Cutting through the noise: How to make your brand stand out online
At an Econsultancy Live virtual roundtable, senior marketers in the home and garden sector debated how best to promote products creatively and prioritise customer experience in today’s shifting ecommerce ecosystem.
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Marketers need to set themselves apart from the constant barrage of promotional messaging, if they want their products to be seen, considered and bought by today’s consumers in a context where buying behaviours and attitudes towards brands are more fickle than ever.
At a recent virtual roundtable at Econsultancy Live, sponsored by eBay Ads and held under the Chatham House rule, a panel of senior marketers discussed how in today’s changing world it is important to find creative ways to stand out as a brand, particularly in an ecommerce context.
The discussion focused on the home and garden sector, and eBay Ads’ general manager of UK advertising, Harmony Murphy, said brands needed to analyse audience data across different platforms offline and online so they are aware of the latest trends.
“What is happening from a customer standpoint? Is something happening to prompt a surge in interest in particular products? In the early days of the pandemic we saw a lot of interest in garden sheds and furniture, for example.” Going into April last year, weekly sales of garden furniture on eBay trebled compared to the same week the year before.
Murphy continued: “We saw brands doing lots of display advertising to boost brand awareness and using that in tandem with performance marketing and promoted listings. Brands had to cut through the noise.”
Sylvie Walker, eBay Ads’ brand partnerships manager, said advertisers in this sector are using trend and sentiment data to be more creative with their marketing.
“At the start of the pandemic, brands were panicking about how their advertising should reflect what was happening with Covid and the need to reassure customers,” she said. “They still had to put the product in front of people but get the messaging right. Everything was a bit overwhelming, so being creative was not easy.”
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Effective online merchandising
The panel also discussed how brands need to display furniture and accessory products effectively online, especially if people are buying this way for the first time.
The head of business development at the recycled products company said blogging and posting on social media had worked well, especially when using case studies featuring people who were already using its products. “It is easy to underestimate the impact of seeing someone – anyone – approving and using your product. It can be a real influence on others,” he said.
Other panellists talked about adding filters to content. For example, when selling beds online, people could now search not only by type of mattress but by more human traits such as which side of the bed they sleep on. There is much talk about the potential of the ‘metaverse’ to display products in augmented reality settings, although one retailer at the roundtable admitted more work needed to be done in this area to make such activity valuable.
How products are presented online are also going to be heavily affected by the supply chain and the impact current difficulties are having on the Christmas sales period. The panel said it had become more important than ever to plan effectively.
The head of marketing for the children’s furniture retailer said supply issues also caused a pricing headache for brands. “Prices are being pushed up and that has to fit in with the usually big sales period. There is a lot to think about, but you have to be flexible,” she said.
The problems in the global supply chain will get worse before they get better, according to the ecommerce manager for the global furniture retailer, and one of the biggest challenges for brands, according to his online sales colleague, is therefore “how to keep the customer satisfaction up when supply is low, and demand is high”.
The subject was particularly “painful” for them when it came to supply chain challenges threatening customers’ ability to order the goods they want this Christmas. It means marketing and inventory plans made a year ago have to be adapted significantly, forcing the use of more generic messaging in above-the-line campaigns, with digital advertising rotated to promote what is in stock.
Setting the right tone
The head of marketing for a children’s furniture retailer felt consumers quickly became more cynical about brands’ emotionally-led advertising and how the country was all in this together.
“It is so important to get the right tone because people can see through the messaging and question whether a brand can actually back up what they are saying with, for example, good customer service,” she said. “More recently brands have fallen back into using regular day-to-day messaging.”
Brands of all sizes have had to think carefully about their messaging when promoting to consumers of different ages. The ecommerce manager for a global furniture chain said online advertising helped to reach younger consumers, while, for older buyers, online became the only option for the first time when physical stores closed during lockdowns. It meant customer service had to adapt to the new way shoppers were behaving.
“We started with basic messaging explaining how online was the safest way to buy home furnishing and accessories,” he said. “We made a lot of operational changes, moving to contactless click-and-collect and asking people to wait in the car park for their products.”
He expects online sales to continue to grow because people have now become used to buying home furnishings online. Nevertheless, he accepts that the customer experience needs to compete with how people feel buying in store when they can touch and test the products. He said physical stores saw a pick-up among older consumers once the vaccination programme began.
The managing director for a company that sells recycled construction products and furniture agreed customer service had been a challenge. “Few people bought a sofa from a website three years ago,” he said. “But now the genie is out of the bottle and, after having to buy online, people feel comfortable doing it. The challenge is ensuring customer service is good throughout the buying journey, certainly for older customers.”
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Added value for the customer
Bish said the financial services brands doing a good job are those that unearth the customer insight and then work hard to deliver a consistent and improving service based on that information.
“They remain focused on what they do well every single day, and they keep nudging the customer, who is getting added value,” he said. “It’s also about relevant upselling. In retail banking it could be helping people with a current account and then a mortgage. It is about exceeding someone’s expectations in everything a bank delivers to them.” With the huge amount of customer data that does exist, the panel discussed why so much online advertising appears to be so poorly targeted. A brand’s customers can feel they are being chased around the internet by ads that are no longer relevant.
Harrison commented that when it comes to personalisation and advertising strategies based on data, there has been a resurgence of context. Brands now want to advertise to people when they are in the market for different products and services; this could be fashion or items for the garden.
“We have seen an increase from advertisers who know eBay has first-party data, and that we know who our users are and what they are doing – which is usually making a transaction,” he said. “It’s useful for financial services brands to see what their clients are doing in different environments. Context has made a resurgence.”
The roundtable also discussed the positives and negatives of the demise of the cookie and how the financial services industry might benefit from an increased focus on first-party data. One participant said it could mean a return to old-school brand advertising to generate awareness, and less of an obsession with ROI and tracking.
The head of marketing for the large insurance group was adamant that the changes do provide an opportunity for marketers. “It will be better for marketing’s reputation. It goes back to building the brand, and the brand meaning something again, rather than taking a price-driven, cookie-led and spam-led approach.” When it comes to customer experience, the question was also asked whether too many advertisers are using technology for the sake of it and not being innovative enough with the data insights being generated.
The skill is combining data with the human element and a personal touch which resonates with customers. Ultimately, this will help financial services brands form longer, more mutually rewarding relationships with them.■
“people can see through the messaging and question whether a brand can actually back up what they are saying with, for example, good customer service.”
“It is easy to underestimate the impact of seeing someone – anyone – approving and using your product. It can be a real influence on others.”
Importance of sustainability
The final topic discussed was sustainability and how brands must avoid accusations of greenwashing among increasingly cynical consumers.
The eBay panellists said when it comes to the home and garden sector there is evidence consumers are willing to pay more for sustainable products. But communicating this has to be done carefully. Other panellists suggested that it can be better not to mention sustainability in marketing, but to let consumers make up their own minds when researching products.
“Being really overt about claims of sustainability is actually likely to backfire,” said the head of business development at the recycled products company. “In most cases, we virtually don't mention it at all, just allowing the products to speak for themselves, and allowing the customers to then join up the dots.” The risk is that, by jumping on the sustainability bandwagon, brands may be seen as guilty of greenwashing – especially if a sustainable product line is just a small part of an otherwise disposable, wasteful offering.
As with many of the uncertainties currently influencing consumers’ buying behaviours, competitors are likely to be facing similar challenges to you. Brands that succeed, therefore, will be those best able to identify the trends that matter most and respond to them nimbly, with customers always at the forefront of their thinking.■
