How I Create Killer eCommerce Content Without Breaking the Bank with Ilene Richardson.
Guest: Ilene Richardson
Meet Ilene, the dynamo CEO and Founder of Imaginary Content, where she's shaking up the agency world by cutting the fluff and delivering top-notch content without the hefty price tag. With a trophy case that includes a Clio Award and credits spanning TV to digital, she's the Swiss Army knife of content creation. But don't let the accolades fool you; she's a caring boss-lady who fosters a creative playground for her team to produce their best work, every single time.
Here’s a summary of the great stuff that we cover in this show:
In this episode of the eCommerce Podcast, host Matt Edmundson sits down with Ilene Richardson, the dynamic CEO and founder of Imaginary Content. Ilene shares her secrets to producing top-notch eCommerce content that drives sales and engages customers, all while keeping costs under control.
Discover how to elevate your eCommerce content strategy and take your online store to the next level with Ileen's proven tactics and insights, including:
The crucial role of content in your overall marketing plan and how to ensure cohesive branding across all touchpoints
Proven strategies for communicating key product benefits and features through your content to boost consumer confidence and sales
The surprising impact of incorporating video content on your product pages to improve search rankings and customer engagement
Her top tips for creating effective eCommerce content on a budget by leveraging in-house resources and staying agile in the creative process
The costly content mistakes that many eCommerce brands make and how to avoid them
How to inspire customers and build brand loyalty through aspirational content and storytelling that goes beyond just product details
The importance of regularly refreshing your content to maintain search algorithm rankings and capture seasonal opportunities
Whether you're a small business owner or a seasoned eCommerce professional, this episode is packed with actionable advice and real-world examples to help you create killer content that converts.
Don't miss Ilene's game-changing approach to eCommerce content creation that prioritizes quality and results without sacrificing your budget. Tune in now and learn how to take your online store's content to the next level!
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Hello and welcome to the e-Commerce Podcast with me, your host, Matt Edmondson. Now, this is a show all about helping you deliver e-commerce. Wow. Yes, it is. And to help us do just that today we are chatting with Ilene Richardson from Imaginary Content. And we're going to get into all kinds of things about content and eCommerce and what it means and all that sort of good stuff so don't go anywhere because you're definitely going to learn some great stuff from Ilene today, who?
It's fair to say that we met at Subsummit, another amazing guest from the Subsummit conference. We would no doubt we'll be talking about that. So yes, get ready, get your pens ready, get your notepads out, because you're going to want to take some notes today. And before we get into it, let me just say, if this is the first time with us, welcome to the eCommerce Podcast.
Always great to welcome new listeners to the show. Always great to have you with us. And if you are watching The live stream of this recording. A warm welcome to you. We do live stream the recording [00:01:00] out to our cohort members. So if you want to know more about eCommerce Cohorts, where you can get to watch the recording of the podcast, get to come and ask questions all yourself, then check out eCommerceCohort.
com. It's our monthly mastermind, our monthly membership group. Love to see you in there. We're in there every day. We're in there all the time. So come join us, eCommerceCohort. com. Now, let's talk about Ilene. I'm going to read from my notes to make sure I get this right. But Ilene is the Dynamo's CEO and founder of Imaginary Content, where she is shaking up the agency world by cutting the fluff, love this by cutting the fluff and delivering top notch content.
Without the hefty price tag. With a trophy case that includes a Clio award and credits spanning TV to digital. Ilene is the Swiss army knife of content creation, which I think is the best job title in the world. But don't let the accolades fool you. She is a [00:02:00] caring boss lady who fosters a creative playground for her team to produce their best work every single time.
Ilene, welcome to the show. Great to have you. Great to see you again. How are we doing today? Hi, thank you for having me. I'm so excited to be here and that might go down as like the best intro for me ever. So I'm going to take some notes. I like the Swiss Army knife of content creation. Yeah, I like that too, that's great.
