Today, too many brand manufacturers are feeling the pain of an ineffective content strategy and we’re here to tell you: you’re not alone. Here are a few common pain points we hear about every day, along with solutions you may want to try.
1. My content isn’t appearing correctly on my retailers’ websites, but there’s so many that I don’t even know where to start.
When it comes to running a large retailer chain, it can often feel impossible to ensure accurate content across hundreds of retail outlets. Managing online attributes from product descriptions and prices to product images and videos is a full-time job—costing brand manufacturers time, money and vital day-to-day resources.
Without automatic alerts for changes or inconsistencies, it could be weeks, months or even years before brand managers uncover rogue retailer practices. As a result, brand managers are missing out on important opportunities to correct issues, before they turn into significant problems, such as potential profit loss, encroaching competitors and possible consumer backlash. If you’re nodding in agreement don’t worry, this problem is more common than some bigger brands would have you think.
So how do you manage brand content across a large number of retailers?
One viable solution for most brand manufacturers—already proven to help many struggling with content management—is to prioritize the evaluation of content by top-performing retail sites.
For example, if you have 500 SKUs and 50 retailers, start with your top two or three retailers. Then, work through the SKUs from the most popular products to the least. After all, top performers are usually the ones facing the most competition. Tip: work in phases and tackle 100 or 200 at a time.
Targeting content in phases can help brand manufacturers regulate a collection of issues at once while continuing to grow and modernize their online presence.
2. Maybe my content is consistent, but how do I know that it’s the best it can be? How can I tell if it’s working?
There has been a significant, widespread evolution in the way all products are presented online. Even before Amazon bestowed its all-powerful A+ standards on the vast world of retail, brand managers have been asking the question for years: how do I know that my content is working across all my retail sites?
From A+ descriptions, images and videos to cutting-edge web implementations like augmented reality, brand manufacturers are feeling the all too common pain points of content measurement—scrambling to compete and in the absence of real data, resorting to an in-house guessing game.
Today, most brand manufacturers need a more reliable approach to content measurement.
The most important step is to simply start measuring what content you do have posted on retail sites. If you don’t have images, videos or the latest tech to accompany product listings, don’t panic. Analyze the presentation of your top performing products and try to pinpoint the differentiating factors. Ask yourself what are the key KPIs for your industry? For example, if you’re an appliance brand manufacturer you would want to monitor the specifications such as measurements. If you’re in the consumer-packaged goods industry you may want to monitor ingredients, subscription offers and seasonal packaging.
When you identify the most successful aspects of each listing, you can then apply these tactics across all products. If products listed with high-quality images are driving the best conversion, ensure every product includes multiple high-quality images. Again, try to approach all sites in phases. Once you have a majority of products updated, you can continue to measure the value of each conversion.
3. How do I keep my content competitive?
Once you put an efficient content management strategy in place, continue to test, measure and update your content. Leverage the success of your competitors and work to understand the best in class—both inside and outside of your industry. Find a brand that excels in its online strategy and identify the specific actions that drive their brand forward. How can your company learn from these achievements?
Content management will continue to influence your online presence in a powerful way and it’s never been more important to find a strategy that works for your brand today.
Of course, with the help of a strategic third party, brand manufacturers can conveniently manage a 24/7, 360-degree view of all content, while gaining insight into competitor analysis and ROI.
In the end, making these content changes will increase your ranking on the digital shelf.
Interested in maximizing your content? Learn more by contacting PriceSpider.
