Educational Content to Inspire the E-Commerce Sale
The retail consumer now exists in the age of instant gratification. When 50 percent of commerce sites are getting less than 15 seconds of attention, and visitors are abandoning pages after just two seconds, brands are more hard-pressed than ever to develop creative and innovative experiences for their customers. It's up to marketers to leverage content strategies that will capture and hold buyers’ attention.
At Deborah Lippmann, we try to create rich, shoppable content that connects with our customers and makes an impression. From branded imagery, fashion trend pages and buying guides, we build interactive and completely shoppable digital experiences that increase conversions and engagement. But we’ve taken it a step further with our digital experiences.
Expert content is a high-impact way to offer value to our customers outside of the product. When done correctly, they’re naturally guided along the path to purchase with a focus on education, not just the sale. We had this in mind when redesigning our product listing pages, such as the “Cuticle Care” shoppable experience. Keeping the product in context by showing how to achieve “the look” or presenting solutions to problems facing our customers is essential to providing a rich experience. Featuring beautiful imagery and a shoppable how-to video guide on the perfect cuticle, the experience saw an incredible 491 percent increase in conversions compared to similar experiences.
What makes this content so successful is that it goes beyond what I call the “legacy” flat product grid that consumers see on traditional commerce sites, which takes the product out of context for the user. The Deborah Lippmann experience provides rich images and educational videos about nail, hand and skin care that we know are important to our customer. The content is closely connected to our products but can also stand on its own, providing our visitors expert techniques that they can use themselves. The digital experience literally brings our products to life.
To provide an authentic connection to our brand, the videos feature our founder and namesake, celebrity manicurist and beauty expert Deborah Lippmann. Her presence gives the tutorials an expert edge, and customers can feel confident in the information and products. It’s a personal touch that goes a long way.
As marketers, we try to inspire customers around our product. Once we've succeeded, we have to make it easy to purchase; a simple, intuitive and integrated path to purchase from within the content is essential to the experience’s success. For us, this means the experience is completely shoppable. Every product featured in our videos can be added directly to the cart from a gallery below, without ever leaving the campaign page. The instant a customer is inspired, she can add the product to her cart and keep scrolling through the experience. While the experience places education in the forefront, we have to make it simple for visitors to purchase.
In the current market, retailers have to invest in rich content that cuts through the noise. Valuable, education-first digital experiences are a powerful way to drive metrics like brand loyalty, conversions, time on site and consumer engagement. We use Zmags’ Creator to produce and instantly publish all of our rich content to deborahlippmann.com. With content like ours, customers learn while they shop, and our brand equity grows.
Mark Lippmann is the managing partner and co-founder of Deborah Lippmann, a nail care brand.
