Marketers from Bacardi, Danetti, Mooncup, Papa Johns and Toast Ale met for an honest discussion of current e-commerce challenges and opportunities during the Campaign Performance Marketing 360 conference. The gathering of industry insiders at the i360 in Brighton was hosted by Reprise Digital’s e-commerce client partner Natalie Williams, who shared some relevant insights from real-world brand campaigns. Here, we look at some of the top takeaways for other marketers from their session.
Don’t lose sight of your brand proposition
One of the key themes of the discussion was the need to balance commercial growth with quality, especially in today’s rapidly fluctuating e-commerce market.
“The biggest challenge for us is maintaining the massive growth we’ve seen in the last two years, while also maintaining the brand quality and brand message,” said Amanda Hollowey, e-commerce marketing manager at online furniture retailer Danetti. “It’s easy to get carried away when you’re seeing a 300% sales uplift in one month, and maybe forget about your customer experience and brand proposition.”
Staying true to brand ethos online was also a priority for social enterprise brewery Toast Ale, says its co-founder and COO Louisa Ziane – as was being really clear about online marketing objectives, and not trying to do too much. “We need to know which metrics and KPIs to focus on, without being sidetracked by trying to measure everything we don’t have the resources or capacity to do.”
Don’t fear regulation – get out ahead of it
The roundtable panel agreed that marketers would be well advised to respond proactively to changing industry regulation. And the approaching demise of third-party cookies isn’t the only massive regulatory change that online marketers are currently facing.
For example, food brands preparing for the planned online advertising restrictions on products high in fat, sugar or salt (HFSS) will need to rethink their customer engagement strategy. For Kanchan Lad, marketing manager at pizza brand Papa John’s, this is an opportunity to shift the brand stories they tell.
“It may mean we can’t talk about products, offers or deals any more, it will need to be just about the brand,” she said. “That’s nice, actually – it’s forcing us to tell a positive story to customers, and move those conversations with our leadership team away from the purely transactional.”
Natalie Williams agreed, noting that brands should get out ahead of any regulatory changes. “Britvic knew the sugar tax was coming in the UK, and made sure their products adhered to those guidelines before it was an issue,” she said, noting that this had made them a much healthier brand proposition than many leading competitors as a result. “It’s about recognising that something is going to happen, and reframing your way of thinking around it.”
To Amazon or not to Amazon?
Needless to say, Amazon loomed large for our online marketing insiders. For eco-friendly menstrual brand Mooncup Ltd, Amazon never felt like a natural bedfellow, said the company’s senior marketing manager Lena Koskela. Like many brands, however, Mooncup felt compelled to work with Amazon during the pandemic. “We recognised that this is where people are now,” Koskela said. “And there is a credibility you get with Amazon – our five-star reviews show customers our products are legit.”
For Ben Crespin, performance marketing manager at Bacardi, it was harder to see the brand-building worth of Amazon. “People don’t tend to buy spirits online very often, so proving the value of our online marketing is our biggest challenge – and Amazon regularly de-list our products,” he said.
Williams made the case for utilising Amazon as a brand visibility tool. “One study showed that something like 65% of people go to Amazon now to research products, so just having a presence on the site can increase your brand visibility. And you don’t have to necessarily sell on Amazon to use their other tools. For example, you can use their audience data to direct through to your own site, which is something we’re looking at for clients selling D2C.”
Use existing customers to convert new ones
As Amanda Hollowey pointed out, there’s no one who can speak better for your brand than its most passionate customers. “We really utilise customer reviews and testimonials to bring our product quality through on site,” she said.
“Making sure customers can see relevant – and recent – reviews is key,” agreed Williams, advising marketers to spend time cleaning up out-of-date or off-topic review content on their sites. “And don’t forget that when you get five-star reviews online, you can use that in your off-line marketing as well. Asda, for example, has been using customers’ online reviews in-store.”