It's definitely got a sort of zing to it, that's for sure. But whereabouts in the world are you, Ilene? So we're just outside of New York City, in Connecticut. But we do have team members spread all across the country, even across the globe. But our headquarters and content studio is based in lovely Norwalk, Connecticut.
Ah, a beautiful part of the world Connecticut. I was there a few years ago, some friends of mine live in Connecticut. And just stunning. Loved it. Loved. I can see why they live there and why you [00:03:00] would want to live there. It's just beautiful. Here you are beaming across the Atlantic.
And we we were talking about this before we hit the record button that we met at Sub Summit, didn't we, in 2023 you were speaking at the event. Do you speak at many events? I did a bit last year. It's great to go out, and talk about what we're doing and listen to other people in this space.
So it's really, it's been really fun. I enjoy that. I probably do some more next year. Yeah, get out and see the world a little bit. And yeah. And enjoy it. It's nice, actually, post COVID that we're back doing these sort of big live events, isn't it? Yeah. It's great, it really is. It was a little bit of like re entry, right?
When it first started again, you're like, oh my gosh, we're around all these people, and if somebody sneezes, everybody would turn around and be like, oh, no. But it's great to have some more normalcy because the in person connections are so valuable. It was great to meet you I just happened to at your table and see what you're up to.
It was great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, it's funny, isn't it? it's going back in these sort of chance connections that you make [00:04:00] and We've had a few of the what's the best phrase to describe people from subsummit? Subsummiters. I don't know the subsummit cohort the subsummit clan maybe Yeah, the Sub Summit Clan, the SSC, maybe we should call it the SSC, I'm going to call Chris and tell him we're going to call it the SSC.
But yeah, we've had quite a few people from SubSummit now on the show. So it's great to have you on and recently we had Neil Hoynes on the show who was one of the keynote speakers from SubSummit as well. So yeah, we're getting our money's worth. If you weren't at SubSummit 2023, basically all the really good speakers have been on this podcast.
Yeah, exactly. Just tune in. You don't need to go next year. Oh funny. Yeah. Did you hear that someone's banging on my window? Sorry about that. Yeah, no problem. They're clinging something outside. Just let them in. Hello? [00:05:00] Yeah. So tell me a bit about what you guys are doing in Connecticut at Imaginary Content.
What's that? What's the MO? Not much. No. We're so thrilled. We're so excited to be going into the new year with, our clients and the work we've been doing. We developed eCommerce content creation, strategy, execution, and it's been a space we've been playing in for over five years now.
Wow. Last year. We were, we moved into our new headquarters. We built out a content studio. So not only were we doing the, copywriting and graphic design elements of the content, but we're all actually shooting and photographing in house. So it's been great. It's exciting. It's exciting. I really feel like we're on the forefront of where, Kind of advertising creativity needs to be right now because that's exactly where the consumer is making their purchase decision.
So what's more critical than that, right? Like communicating to the consumer exactly at their point of decision making in their path to [00:06:00] purchase. So we get really fired up and excited. In the old days, it used to be all about everybody wanted to have those, big flashy commercials on broadcast TV.
And now we're all like, no, this is where it's at. This is where we're really getting. Consumers to pay attention. Yeah it's, yeah, it's interesting. I was talking to my son about this the other day, because he mentioned to me that he'd understood for the first time, the expense of TV advertising, and this, the sheer crazy costs involved with it.
Yeah. And he's I don't understand how companies can do this. And I'm like it's definitely not something that I'm that interested in myself as a, as an eCom entrepreneur, because. I'm just not, I'm just not big enough to convey that amount of money, but I'm intrigued a little bit, Ilene, if I can about the studio.
So I'm sat in a studio that we built down at our warehouse where we do all of the fulfillment from for ourselves, for our clients. So I'm in a studio, in a podcast studio, because we have a podcast agency as [00:07:00] well. I am big into the whole podcasting thing. I love doing the whole podcasting thing.
