WooConf 2016: The Future Of Content And Commerce

EDITOR’S NOTE 05/25/16: You can now view WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner’s full WooConf keynote presentation here.

If your brand was a band, would you pack the stadium and sell out shows? To earn fans that love your products and services, you must weave together your customer experience and digital strategies. The future of digital content in ecommerce therefore depends on creating engaging and memorable customer experiences — this is how you create brand advocates and loyal fans.

In her WooConf 2016 speech, WP Engine CEO Heather Brunner explained the importance of aiming your ecommerce content and digital strategy towards creating a better customer experience. Here’s some takeaways from her speech.

“Our digital strategy is nothing less than our customer strategy,” said Brunner.

To get your business to ROCK you must captivate your audiences

In order to generate returning fans, experiences need to delight and engage your fans (aka customers)…they need to be compelling enough to build a relationship.

So what does that mean for content? Brunner said that content experiences should show off your passion, your personality and how your brand cares as people and creators. To do this successfully, you must commit fully to making your customer the center of your digital strategy. 

“High performing teams have shifted their mindset and tactics from marketing at customers, to focusing on connecting every touchpoint into a cohesive customer journey,” said Brunner.

Human Relationships are built upon four qualities

There are four stages that are essential to building powerful relationships with customers…

To adhere to an excellent customer experience, your digital strategy should abide by the following:

Be creating.

To be credible in commerce you must have a killer website experience, and an engaging social presence. “Toms is great example of a brand who creates credibility about who they are. They have a compelling value proposition,” said Brunner. Brunner recommended mastering one social channel and investing in the creation of killer interactive content. “Show off your passion and why you do what you do!” she said.

Be grateful.

Ask yourself, how could your business be more thankful and helpful? Some tips from Brunner included inviting customers to subscribe to valuable resources, providing frictionless help and support, and re-evaluating your customer welcome process. “Birchbox is a great example,” said Brunner. “They’re very grateful in their messaging and have a tone of gratitude.”

Be curious.

“Trust takes time…it’s earned,” said Brunner. “But when you have trust, you’ve earned the right to be more curious and to personalize experiences on what you know about your customers.” Once you have trust, you’ll earn the right to ask more questions, which will lead to a more personalized experience.

Be bold.

When building a fan base, it should be fun for customers to share experiences about your brand. You should treat your customers like super-fans, said Brunner. She used GoPro as a great example of this, whose purpose is to make the customer the hero with its customer generated content.

Final Thoughts

“The best retailers that will succeed will put their customers first, turning them into fans,” said Brunner. To do this, she recommended gathering information to know how to bring the customer experience into your digital strategy and to experiment with different techniques to engage, listen and learn.

“Think about how you can delight them and give them a more personalized touch.” Sending thank you notes, inviting customers to preview new products (before they are launched), and so on can help build devoted fans. Brunner concluded her presentation with these tips for generating loyal customers:

Follow Heather Brunner on Twitter @heatherjbrunner.