A talk I gave at Marketing Week Live, focusing on the convergence of commerce and content within marketing operations.

1. Ecommerce and
Content Marketing
James Carson, Founder

2. About Me
• Founder at Made From Media
• Publisher / content strategy
consultancy
• Research in fashion ecommerce
• Previously Head of Digital Marketing
at Bauer Media – FHM / Grazia
https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jacarson85
http://twitter.com/mrjamescarson

3. 3 Key Econsultancy Reports:
1. Digital Content Strategy Best Practice Guide, Neil Perkin
2. Where Content and Commerce Collide, James Gurd
3. Content Marketing and Fashion Ecommerce, James Carson

4. Content Marketing Investment on
the Up…
Yes, yes, everyone knows…

5. Why Are We Doing This?

6. “Look at how people shop in the UK. There
are 100m visits to the high street but also
250m visits to online retailers. Ecommerce
accounts for approximately 15% of all sales,
so it’s not just about sales – we want to
reflect this on the website.”
David Walmsley, Director, M&S

7. Do You Have a Defined Strategy?

8. Kernel of Strategy
1. A diagnosis that defines or explains the
nature of the challenge.
2. A guiding policy for dealing with the
challenge.
3. A set of coherent actions that are
designed to carry out the guiding
policy.

9. https://econsultancy.com/reports/digital-content-strategy-best-practice-guide

10. | 10

11. BIG Content Strategy Checklist

12. Who Owns What?

13. Content Strategy Simplified for Media Companies
Content
Distribution
User Experience
Analytics
https://econsultancy.com/blog/64757-the-24-ingredients-for-a-delicious-content-strategy
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/10924-could-content-marketing-replace-the-seo-department

14. 23 Ingredients…
| 14
Phase 1:
Analysis
Phase 2:
Taxonomy and Audit
Taxonomy
Category Card Sort
Tagging Amendments
Menu Restructure
Audit
SEO Onpage
Retrospective Editing
Evergreen Content Audit
Phase 3:
Content
Optimisation
Headlines
Formatting
Planning
Evergreen Content
Page Types
Editorial Calendar
Quantitive Benchmarking
Phase 4:
Distribution
Ideas
Regular Large Asset Production
Distribution
Social Media
Email
Paid For Distribution
Partner Network
Onsite
Website Engagement
Analytics
Website Organic Traffic
Information
Market
Keyword Analysis
SEO Competitor Analysis

15. Lack of Defined Strategy Down to
Objectives and Measurement?
“Interestingly only a fifth (20%) of the ecommerce teams
we interviewed said that they are actively doing
attribution analysis for content marketing activity.
However, half are planning to and the current barrier is
data gaps.”
What Do You Aim to Measure?

16. Content Marketing Approach
Content
Distribution
User Experience
Analytics
https://econsultancy.com/blog/64757-the-24-ingredients-for-a-delicious-content-strategy
http://econsultancy.com/uk/blog/10924-could-content-marketing-replace-the-seo-department

17. Content Marketing Study
General UX and Typography
Look Books
Editorial
Product Pages Social Media
Email
User
Experience
Editorial Distribution

18. Brands as Publishers?
General UX and Typography
Look Books
Editorial
Product Pages Social Media
Email
User
Experience
Editorial Distribution

19. Why?
General UX and Typography
Look Books
Editorial
Product Pages Social Media
Email
User
Experience
Editorial Distribution
Technology / testing
Quite quantifiable
High focus / investment
Content
Not as quantifiable…
Lower focus / investment
Distribution
Very quantifiable

20. Product Pages

21. Merchandising Sections as Content

22. Emphasis on Growing Editorial is High

23. But out of 20 major fashion websites
reviewed, only 2 really had editorial that
was really worth talking about…

24. Majority of Fashion Brands Investing in
Editorial Were Wasting Time and Money…
• Poor integration into site user experience
• Low publishing frequency
• Advisory content was lacking
• Headlining was poor
• Not distributed on social media
How Can We Fix This?

25. Integrating a Blog With the Main Site
Publishers normally have
ads here
It’s how their editorial
makes money
Product promo widgets
are easy to create…

26. You Wouldn’t Catch a (Good) Publisher Doing This!
Image links to a
WordPress image file
http://blog.boohoo.com/style/1-dress-3-ways/
Text is very small
(and centre aligned)
Product links
unnoticeable

27. Publishing Frequency
Brands:
1 article a day?
Publishers:
• Mail Online = c.400
• Grazia Daily = 25
• Now Magazine = 20
Fashion Focused
• Product features
• Style features
• Fashion event news
Affinity Topics
• Celebrity news
• Travel and city guides
• Music
Subject Matter
Lack of Focus…
Difficult to win

28. SEO is a Major Factor in Content
Marketing Investment… But…
Lack of Advisory / Stock / How To Little editorial keyword analysis
See the headlines…

29. “The headline text has to stand on its
own and make sense when the rest of
the content is not available.”
Nielsen

31. Distribution on Social Media
• Blogs are often produced, but not syndicated on social channels
regularly, despite the vast size of the brand following.
•
• Can’t distribute stock/advistory content all the time… what’s the
best way around this?
https://econsultancy.com/blog/66042-why-retailers-may-be-experiencing-
a-tough-start-to-the-year-on-facebook/

32. Campaign and Editorial Calendar
INFORMS…

33. Editorial Not Performing?
Don’t Know?
All of it is easily fixable…

34. Not for everyone…
So start with a user need

35. http://www.virginholidayscruises.co.uk/cruise-guide/
User needs met
Simply but well executed
2014 Winner UK Search Awards Best
Use of Content Marketing

37. Result!

41. What Are the Biggest Blockers?