keep up with shifting CX expectations. Customers place a high amount of interest in value — whether it’s the value of convenience, economy or sustainability — and that’s often on top of the product itself.

A retail brand’s challenge in the digital space hinges on balancing content investments versus product and merchandising decisions. While any marketer can argue in favor of the value of content, businesses are often concerned with the evaluation of its ROI.

When a brand invests in content and pushes a large message, it is not always with a strict “purchase” agenda. The message could be emphasizing a directional change, new mission or in some cases, an explanation to customers. What is difficult to measure is if this content has a positive, long-term halo effect on conversion.

So what is the real value of content & how do you stay find the right balance to drive sales and repeat purchasing?

Three Methods for Approaching Content

Retail brands exhibit three major forms of tackling content:

Approach 1: heavy content with few, but staple, products
Approach 2: very little content, but a vast product inventory and customer reviews
Approach 3: balancing content and product within the same site page to drive engagement

Smaller click-and-mortar, or digitally native brands, are able to master the challenge of approach one, prioritizing content over product. With less inventory to showcase, a strong focus on (often inspirational) content allows a brand to distinguish itself and create a loyal customer base. These brands are able to capitalize off of the staple products they’ve created, and create deep connections with a targeted audience.

For example, Away, a digital luggage company, uses a content heavy approach. This brand positions itself by highlighting lifestyle, with content around everything one might need for traveling and nothing unnecessary. Their content identifies with a variety of travel personas, while also considering travel standards. Their content directly states their product solves real travel pains. By the time a user navigates to the product page, they’ve learned enough about Away to ensure this purchase will improve their travel experience. The sleek and modern designs do not hurt, either.

The second approach, product-first with very little content, is present in larger retailers, those with a seemingly endless inventory. These businesses reap large revenue. Amazon, the world’s largest online marketplace (and seller) caters to a variety of retail sub-verticals without much content, but rather, a reliance on customer reviews.

Adob Stock, via kathayut

Balancing Product Prioritizations and Content Creation

There are plenty of brands, including our own customers that take the third, middle-of the-road approach. To find the right balance between content and product, there’s a solution; measure the performance of your content. Once you measure content and segment audiences properly, you’ll have a better understanding of what content is driving purchasing across which customer profile.

If you can draw the lines between customer engagement, conversion and revenue, and answer how to measure the ROI of specific content elements, it removes the guesswork and fear of making content investments.

This safety net allows you to go bold when you measure the success of each content element, with the agility to test different versions or remove the content altogether. You will also answer the looming question of yes or no: whether content has a correlation with product sales.

Adobe Stock, via beeboys

The Verdict

When making investment decisions for content against product, you need to determine whether your content — or any proposed content — is complementing or detracting from your product. Unfortunately, there’s no single best practice for every brand.

Content is a longer term engagement than promotions, because a sale may lead customers to come to your site once or intermittently. The goal of content is different, with the intention to drive repeat visits, purchases, and ultimate loyalty.

Content can be engaging, but without substantial or trusted product behind it, there are no sales. And yet product is not always standalone — it may involve storytelling, materials, or qualifications to encourage a customer to add-to-cart. In either case, analytics is the connection between content performance and revenue objectives.

How bold can you go to allow your brand to shine? That’s something only granular behavior analytics can answer.

Hero image: Adobe Stock, va jeler