But you guys have taken it one step further, haven't you? What's going on with your studio? We discovered as we were creating the content that not, in order to have your content register on the digital shelf it needs to be live when your product goes live. So if you're dealing with.
A new product, a lot of those other materials, whether you're doing social marketing or you're doing, any traditional marketing methods, those materials don't get done until right up until potentially the product launch and the live date. But in order to be listed on Amazon, Walmart, you name it, on the first day of sale, you need to have your base level of content to qualify for the listing.
So we were in a situation where there was a lot of work we were doing and we didn't have any assets. There weren't any, brand assets yet to work with. And we started shooting our own and we started going to external studios to rent to space or outsource in some way. And really realize that, especially with my background in, [00:08:00] in television and video production, it just made sense to do it all in house, so we're not. We're a creative, cohesive unit here that we can come up with the idea and we can go execute it. So a lot of what we've been doing in the six months we've built out this studio is a lot of recipe videos, hands and pans videos, lifestyle videos, and we shoot them at scale.
We, it's to your point about how TV commercials are so expensive in the old days you would have had like a gigantic crew and three days of pre pro and this and that to just shoot a recipe video, but we've really started pushing the boundaries of how you do great content at scale that works in the digital space specifically, right?
So that it's not a super busy frame so that people who are watching it on mobile, which is where 70 percent of the consumers are. Can get what they're looking for out of your content. So we have our studio space here. We have a full kitchen and we have a prop library. We built that all out and we're [00:09:00] expanding beyond just food and actually starting Monday, we're shooting lifestyle products in here as well.
And just being really nimble and agile in the full creative process to make sure our clients are getting great content. That's going to help drive conversion for their products. Yeah, it's fascinating. I'm intrigued by it because I know for me, when it came to creating video content it, life became a lot easier when I had a place where I could just go and switch something on and just do it.
It was just, it was a beautiful thing, but it's probably fair to say, cause I appreciate that not everybody listening to this podcast will, will have the ability to go and create a studio. Yeah. But you, there are, you can rent studios out. I know when we do recipe videos, actually, I don't have a kitchen in our studio, but we there's a friend of mine who has a beautiful kitchen and we pay her a rental fee every day that we're down in there.
So there are, and maybe to speak to this, [00:10:00] there are some creative ways to get around not having a studio, right? Yeah, for sure. At the bottom line, if you're talking about sort of Smaller brands, new brands, some content is better than no content, right? The content needs to be good, but you have to make sure you are creating content for your site.
So you don't necessarily need a studio to do it. You just need to have a plan for what's going to work best to showcase the benefits of your product for us, because we're doing it at scale and we're doing You know, thousands and thousands of PDP pages every single year. It just made sense for us to bring it in house as a core capability, a lot of brands or a lot of brands that have smaller SKU counts, smaller SKU lists and are just, working a little more nimbly.
You don't need to invest in the whole studio. Our studio was quite large, but we know agencies that have a studio that are the size of just the small office. In [00:11:00] studio, you put a camera and light, it doesn't have to be a 10,000 square foot space with tons of gear. It just has to be equipped for what you need. But there are plenty of resources to do that out of house, whether it's renting spaces or subcontracting out that content, the important thing is that you're thinking about your content as part of your go to market strategy, as part of your, omni channel sales plan.
So the, you mentioned that, some content is better than no content. But the content should be good. So how, if we're going to start thinking about this say from a startup's point of view, what sort of things should I be thinking about that is going to make it good? How do I know if it's good or bad?
Because I think we're the biggest deceiver of ourselves sometimes when it comes to this kind of thing, that's a great phrase. Yeah, we do. And I'm just curious, what do you mean [00:12:00] by good and what sort of things should we be thinking about? Yeah, so I think that there's a scale.
We call it the content maturity model. And if you're a smaller brand or a new brand, the important things are you're giving the consumer the information they need to have confidence in the purchase. So if it's a new product, your content needs to communicate. What your product is, what it does or how it tastes, or the flavor profile or the usage occasion.
