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How can quality product content power the product experience?

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How can quality product content power the product experience?

In the omnichannel age, a compelling product experience is the difference between success and failure. Today’s buyers no longer base their purchases on price and product alone; they also focus on their experience with a brand. Indeed, 73% point to experience as a key factor in their purchasing decisions, behind price and quality. As consumers increasingly rely on digital commerce, brands are challenged to keep up with the content demand while delivering accurate and relevant product information.

But it’s not enough to just provide more content. It’s now crucial to deliver the product content your customers need, when they need it, in a compelling and valuable way. Therefore, the product experience must be contextual and consistent across all sales channels — from ecommerce to print to physical stores. But often, brands don't realize they aren't delivering a consistent brand experience. In fact, 87% of consumers think businesses need to do more to provide a seamless experience. And with 32% of customers ditching a brand they loved after one bad experience, brands have little room for mistakes.

So, what’s causing the gap between the product experiences businesses deliver and the actual experiences customers expect? Two words: data quality. The quality and completeness of product content significantly impact online sales and brand loyalty. After all, 85% of shoppers consider product information and pictures important when deciding which brand or retailer to buy from. So why does data quality matter so much to product experience? And how can it bridge the gap between what brands deliver and what customers expect?

What is a product content strategy?

A product content strategy is an action plan that helps you create and manage high-quality product content. It must happen at multiple levels so that the organization has an aligned and scalable content capability. Product content is any content that strategically integrates a product into the sales narrative and uses it to illustrate a point, solve a problem, or help the customer achieve a goal. The goal of a product content strategy is to create and maintain relevant product content to help customers easily find what they need. It enables you to achieve your goals and increase sales by ensuring that your customers have all the information they require to make a purchasing decision.

Product content strategy is different from a conventional web content strategy as it includes a product-centric approach that contributes directly to product metrics. Creating a product-based content strategy involves identifying a business goal and user needs and defining the most effective strategy that meets them. Your strategy will include several processes and tasks, such as doing research, measuring success, and defining the voice and tone of the content. It should also factor in your internal resources and publication channels.

Why does product content matter?

Product content functions as a brand’s most persuasive salesperson online and is the most critical element in the consumer’s path to purchase. A consumer considering buying almost always lands on the brand’s website. With 87% of customers beginning their product search on digital channels, it’s imperative for brands to ensure that visitors find only accurate, complete, enriched, and up-to-date product content on their product page. They must ensure that all the information customers need is on that page, including reviews, ratings, pricing, and delivery information.

The impact of poor product content on digital sales is most apparent in three areas: returns, shopping cart abandonment, and brand trust. In fact, 50% of shoppers have returned a product because it did not match its description. This discrepancy between the product ordered and received is one of the leading causes of customer frustration. The result: 87% of consumers would be unlikely or very unlikely to make a repeat purchase with a retailer that misguided them through inaccurate or insufficient product information. This poses a problem: How can businesses efficiently manage product content to avoid losing sales and brand trust?

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10 tips to create product content that converts

How can quality product content help in providing a seamless product experience?

71% of customers expect a personalized customer experience. So, providing tailored product content is a crucial step toward designing a seamless product experience. A personalized shopping experience shortens the buying process by offering precisely what customers need, leading to increased sales and customer loyalty. By keeping product content up-to-date, customers are also more likely to have a positive experience with the product, which can translate into repeat business.

The top three primary goals of creating content are boosting sales, building relationships with customers, and increasing brand awareness. To achieve those goals, product content should be consistent across all channels. This means that the same product information should be provided to customers, whether they are viewing your website, speaking to customer service, or reading a brochure. In addition to being consistent, product information should be accurate, concise, and easy to understand. Customers should easily find the information they need without feeling overwhelmed.

By streamlining the purchasing process, businesses can reduce shopping cart abandonment, increase repeat purchases, and improve the overall product experience. For example, providing clear, concise product information and high-quality images can create a smoother purchasing experience. By making it easy for customers to buy from you, you increase the chances that they will continue to do so in the future. With the right information at their fingertips, shoppers’ expectations will be in line with the product, leading to greater satisfaction, positive reviews, and fewer returns.

What are the essential elements of relevant product content?

If you want to stand out from the avalanche of product content being produced every single day, you must focus on quality. Here are six key elements of high-quality product content to engage your audience:

  1. Personalization
    Brands get only one chance at selling to an audience in today’s fiercely competitive environment. Shoppers will never click on content they don’t find interesting or relevant. That is why personalization works. 98% of marketers agree that personalization strengthens customer relationships. Displaying content that matches what a shopper is looking for creates positive awareness of your products, whether they end up buying or not.

  2. Compelling stories
    Bring products to life with interesting descriptions. According to Harvard Business School, 95% of purchasing decisions are made by the subconscious mind, and the best way to reach this part of the human brain is to tell compelling stories. An item such as a coat, for example, is just a coat in a product catalog without background information. That is why providing context is essential.

  3. Unique descriptions
    Every product is different. Even if you have hundreds or thousands of references in stock and writing a unique description for each would be a long and tedious task, it’s still essential for you to give each product a fitting and original description. Doing so can inspire confidence as it proves that the brand believes in its products and respects its customers.

  4. High-quality images
    First impression matters, and providing your visitors with stunning images will help build a positive impact on the digital shelf. 75% of online shoppers say that product images strongly influence their purchasing decision. It’s essential to ensure quality and originality by avoiding stock photos and providing original dynamic images that allow consumers to envision themselves with the product.

  5. Clear and concise descriptions
    The main goal of the product description is to provide interested buyers with additional information about the product. But try to leave the description page with a manageable amount of details. Writing too much bores consumers and can drive them away. Remember that consumers today read on mobile devices and have short attention spans — an average of 8 seconds. A short, focused description using a clear and engaging tone and focusing on benefits is a must!

  6. Cross-selling and up-selling
    By leveraging technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), brands can capture customer information (e.g., transactional data, history, etc.) and take advantage of the cross-selling and up-selling opportunities it presents. While the customer is on the website, brands can offer essential complementary products or suggest a premium, higher-end product, effectively raising awareness while improving the buying experience.

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The six key elements of relevant product content

How does a PIM system help create and manage quality product content?

Creating and managing product content is a complex, time-consuming, and labor-intensive endeavor. But with the right technology stack in place, you can provide your customers with personalized interactions that reduce product returns, encourage positive product reviews, and increase brand advocacy. A Product Information Management (PIM) system can enhance the product experience by consolidating, managing, and easily distributing rich product data to all your customer touchpoints.

PIM provides a centralized repository for product data and digital assets, with cleansing rules, data deduplication, matching and merging, and translation capabilities. It allows organizations to streamline data management processes and monitor activities, create high-quality product content, automate data onboarding and product data syndication across multiple touchpoints, and seamlessly adapt to increasingly complex use cases of manufacturers and retailers.

If you’re ready to explore the advantages of a robust PIM system, Contentserv can help. Our PIM platform provides everything you need to master the challenges of product information across all your channels and succeed on the digital shelf. Ultimately, it will give your business a winning edge by creating product experiences that build long-term customer connections and engagement.

Take control of your increasingly complex product data!

Leverage PIM as the foundation for data quality in an end-to-end product information process.