6. BRANDS ARE BECOMING PUBLISHERS
"Your customers don't care about you, your products, your services… they
care about themselves, their wants and their needs.”
– Joe Pulizzi, Founder of Content Marketing Institute
29. In partnership with the Fiorelli, HoF involved influential bloggers to engage
with their followers over a live Google+ Hangout to ‘Find Your Perfect SS14
Bag’.
Google+ HANGOUT
Where?
Trying to sell content marketing tied into search get more search clients = objective
Position today
Introductions
Background of who Kavita is, who 4Ps are, and what 4Ps were drafted in to do for Selfridges. (Include one full time 4Ps employee working at Selfridges)
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Today we’re using LFW as a case study to discuss a bigger point.
The biggest buzzword around marketing right now is content marketing.
This has arisen due to a massive shift in thinking for brands from overtly promoting their products to creating content that answers consumers questions.
Consumers don’t care about your brand or products, they care about their wants and their needs.
This is why brands are becoming publishers. It’s about producing and sharing content that they’re passionate about, so they actually pay attention to you.
L'Oreal which has Makeup.com - a site that talks about style and beauty issues without overtly pushing L'Oreal's own product line; General Mills offers dieting advice and tips at Tablespoon.com; Red Bull has created Red Bulletin - a high-octane magazine for thrill-seekers and sports fanatics; American Express have created Open Forum - a portal of helpful articles which cover issues faced by small business owners.
Content marketing has emerged then as means to reach people who are continually looking for information, entertainment or help. Brands can use content marketing to pull people in who aren't necessarily interested in a specific product but instead meeting a need-state behind the product purchase.
There is no doubt the information we read has an impact on what we think, what we do - and most importantly for a brand - what we buy. And this is why brands are now rushing to become publishers.
Take makeup.com, L’Oreal’s site that talk about style and beauty issues without overtly publishing L’Oreals own products.
Taken it a step further by creating an actual site with influential contributors that answers consumers questions. They have gone out of their way to essentially become a publisher.
People don’t care – they care about their needs and wants
This is the perfect example of how brands are publishing influencer content that may or may not have their products in it, but is more importantly what their consumers want to read/will get their attention.
Currently the LFW content space is dominated by publishers…if we think back to why our customers like publishers it’s because they product content that gets their attention without overtly selling to them. It’s just good content.
Acquisiton of an audience, not a link, and there are different types of content that lead to those conversions going from awareness through to consideration and conversion
LL- Many brands have a strict rule where they can’t retweet, repost, or regram things that bloggers posted about the brand. They want everything to be coming from the brand itself and if its not 100% around the brand, they won’t do it. The reality is, consumers care about their wants and needs, not your products or services. It’s about producing and sharing content that gets their attention rather than blatantly sells your brand. It’s so important to share bloggers content about your brand because it’s coming from them, and not you. You’ll still get the sales because their audiences are so loyal. They go to their sites specifically to see what they are wearing, what they’re eating, what products they covet, etc.
Brands are becoming publishers. Take makeup.com, L’Oreal’s site that talk about style and beauty issues without overtly publishing L’Oreals own products. This is the perfect example of how brands are publishing influencer content that may or may not have their products in it, but is more importantly what their consumers want to read/will get their attention.
Sharing blogger content on social channels also increases your social signals, which is the best way to become ‘popular’ on the internet and is extremely powerful for SEO.
Incentivising them through exposure
times brands are quite protective of their social media. In our earlier session – we talked about brands becoming publishers
L'Oreal which has Makeup.com - a site that talks about style and beauty issues without overtly pushing L'Oreal's own product line; General Mills offers dieting advice and tips at Tablespoon.com; Red Bull has created Red Bulletin - a high-octane magazine for thrill-seekers and sports fanatics; American Express have created Open Forum - a portal of helpful articles which cover issues faced by small business owners.
Content marketing has emerged then as means to reach people who are continually looking for information, entertainment or help. Brands can use content marketing to pull people in who aren't necessarily interested in a specific product but instead meeting a need-state behind the product purchase.
There is no doubt the information we read has an impact on what we think, what we do - and most importantly for a brand - what we buy. And this is why brands are now rushing to become publishers.
How many of you have a strategy for LFW?
How many of you have a search strategy for LFW?
If raise, how successful was it?
Don’t worry, you’re not alone. We created a tool that tracked social conversation, community growth and search visibility for 67 brands across 4 markets which led to 1 million rows of data.
Our overarching finding was actually much different than what we expected to find. Retailers and brands for the most part don’t have a search strategy for LFW, and if they do, the results show that they didn’t execute it very well.
