Creating Original Content - Part 2 (Products)

In “Creating Original Content – Part 1” I discussed how customers perceive products and services. Then went on to explain how using the experience of your staff and testimonials from clients to create original content for your service orientated business. Though these points should be used when creating content for a business that sells products online. You need to go quite a bit further to get noticed in the very loud world of selling products online.

Products

When it comes to promoting your products on the web, it’s very important to make ensure you have as much original content as possible. Since there is a very high chance that your competitors are selling the exact same product as you. From the same manufacturer, sourced from the same supplier. Hence, a lot of information you use is going to be repeated/copied information and your business may get lost in the crowd when customers and search engines look at your site. This happens because to save time, hence save money, when setting up a web site, many business will just use the product descriptions supplied to them by the supplier/manufacture. Yes, the specifications will need to be the same, but you are free to change how you describe the products to get people and search engines to take note.

Product Categories

As with service categories, it is important to make sure that they are used as primary and secondary keywords and that you describe them in your own words. You may want to include the brand names/manufactures and a few of the more popular product names in this description.

The Product

Referring back to the perception box (in Part 1), when considering purchasing a product, it is the customers perception of that product that is most important. That is why it is important to describe your product differently to your competitors. Here are a couple things to help create original content and differentiate yourself;

Depending on the product, it maybe an idea to see if there is professional review/opinion of that product that you can use, as customers like to know what “those more qualified” think. If that is not an option add a review/testimonial from a previous customer.
Ensure every product you have, has an image. Going one step further, you could also add action shots or video of the product being used to support your description.

The Price

Being in the business of selling products, you already know that there is more to pricing than just profit, you need to cover your operating costs (bills, cost of getting the product to you, etc). The thing that makes pricing even harder when selling on the internet is that you will have competitors in different countries whose operating costs are much lower. Enabling them to be able to sell the product cheaper than you. You’ve probably heard a few of the big retailers complain about this in the press. So to combat this you may have to research how much its going to cost a customer to ship the same product from say the US and inform the customer of that difference.

E.g. You sell Product X for $60 + $10 postage for a total of $70, but in the US the product price is $40 and postage is $40. Though the product is cheaper, once the shipping is added it becomes more expensive. Tell the customer this, show examples.

Promotion

We all love a bargain and customers take notice of sales. It is also a good idea to offer new, as well as loyal customers, coupon codes to promote repeat business.

Distribution

One area you will be able to beat a competitor from overseas is delivery time, where something may take 1 to 2 weeks to get delivered from overseas, in most cases you can deliver a package pretty much anywhere in Australia within the week and in many cases the next day or 3. Promote this as an advantage to doing business with you. If you have a store front or office, it is also a good idea to give the customer the option to pick up the product. As being the day and age where everyone wants everything now, the faster they get it the happier they are.

Recently, I was told of a business model that I think would work quite well, especially for a business with a shop front. Product Y cost $A in store and $B on the web site (which is say 10% cheaper than in store) If purchased online delivery is $D but if they pick up it’s free, hence the customer saves 10%. Where I see the advantage with the pick up option is there is a good chance that the customer will purchase Product Z when they come into the store to pick up Product Y. Hence you have made an extra sale by getting them to come into the store. With this theory you are bringing all 4 of the perception points into one.

I understand that there is a lot of work involved in creating original content for you products. Especially if you’re wanting to sell a few hundred products. Though I do feel that the extra time spent creating unique descriptions will be of huge assistance in differentiating yourself from your competitors. So try and do 5 or 10 a day and before you know it you would have added 100 to 200 products with unique descriptions to get you business noticed in a Homogeneity world wide web.

Till next time,