If the November 5 Online & Digital Grocery Summit made one thing clear, it’s that the product detail page is finally getting its due. Fourteen presentations featured best product page practices from a wide range of presenters including data analytics providers (Brandview, Clavis Insight, and OneClick Retail), retailers (Sam’s Club, Peapod, and FreshDirect), ecommerce campaign agencies (Flywheel Digital), and brands (Wellpet).
Tony Martinelli, content26 CEO, manning the CPG table.
But if hearing it from a crew of insiders isn’t enough to convince you, how about this? Forbes, a news source not normally known as a bastion of cutting-edge or niche reporting, recently devoted an entire article to the product page.
Of course, there were other highlights from the day and soundbites were flying fast and furious, so here are four takeaway quotes from the CPG Summit that encapsulated the conference for us.
On Product Page Content: “Bring your brand onto the page to engage and convert.” — Supriya Chaudhur
The necessity of optimizing product page content was hammered to a messy pulp by virtually every presenter. Supriya Chaudhur, Chief Marketing Officer of Clavis Insight, highlighted the role of product page content in strategic marketing initiatives. OneClick Retail CEO Spencer Millerberg reminded attendees that because 90% of all purchases on Amazon begin with search, product detail content continues to be “king.”
In fact, by the time I gave my talk, Enhancing Product Content to Convert more Clicks to Sales, mid-afternoon, my de facto job was to christen the room as The Official Echo Chamber on the Importance of Product Detail Content.
The shared message (Content, Content, Content!) at the CPG Summit felt like sweet vindication. Having spent the past 10 years building a business around the value of content, I can say that the online retail industry has finally reached the tipping point in their understanding of the primacy of product detail, and it’s not going away.
On Mobile: “Mobile is the new aisle.” — Matty DeCastro
Sponsors and attendees at CPG 2015.
We repeatedly heard that consumers are driving grocery and packaged goods delivery via their mobile devices. Facebook’s Matty DeCastro reiterated what we all know: if ecommerce requires content, content, content, it is being consumed by mobile, mobile, mobile. In fact, DeCastro reported that Facebook is considering scrapping updates to its browser-based site in order to focus exclusively on mobile development.
An exception to this messaging came from Natasha Stevens, Senior VP, Digital Marketplace Intelligence for GfK North America, whose research showed that desktop users continue to spend more time on grocery sites than mobile users. And Sam’s Club Sachin Padwal showed us evidence that multi-channel users, or consumers who shop both online and offline, spend 2.3 times more than single channel users.
Clearly non-mobile platforms are far from dead, but the stark reality for ecommerce players is unmistakable: if you are not optimizing your content and customer experience for mobile, your days are numbered.
On Amazon: “Amazon is a search, social, display, and brand-building platform.” — Patrick Miller
We found a kindred spirit in Patrick Miller at Flywheel Digital. According to Miller, if you treat Amazon as a retail site where you can sell your goods, you’re missing the big picture.
As we reported last week, nearly 50% of all product searches begin on Amazon. Whether consumers ultimately purchase your products from Amazon is almost irrelevant. If you don’t optimize your catalog presence on Amazon for discoverability, you will miss out on one of the greatest lead generators available to you.
This point was loudly echoed in data presented by OneClick’s Spencer Millerberg. “Brand.com sites reach approximately 0.005% of the consumers looking for products. Comparatively, Amazon.com reaches 1700 times that number.”
On Data: “If you can measure it, you can manage it.” — Matthew Ferguson
Matthew Ferguson, Senior VP of Client Services for BrandView, explicated the necessity data driven content in your ecommerce strategy. Gone are the days of intuition and best English 101 practices for ecommerce development and content production. Data doesn’t lie. Use it.
To be completely accurate, data doesn’t tell the whole story either. You need human intelligence in the form of analysis and implementation to be successful. But everything starts with data.
Takeaway of Our Takeaway?
It’s just like we’ve always said: content, content, content is everything, everything, everything. Optimizing your content is a strategic investment anyway you slice it. And our crew of content believers is steadily growing.
