作者：Ross Beyeler Founder of Growth Spark - an e-commerce strategy, design and development firm.
Most e-commerce companies, unfortunately, can’t simply rely on products being good enough to sell themselves. It takes a highly targeted and refined content and messaging strategy to drive customers to purchase. In the world of e-commerce, your content marketing strategy is only as effective as the narrative you craft for your target audience. Naturally, that narrative is built on far more than just written text on a landing page. In fact, there are several ‘content media’ types that many leading e-commerce companies have mastered that play a significant role in delivering their narratives. Although there are a wide-range of media to consider, this article explores five of the most effective:
对于大部分网购公司，单靠商品足够好是不能大卖的。让客户下单，那还需要目标性明确，优质的内容来实现。在网购的世界里，你的内容营销方式就像是你如何在目标观众面前描述自己的产品。自然地，内容营销也并不是简单将写好的文字放在一个页面就行。事实上，许多行业领先的网购公司都会娴熟运用好几种内容传播的方式，因为这对向目标客户“讲故事”起重要的作用。虽然传播媒介可供选择，但是本文仅会提及5种笔主认为最有效的：
Product Imagery 高大上的官方图+真实的顾客照
Visuals have become the primary medium for storytelling. Beautiful product photos and videos have become an essential element to telling a brand’s story. At a minimum, you’ll need well-lit, ‘static’ product photos but you should also include ‘dynamic’ photos showing the product in use. These ‘dynamic’ photos might include both professionally-staged photos as well as user-contributed pictures like Johnny Cupcakes does. Platforms like Olapic make it easy for e-commerce companies to source images directly from users who post on social media channels like Instagram using a designated hashtag. An added benefit of incorporating customer-contributed imagery can be the ‘trust’ gained by seeing a product in action.
视觉是“讲故事”的首选媒介。好看的产品图或者视频都是讲述品牌故事必备手段。初级阶段来说，你起码需要有P好的产品图和展示产品怎使用的图。多样的图片，既可以是专业摄影拍出来的产品图，也可以是顾客自拍的商品评价图。有些平台，像Olapic，可以让网购公司从海量消费者上传在社交媒体渠道的图片中，筛选出跟自己产品吻合的图片。例如像Instragram这样的，通过图片的标签就可以进行匹配。使用真实的顾客展示图片能提高产品整体的可信度。
Email Campaigns 广告邮件
What might seem like something that consumers have become numb to, email still proves to be an engaging marketing channel for e-commerce companies; Mailchimp cites an average of over17% in open rates. The question is how to use email in a unique way that will engage your audience and not just filter into their trash. Many big-box retailers focus the majority of their efforts on highly-personalized and segmented promotional emails.
广告邮件看起来像一个已经让消费者麻木的媒介，但是事实证明对于网购公司而言，这还是一个能拉动消费者的营销手段；通过电子邮箱订阅的点击率平均超过17%。关键的问题是，如何用独特的方式使用广告邮件来吸引顾客而不是填满他们的邮件垃圾箱。许多仓储式零售商就将他们主要精力放在个性化和分类促销广告邮件上。
For smaller startup e-commerce firms, that level of personalized targeting might not be within their reach. Instead, emerging brands such asEverlane, have shifted their email marketing strategy from ‘promotions’ to ‘stories’. Honing in on their message of ‘radical transparency’ and their direct-to-consumer operations, they focus their email campaigns on sharing the backgrounds of their manufacturing partners, processes, and emerging products. The ‘insight’ given to customers through this sort of email strategy stays true to their mission of transparency and provides a different means to connect with customers who value this level of exposure. Naturally, all of their emails provide a clear means and reason for customers to take action, simply in the context of a larger story.
对于小型的创业网购公司，大范围的个性化标签进行广告邮件营销未必能做到。这时候，像一些新生的品牌，像Everlane这样的，就将他们的广告邮件营销内容由促销内容转变为“故事”。不断打磨他们的“故事”，使其变得真实立体和展示他们能为顾客直接提供的服务，他们的故事内容更多围绕自己供应商伙伴的实力背景，商品的生产过程等。秉着让运作高度透明的宗旨，将这些产品和运作的“幕后故事”以邮件形式传递到给消费者，对于那种重视产品背景的顾客十分受用。自然而然，他们的邮件简单地通过长篇幅的“故事”，为顾客提供了清晰明确的理由去做下一步的行动。
Product Pages 带“故事”的商品详情页
Building on the concept of ‘narrative’, successful e-commerce companies, such asCasper, have started building a richer product ‘story’ than simply listing features, specs, and price-points. Companies that embrace transparency as part of their core values have begun opening up on the partners and processes they use to create their products. This theme is particularly popular among ‘direct-to-consumer’ and ‘made-in-America’ brands, where the product’s ‘background’ is almost as important as the product itself. The additional insights into your product, especially when supported by imagery and video, help provide a richer context anda means of engagingthat support your customers during their buying process.