You need to be in a quick, short, ideally, visual style. You need to be able to communicate that to the consumer and consumers are looking to understand the product benefits clearly. What your point of differentiation is. So let's just say it's a different flavor or let's just say it's a different scent.
Those are the things that need to be simply and clearly communicated in whatever content you produce. And that could be a graphic tile, in your PDP page. It [00:13:00] could be a small video 15 seconds, 20 seconds. That clearly illustrates these points. And in terms of execution, yeah, we've gone a long way from even a few years ago where you would see like a cell phone picture of a like wrinkly package on a shelf somewhere that was.
That was basically standing up a product. It does have to, it does have to have kind of the value that your company has. So if your company is that I'm thinking of earthy crunchy brands, right? Granola bars or things that you would eat on a hike, those brands, you might want to shoot something outdoors because that's in the vibe of what your consumer's usage occasion will be.
And that maybe could be a little more user generated or. From an organic point of view, but if you're presenting something that's really slick and maybe at a higher price point, you need to reflect that a bit in your content, which doesn't mean you have to pay more for your content. It just means that you need to have a cohesive strategy.
Your content [00:14:00] has to reflect the visual language that you're establishing or have established for your brand. However that best suits you while communicating the key attributes of your product. That's really, it's a really good point, actually, communicating the visual aspects of your brand, because, and I like that if you're doing an outdoor, if you're doing a granola bar, I can see why you can see the image in your head, can't you?
Let's shoot that. Yeah, there's gonna be some grass or some guys up a mountain or something. Yeah. Versus if I'm doing a premium skincare product, I'm probably not going to shoot that in the same place for obvious reasons. It's going to be in a high end bathroom or something like that, isn't it?
And I'm going to, I'm going to do that sort of imagery. What do you think about and the reason I'm asking this is because at the time Ilene we're actually, my company is about to launch another brand which is a premium skincare brand, right? So we're thinking again about assets and imagery.
And so. What do you think about [00:15:00] for example, me going on to say Midjourney or an other AI image generator and say, Hey, give me an image of this product in a high end bathroom. Should I be entertaining things like that? Or should I just be avoiding at all costs? That's a, that's like the million dollar question.
Billion dollar question, right? Isn't it? That's absolutely. If someone wants to pay me a million dollars for the answer, that'd be awesome. From my perspective, what's different than about just looking at a stock footage, going to Shutterstock or Pond5 or whoever you use, find a high end, background, bathroom, and have someone Photoshop your product in, at least then the usage rights of the image you're using are clear.
What worries me about that, and I know Google and everyone's working on, ensuring that usage rights are taken care of. So sure, you can do that. There's no reason not to. You just might find that If you're looking for video, that's a harder plug and play [00:16:00] solution. Just looking to create some still images.
And you also want to make sure your product looks great and, probably have some retouching on your product to some products have lots of extra writing on them. You want to have it super clean. So it's a clean read for the consumer. Just the key things about your product, the size. The servings or the usages, if there's any variants for skincare, if it's for oily skin or dry skin, those things you want to make sure are accentuated on the product, not just where you're putting it in situ, but how the product itself is cleaned up and really forceful.
That's good. It's interesting. I think the interesting thing with AI for me is I tend to use it for ideas rather than final content, if that makes sense. It's it's helpful to generate ideas for me to go, oh, okay, That's the kind of thing that I want. So I can give that to the design team or, the graphic designer or whoever's involved and say, in my head, this is the kind of thing that I'm [00:17:00] thinking, can you run with that?
And yeah, it's great, but also here's a little tip. You can use it for keywords. For your SEO optimization, it's one of the things we use for keywords and it's actually great. What keywords are relevant for this retailer, this product, this, it comes up with some things that are at least as good as other sources that you might pay for.
And it really helps round out making sure your keywords are as robust as they should be. Yeah. No powerful. So should I be let's talk about the skincare brand. Cause it's a great example for maybe of a start and then we'll get into some more established stuff. Should I get the need just having done some research on competitors and actually haven't been in the beauty space for a while.