Varying degrees of success
Many brands in this room were in our research, we wont be talking about anyone in this room today, but if you want to ask questions please feel free to speak to us after
LFW is what we like to call a ‘content gift’
Your audiences are in front of LFW because they are genuinely interested in the content
They want to see who is there, what they’re wearing, and how they can buy a similar look
Currently the LFW content space is dominated by publishers…if we think back to why our customers like publishers it’s because they product content that gets their attention without overtly selling to them. It’s just good content.
Acquisiton of an audience, not a link, and there are different types of content that lead to those conversions going from awareness through to consideration and conversion
So if we talk about the scope of LFW…
that thousands of your audiences are engaging with. From what we’ve seen, the majority of retailers aren’t doing this in a way that benefits search, so today we’re talking about the opportunity and how we can bridge the gap.
Look what you missed
THE POINT IS THAT THE SCOPE IS HUGE AND THE AUDIENCES ARE THERE
Repeat some stats…
In the 5 days of LFW, thousands of conversations around LFW are happening on all channels, and it’s said that there’s more media coverage than most major news and international sporting events
People are buying as a result of the content around lfw.. 100 milion worth of orders, that’s massive
This isnt just happening in the UK…
Media coverage equals or exceeds most major news and international sporting events
In the 5 days of LFW, we’ve got 3 billion impressions on twitter, 4k blogs, over 1k news articles, and 266k twitter convos.
Your audiences are at LFW… engaging with content that gets their attention…so where are you?
Brands have search strategies for christmas, so why not for LFW?
Last season there were 75,000 images added to Instagram that including hashtag #LFW
Last season there were 266k mentions of #LFW on Twitter
London Fashion Week live streams are watched in 160 countries worldwide
http://www.londonfashionweek.co.uk/news/623/Facts--Figures-AW14
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People forget what search is actually about because they get stuck in the detail and what ‘Google’ wants
Search = Existing demand, already looking for it
Want & need
3 core things
What are the questions (what are their wants and needs)
How are they expressing those questions (different types of keywords will give clues of intent)
Where are they hanging out (important for search and awareness phase)
Focus on these = focus on the user
User = how google measures online
More deets
Understanding the question helps you understand the content
Important think to realize here is this is from a users perspective
How can the brand get involved with how the user thinks? Influence that decision
If you imagine levis are trying to target latest fashion trends
Explain slide backwards – they got a conversion from thinking further up the funnel
Specify for brands and retailers at the end – make it relevant
Important think to realize here is this is from a users perspective
How can the brand get involved with how the user thinks? Influence that decision
If you imagine levis are trying to target latest fashion trends
Explain slide backwards – they got a conversion from thinking further up the funnel
Specify for brands and retailers at the end – make it relevant
Add blogger
LFW is a great opportunity to get in front of your audience, but it doesn’t have to be around LFW – could be any time.
Just a general fashion example of a brand that outreached to their audience to increase search visibility
Boden wanted to increase customer acquisition, traffic and revenue
What are their audiences wants and needs?
Consideration term
Like Matt said, it’s about answering what questions your audience is asking.
Wanted to increase customer acq
What are they searching for? Babies jeans, ladies skirts
Target those keywords
Here are the results
Im not gonna read outloud but look how well they did by engagign with their target audience, and it wasn’t even a content gift like LFW
We created a tool to track social conversation, community growth and rankings over numerous retailers and fashion brands over LFW
What we found was fascinating. Despite loads of conversation about these brands, there barely any who created a strategy to increase their search visibility.
Ask Luke?! Recipes, partnership content
Do I call this community engagement?
What are their audiences wants and needs?
Benefits of G+ for search?
www.youtube.com/watch?v=XoP_cX2f6WY
Live Google Hangout
Google Plus Event:
https://plus.google.com/events/corahjb8dnmh7erite50233fvq4
29 attended the event.
Industry leaders in digital wrote about it
Generally good content people wanted to share
Brand blogged about it, bloggers blogged about it, digital marketers blogged about it
Good content will naturally be shared
Could be executed better
LL
Ask Luke?! Recipes, partnership content
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Newspapers rankings
We monitored 67 brands across 4 markets over the 4 fashion weeks, which led to 1 million rows of search, social and conversation data analyzed
71% saw either a decrease in rankings due to displacement by publishers or no change during fashion week… worldwide
Its clear that publishers are answering your audiences questions before you get there, and they are still dominating the space.
Every brand has a search strategy for Christmas because Christmas is all about giving gifts, so we know people are buying.
There are 100 million pounds worth of orders placed in the UK over the 5 days of LFW. Your audiences are there, and theyre buying. Brands need to think like publishers to capitalise on this.