有些成功的网购公司，如Casper，已经运用“叙述”的意思在详情页编辑上，不仅仅再是简单的罗列商品的功能、买点、价格，而是提供更加丰富的“故事”。那些将高度透明作为核心价值观的公司，早就开始拥抱自己的合作伙伴，将他们的背景跟制作商品的过程作为干货放到自己商品详情页中。“以顾客为中心”和“美国制造”的品牌特别适用这样的主题，这种情况下，商品的“背景故事”跟商品本身同样重要。商品额外的背景故事，特别是那种能提供到图像和视频的详情页，能营造一个更为丰富的购物场景，在顾客消费过程中是非常有吸引力的。
Buying Guides 普及行业知识的购物指南
One form of content often used by major e-commerce players, such asWayfair, is publishing buying guides, which provide three primary benefits. The first is that they can serve as an aid in the customer’s buying process in the form of educational materials. Buying guides can be constructed to help walk consumers through more technical products, such as electronics, where a minimum level of education and familiarity with product terminology is required. The second benefit is that buying guides often serve as SEO-rich assets. Search engines are constantly looking for new, well-written content in niche subject areas. Finally, buying guides can help create clear differentiation against the competition when set up as ‘comparison shoppers’.
They can provide your brand a platform to highlight the uniqueness of your products against the larger market.
购物指南这种形式的内容营销，Wayfair用得尤为多。对外发布的购物指南主要有以下三个好处。第一个，在顾客购物过程中提供帮助，作为教育性的材料，同时，购物指南一步步带领消费者了解更多关于科技类产品，例如电子用品，这种产品需要对产品专业知识才好进行购买。第二个，购物指南也可以作为搜索引擎优化的材料。在某些细分领域，搜索引擎会不断的寻找那些新发布并且写得好的内容。最后，在进行“比较购物“的过程中，购物指南可以将跟竞争对手商品的差异化清晰的展现出来。
通过购物指南可以更好的展现自己产品的独特之处，从海量商品的市场中脱颖而出。
Customer Stories 场景化的网评
Building on the first point of incorporating customer-contributed photos of products in use, is the notion ofsharing customer storiesaround their experience with a product. Reviews and one-paragraph testimonials are a fine start, but companies, such asPoler, have built entire sections of their website around sharing beautifully crafted stories of customer interactions with their products. These stories not only demonstrate the product in a real-world environment but also help support the larger association between your brand and the lifestyle your brand supports. If you sell a product for snowboarders, it would only make sense to support that lifestyle with interesting content in space such as mountain reviews, competition coverage, etc. In general, the most successful stories seek to highlight how a product is being used, not just the product itself.
以顾客使用商品的照片为基础来展现商品的使用方式，就是将顾客跟商品的故事进行分享。顾客评论和一小段感受是一个非常不错的开始，但是有些公司，像Poler那种，将顾客和商品的互动故事编辑好，进行分类并排布整个细分页面上。这样的故事不单只是将商品在真实环境进行展现，同时是将商品和更加广阔的生活方式，品牌调性连接起来。例如，如果你是要向滑雪的人卖东西，只有将有趣的内容背景建立在雪山，比赛赛道等场景中，对他们来说才是有吸引力的。总的来说，好的“故事”一般都会寻求如何提亮商品的使用场景和方法，而不仅仅是产品本身。
There are many contributing facets that determinehow customers will engagewith a brand and whether that will ultimately lead to purchase. With the five content media above, your brand can set itself up with multiple channels to connect with customers. Even with a well-defined target audience, it’s likely that your customers will be driven by a variety of purchase influences. By expanding the number of channels, a brand increases the range of influence over its’ customers.
其实能吸引消费者持续关注一个品牌并且最终产生购买的原因方法有不少。通过上述的5种不同媒介的内容营销方法，你可以将自己的品牌通过不同渠道跟顾客连接起来。尽管你的目标人群已经非常明确定位，但是顾客在做购买决策时还是会受不同因素影响。通过在不同渠道的扩散可以在一定程度上加大品牌对顾客的影响力。