I understand the need to have images which portray prestige and high end in the product photography. So I know we're going to have to do that. Wow. I'm not going to get away with just putting the product on a table and taking a picture and it'll be fine [00:18:00] with my iPhone. I appreciate that's not going to work.
Should I also then be thinking about video? Yeah. Obviously you've got your studio. You've mentioned it a couple of times. Should I be thinking about video and what sort of things should I be thinking about video if I should be, that's a really long winded way of saying, what should I be thinking about video, video or not.
That's a really good question, right? What we know is that video impacts the algorithms, the search algorithms, for all the major retailers on the digital marketplace. So having video on your PDP page will help you capture some organic search. So you're gonna need some video somewhere to skincare product.
Yours is one of the first they see. That being said, we do see tons of research and take it for what it's worth, but consumers engage better with video than with stills because it's [00:19:00] easier for them to learn more about the product quicker, right? So if you were to do a video, user generated video is really popular in certain demographics of someone trying your product, showing how to use your product.
That's really key, especially in skin care. Anecdotally, I know that's a huge. A huge thing is making sure people are using the product in the proper way and those product usage videos are very popular. And you can also look at it as amortizing your assets because if you're creating a video for social, potentially, you can use it or adapt it for the PDP page as well and really maximize your spend across different platforms in that way.
But at a net level, you gotta do some video because you're never gonna show up in search. Google searches are now actually pulling videos from Amazon PDP pages. So it's super important to find your consumer to have some video on that page. That being said, when the [00:20:00] consumer's on that page, We see data every day that they prefer to engage with a video.
And what that video can do is, demonstrate the product, highlight features of the product show, demonstrate how actually you would use it or work it into your skincare routine. And these don't have to be super complicated. You don't have to go look for, a supermodel and, set this on a beach somewhere.
Like it, it can just be very organic to your brand. 15 seconds, 20 seconds hey, here's, a moisturizer we're using today or whatever the demonstration might be, but it is really important to have that as part of your plan. That's really good. That's really good. So I've got some video ideas there.
Just for the, for those listening that might not know, Ilene just explain what you mean when you say PDP. Sorry. PDP is your product description page. So if you're on Amazon buying. Face wash, the page [00:21:00] that has a product you might be looking at often has bullets and copy describing that product. And then on the left of the main image, you'll see these smaller images that you can click on for more information.
That's also where you could see a video. So your product description page, that PDP page, whether it's on your own website, whether it's on a Shopify website, or whether it's on a retailer like Amazon or Walmart or whomever, That is where your product really needs to shine and make sure it's communicating, in all points.
Some people might look at the bullets and not look at the video, every touch point you have to use on those pages needs to be very clear product benefits and features communication. Yeah, no I totally agree. And I, it's. I'm curious, do you have an opinion on, so if I'm thinking back to earlier on today, I was on the Amazon website I was looking at a product, a diesel heater, bizarrely I won't [00:22:00] explain why, it's just a very boring story, but I was looking at a diesel heater on, a diesel heater on Amazon, and there was like seven photos and a video, and I'm listening to you talk.
The first thing I did was I just literally go straight to the video and watch it, right? It's like a minute long video showing me how to install the said diesel heater and how easy it is for me to do that. So I'm like, okay, cool. And I've got all that with inside of a few seconds of just watching the video.
But thinking back to it, the video itself is embedded into Amazon's ecosystem. It didn't take me to a YouTube video. It didn't have a pop up with a YouTube video in. Is that important? Amazon must be doing it for a reason or does it, if you're just starting out, an embed from YouTube is just as good.
I'm curious as you thought on this. That's a really good insight that you uncovered. Amazon does not allow you to link out to any other site. So you don't have a choice. If you're listing on Amazon, you have to upload that video, as part of their vendor central product [00:23:00] page.
In general, the fewer clicks. And, redirects a consumer has in their journey to purchase the better, right? Because you're going to lose them somewhere along the way. So wherever possible, embed it. If you need to click it out to a YouTube it's better than not, but embedding it is your first choice.
