{"id":503,"date":"2017-09-28T21:40:25","date_gmt":"2017-09-28T21:40:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/?p=503"},"modified":"2018-05-30T18:55:16","modified_gmt":"2018-05-30T18:55:16","slug":"even-with-ecommerce-products-dont-sell-themselves-people-do","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/rwc-blog\/even-with-ecommerce-products-dont-sell-themselves-people-do\/","title":{"rendered":"Even With eCommerce: Products Don&#8217;t Sell Themselves &#8211; People Do"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">During a &#8216;Branding&#8217; lecture that I facilitated yesterday, students &#8211; in small groups &#8211; were asked to critically examine an ecommerce website of their choosing, in terms of:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Its features and functions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How engaging it is &#8211; and why its level of appeal\/ engagement is what it is.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The target audience that the site is attempting to appeal to.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">The user experience &#8211; site navigation, layers that need to be drilled-down into before pertinent information is uncovered, etc.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How readily\/ easily older people (55 years +) could use the site.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">How supportive\/ reinforcing the site is of the business&#8217;s desired brand positioning.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It was interesting to see students pick-up on the importance of lifestyle images being included in ecommerce websites &#8211; to &#8220;<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">humanise<\/span><\/strong>&#8221; the given site and to invoke a sense of connection with the viewer\/ visitor.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">When ecommerce websites started to become mainstream marketing platforms a few years ago, many businesses overlooked the importance of providing &#8220;<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">people<\/span><\/strong>&#8221; imagery as a part of the content of these sites. Unfortunately, there are still many ecommerce sites that are devoid of &#8220;people&#8221; imagery&#8230;imagery that is necessary in order to invoke a high level of emotional response in (and connection with) viewers\/ visitors. These sites have a &#8220;cold&#8221; feeling to them &#8211; and more often than not they portray the seller as being &#8220;pushy and only focused on wanting to push products&#8221;.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">Most current day literature around online marketing talks about the desirability of &#8220;<strong>not<\/strong>&#8221; blatantly selling a product\/ service &#8211; the days of the &#8220;hard-sell&#8221; have pretty much gone. Instead, marketers are concentrating on &#8220;<strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">story telling<\/span><\/strong>&#8221; &#8211; to create interest and cause a high level of customer connection\/ involvement in the brand using emotionally-laden communication styles and imagery. The Air New Zealand advertisement featuring &#8220;Pete the Kiwi&#8221; is a good example of this new era of &#8220;story telling&#8221; rather than &#8220;blatant selling&#8221;. Selling now is based on gently &#8220;pulling&#8221; the customer towards the offering using creative communications &#8211; not &#8220;pushing&#8221; product at customers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">It is relatively easy to detect websites that have been designed by a programmer, versus a designer (marketing specialist). In my experience programmers tend to concentrate on the technical delivery (functionality) far more so than considering the overall site design from (most importantly) the <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">user<\/span><\/strong> perspective.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-size: 14pt;\">I highly recommend to any business that is either currently operating an ecommerce website &#8211; or is looking to do so in the future &#8211; that they include &#8220;people&#8221; imagery (either still images and\/ or video) as a part of the content of their site. People imagery <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">coupled with<\/span><\/strong> product SKU&#8217;s causes stronger connections with viewers than simply presenting products on their own. <strong><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\">People<\/span><\/strong> sell products&#8230;<strong>products don&#8217;t sell themselves<\/strong> &#8211; this truism is relevant for <strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">both<\/span><\/strong> bricks and mortar selling environments <strong>and<\/strong> where online selling is concerned.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>During a &#8216;Branding&#8217; lecture that I facilitated yesterday, students &#8211; in small groups &#8211; were asked to critically examine an ecommerce website of their choosing, in terms of: Its features and functions. How engaging it is &#8211; and why its level of appeal\/ engagement is what it is. The target audience that the site is attempting to appeal to. The user experience &#8211; site navigation, layers that need to be drilled-down into before pertinent information is uncovered, etc. How readily\/&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":841,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503\/revisions\/841"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.realworldconsulting.kiwi\/rwc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}