Very good. So I've, okay, so I've got my brand. I've got some really nice photographs of my skincare product. I've got some videos showing how to apply it. Just talking about maybe some of the features of it, why it's, some of the things that you need to think about when using it, et cetera, et cetera.
And I've done all that within sort of 15, 20 seconds. I say I, there's no way I'm doing that video, Ilene, because I'm not my target market. So I get that. I don't think ladies will want to see, the white bearded man just applying this to his face. Maybe they would. I don't know. Maybe I'm misjudging.
I should test it, perhaps. So what else do I need to be thinking about? I think there's a real shift and we see it with major brands as well as emerging brands, right? [00:24:00] It's like really understanding I think that your digital marketplace strategy, and by that how you're representing your product on your website or on the Amazons of the world.
It has to be as thoughtful and cohesive as the rest of your marketing strategy. It's still a bit of an also brand and it surprises me every day because, we're all buying stuff online. Like, how can it be a second thought? So it needs to be part of your overall marketing plan. The consumer messaging needs to be.
Hide into your consumer messaging in anything else you're doing. The look and feel, as we said, the style down to the font you use in your Chiron, if you're, putting benefits on screen, it all needs to tell the full brand story cohesively and work with rest of your brand. And that's super important.
That is a big mess, I find. People are still looking at this content as like oh, yeah, maybe I will throw this upon our website or throw it up on our Shopify store. No, it's not good enough anymore, you can't do that. If you [00:25:00] start from that position of, here's my marketing plan, here's what, our key product benefits are, what our visual language, look and feel of our brand is, the packaging all relates into that, obviously, anything else you might be doing, if you're buying digital banners, if you're doing social, it all has to work together, and so if you take that approach when you come into how you design your page, You're already, many steps ahead of most.
And I think you just always need to, focus on what you control, which is maximize the SEO opportunities, whether it's in the title, the bullets, the keywords you're using in the actual product descriptions, as well as backend keywords. You want to make sure you're capturing organic search. It's You're leaving money on the table if you're not and it's easy enough to do.
So you want the cohesive overall strategy. You want to maximize your keyword. [00:26:00] Optimization from your titles through to your copy. And then you want to design the creative to make sure that you're picking up on the communication points can see consumers need to know to have confidence in their purchase.
So whatever you do on your product page in your tiles or in your video has to have that top line thought of okay, we know when we went out to test if this product was viable, that consumers were really excited about XYZ and really asking about then you want to make sure that you're commuting those, communicating those things very clearly on the page, in the visuals and in the copy.
So the whole point of your page is to make sure that the consumer knows what they're going to buy. And then it's happy with it. We've worked with an auto brand that had a gigantic problem because they're the mechanics that were ordering parts from them would always order two or three because they were not sure if it was going to be the right thing that they needed.
So what [00:27:00] happened? What happens when they get two or three? They find the one that works. And what happens to the other two? They have to bring it back to the store. Somebody has to collect it, catalog it, get it back out to sale. And the cost of all that was enormous, right? So obviously you're building consumer loyalty by having consumers get what they think they're getting and you're avoiding the cost of returns.
which is significant, especially for a small business. You don't want someone sending something back to you saying I thought it was a travel size and it's, it's the mega or whatever the case might. The point being, consumers need to know and understand what they're getting and have confidence in that purchase.
So when it comes to them, the reviews they give you, which are extremely important, are positive. This is what they thought they were getting and they're happy with it, right? Nobody likes to be like, oh, this isn't what I ordered. How many reviews like that have you seen? I thought the texture was going to be thicker.
I thought [00:28:00] You know, I've used it on dry skin, but my skin, it says now it says oily skin, like you need to think through what your consumer research strategy you've used to develop this product tells you about your consumer and make sure that's reflected in the communication points. Love that.
Love that. I'm just, as you're talking, I'm remembering with our supplement business, we, I remember we put on the site, the measurements of the supplements, right? Cause some of them, some supplements you take can be actually be quite big. And it was a common question. So we're like let's put on the website, the measurements of the supplement.
So this supplement is whatever, 17 millimeters tall. The problem that we ran into and what I think you've just addressed there, Ilene, is actually. We had the right information. It was just presented in the wrong way. So you might not understand what 17 millimeters is, but you might understand the height of a, I don't know, a 10 P piece if you're in the UK or a 25 cent [00:29:00] piece.
If you're in the States, you might be able to do that, but, and I think this is one of the things that Apple did very well, wasn't it? With the iPod. It's what they're famed for. 10, 000 songs in your pocket kind of thing, rather than a three gigabyte hard drive. So in terms of how they communicate it, actually that became as, as important, wasn't it?
So you've got to communicate all the features, the benefits, you've got to answer the questions that consumers have in their mind on your pages but you've got to do it in a way that actually makes sense to them, right? So we saw crazy success. We were doing a product page for a product that came in a lot of different sizes.
It's like the brick size or the pouch size or this or that. When we put the product in scale on a kitchen counter next to And or something that you could understand the scale. We saw a lift in conversion, greater than 20 percent just by making sure the consumer understood [00:30:00] what this product looks like compared to that product.
They really understood what they were getting. They could anticipate it. Just like you're saying with the vitamin, like with the vitamin size, that's a great. It's a great call out because it speaks to exactly what we're talking about here, which is like making sure the consumer knows exactly what they're getting.
If somebody can't swallow a big pill, they're going to send that back to you or not buy it from you again and, be annoyed that they didn't get it right the first time because they were probably waiting to take that supplement. You lose all kinds of traction and confidence in addition to the cost of having to take that back and refunding.
So the more specific you can be, and in a clever way, of course, like that, exactly that. Yeah, the Apple example is great. They do so many things so well, the rest of us are, always in awe, we play around a lot with serving size, if you say something is like 1. 6 ounces, what does that mean to anybody?
It's better if you tell them how many average servings that could be, and then you show them what an average serving looks like, because a serving for you might feel different than a serving for me, so getting [00:31:00] really into that granular level, but in a way that is on brand. With the visuals and you know how you're actually communicating them.
Yeah it's really powerful point, isn't it? And so you are actually using this content in effect, whether it's video, whether it's written text, to overcome every single objection. Maybe that's in a consumer's mind, but at the same time, educate them to what it is they're gonna get. So when they get it, there's no.
hidden surprises in a bad way, right? It's this is not unexpected. You might want to do something. There's that phrase, isn't there? You sell the steak, but deliver the sizzle. You might want to deliver a good surprise, but they're not caught out in a bad way.
And I think that's the essence of what you're trying to say, right? Yeah, I agree with all of that, but I think also to add onto that, you want to inspire you want to, build brand loyalty. You want whatever's unique about your brand, the tonality, the language, the, spirit. and you [00:32:00] want to inspire usage occasions.
Just for example, if you were selling your skincare product, you want us to be something a little bit aspirational, that one consumer telling to another consumer about. Or gives them ideas on how to Uses up the container faster. You need this morning, noon at night, or whatever it might be. In the case of food, since we do a lot of food, we like to show different usage occasions, different , different recipe usages that you might not have thought of, because we know that consumers are always looking for recipe inspiration, so it's oh, I didn't know I could use this.
To make something like that sounds really good. And then you have a consumer needing it more often because they're using it more. So there's always a little bit of the aspirational aspect. We want to be really practical and pragmatic and ensure everything you just said that the consumer knows and what they're buying is happy and satisfied when they get it.
But you also want to have a little surprise and delight slash inspirational [00:33:00] aspect to what you're doing to help. Help continue the sales and inspire the consumers. Who do you see doing that? I'm really curious.
There's people who are doing it well in different ways, right? Like we, we do so much content, we get lost in what we do, but we're always trying to see who else is out there doing things, I think. It depends. You have to give me a category because it's like one of those questions that are so broad.
I'm like scanning my mind for everything I've looked at recently. Like in coffee, I think Dunkin Donuts has done some nice things on their PDP pages. They have a lot of seasonality. Which is something that's really great. Consumers respond to that, the, it brings to mind, to diverge from your question for one second, the other thing to keep in mind when your content is, you can't just set it and leave it there for three years, it needs to be refreshed.
Yeah. You have to keep it fresh and like Dunkin Donuts is great at the seasonality. Most brands can't afford to seasonally update everything about all their [00:34:00] content, but perhaps you can update some keywords to capture that search or you can have one image that is a usage occasion related to a holiday, but you want, You're going to lose traction in the algorithms as well as appear too generic to your customers if you're not doing some regular refresh.
And then people always ask me like how often should we refresh? It's how often can you afford to refresh? I don't know. At least once a year but if you're really trying to make a stand with a new product, you should be updating those keywords, every quarter at the least.
Yeah, super powerful. I love that. So I, and I'm actually, as you're talking, I'm thinking, oh, there's probably one or two things I need to refresh on our site, because it's probably been there for a couple of years. Just as you're talking, I'm going yes, I'm guilty, Your Honour. Guilty as charged.
There's a few things we need to resolve there. Listen, I'm aware of time and it is rapidly rapidly escaping from us. And I feel like we're just getting going here [00:35:00] but super useful some really good ideas for me actually on the skincare brand already. If people want to reach out to you, if they want to connect with you, what's the best way to do that?
Yeah, feel free to check out our website, which is imaginarycontent. com. You could always reach out and email me directly, Ilene@imaginarycontent.com and this was so fun. Actually, I feel like maybe a part two sometime in our future because we did just get started. We really did. We should do it in the new year.
We should, at the time of recording it's Christmas. I'm not sure when this comes out, but yeah we'll get set up on that. We'll do it like a part two. We would do, this is the warmup.
Thank you so much for having me. This has been a lot of fun. I really appreciate the conversation. Oh, no, it's been great. And thanks for your insight. And we'll definitely get you on. And I'm going to pick your brain some more about what we're trying to do. So it's a beautiful thing. A beautiful thing.
Ilene, thank you so much for joining us here on the eCommerce Podcast. What an absolute legend. Do make sure you reach out to [00:36:00] Ilene. And see what they're doing. The website's awesome. Actually, I was on it earlier thinking that's really clever. That's really clever. There's a few ideas you can definitely steal just off of the website. No, dude, I think when people steal stuff, it's the highest form of compliment. What is it? Imitation's the highest form of compliment or something like that. Like a flattery. Yeah, exactly. Something like that. Yeah. But do check it out. So also do make sure you check out today's show, sponsor the eCommerce cohort.
com come and have a look. If you've not been there already, come and see what it's all about. We'd love to see you in that group. Also be sure to follow the eCommerce podcast, wherever you get your podcast from, because of course we have yet more great conversations lined up. I don't want you to miss any of them.
And in case no one has told you yet today, let me be the first. You are awesome. Yes, you are created awesome. It's just a burden you have to bear. Ilene's got to bear it. I've got to bear it. You've got to bear it as well. Now the eCommerce podcast is produced by Aurion Media. You can find our entire archive of episodes on your favorite podcast app.
And the [00:37:00] wonderful team that makes this show possible includes the majestic Sadaf Beynon and Tanya Hutsuliak. And also our theme song was written by Josh Edmundson. And as I said, if you would like to read the notes or the transcripts, you can get them for free on the website at EcommercePodcast. net, which incidentally is where you can sign up to the newsletter.
if you haven't done so already. Because if you're on the newsletter, all of this stuff comes straight to your inbox every week automatically. It's a beautiful thing. So check it out at ecommercepodcast. net. So that is it for me. That is it from Ilene. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world.
I'll see you next time. Bye for now. Thank you.
