Heather Brunner - Content & Commerce: Implications For Sites & Brands

How's it going? Hello everybody, thank you so much. It's an honor to be here today. I'm not sure, this is incredible to be able to speak here. This venue is typically used about once a week and it's packed to the gills with fans ready to go watch an incredible show. So many great bands come here and it's kind of cool to be here being able to speak at a place where typically I'm in the crowd, you know, cheering on for my favorite band. And so it kind of got me thinking about, we're at this really cool venue that usually is full of fans, people excited about the magic of a performance. And to think about a little bit like, what if your band was a brand? Would you pack the stadium? Would you have an audience that couldn't wait to come see your show and see you perform? And so how can we kind of take that and capture that same magic that a band would have with our own brand? And really, ultimately, isn't that what we're all trying to do? We're all trying to build advocates. We're all trying to build those super fans who love what we create, who are as passionate about what we are building and creating for our brands and what we're doing in terms of our products and services as we are, and as much as we love creating them for them. And really, that is a journey around creating that kind of advocacy and creating that kind of fan base for your brand. And I believe that how you do that is really the marriage and the intersection of incredible content that you create on behalf of your customers, married with an incredible customer experience. And you're really thinking about how you bring your personality, your passion, everything that makes you energized about what you're doing every day, how do you bring that to life? And all of us are using digital as our instrument to bring that to bear. How are we basically, if people say code is poetry in the WordPress community, how are we actually making music online and creating those incredible super fans? And again, through that marriage of content and experience. And really, again, if you think about it, people want to connect with other people. We're all customers. All of us want to be excited about the things we're using, the products we're using, the brands that we're working on, how we're learning, how they're making us better, how they're engaging with us. And we want to be doing business and hanging out with brands that are people that we'd want to hang out with if we were to meet them. You know, day to day, we want to be working with brands that we really are passionate about why they're doing it. So really, commerce and what we're all doing is not just about content and conversions and transactions. It's also about storytelling. Why is it what we're selling, what we're selling, and why are we passionate about what we're doing? And how do we get others to be excited about using our products and services? So I would put forth a challenge that says that in order to be successful, and you think about some of the most successful brands that are out there, they have put their customer at the center of their strategy. And I would say here for us here in this audience who are thinking about either as store owners who are building our brands and building our fan base, or the people who are here helping to build those sites together, that we should be thinking about that our digital strategy is nothing less than our customer experience strategy, and that we're putting those things together, making our customer experience that priority for what we're doing in terms of how we're building and engaging our brands. I believe that all human relationships, whether it's a friend, a partner, a customer, all go through stages and you can't skip any stages and it takes time. And that first stage of any relationship is, are you credible? Do I believe what you have to say? Do you know what you're talking about? What do others say about you? Kind of like, what's your reputation out there in terms of social proof? Respect. So the next place, respect, is really that exchange of value. So if I get to know you and you get to know me, can we kind of exchange value? Can I be better? Can our relationship improve? Can I improve because of my relationship with you? Do I get value from your ideas? Are you transparent and open? Are you really authentic? So again, how are we enabling our brands to kind of go through these stages with our customers? And then trust. Trust is something that you earn over time. It's by consistently being your word. Do you take responsibility when things go wrong and take ownership? Do I feel like you really care about me as a customer? Does that come through in every interaction that I have with you? And that over time builds that trust. And then finally, advocacy. This is what we're all kind of really shooting for. Wouldn't we want all of our customers to be advocates? All of them to be willing to associate their brand with your brand? They would be willing to actively share about your brand and share their views, their experiences, amplify what you're doing for them with their friends and their community, and also be willing to share more about themselves with you and for you to be able to take advantage around how you then tailor your experiences to what you learn from that relationship. So again, this is like, how do we replicate that human relationship online? How do we make that part of our strategy? And I'll put forth that a lot of the tools to do these things are out there. A lot of the people that are here in this room have built things to help with personalization, have helped do things with geolocation, a lot of those different things exist. But I would say we're moving too slow. We're not getting this fast enough. And the consumers are expecting us as a community to deliver the next generation of digital commerce. And they're going to expect not only to build that relationship, they're going to expect it more and more for it to be more tailored to them and more personalized. And again, they're going to want that exchange. They're going to be willing to give us more and we have to deliver to meet that challenge. And so I thought it'd be interesting to share with you a story. You know, Nordstrom's is one of the top retailers in the world, known for their incredible customer service. They have an incredible brand and I would consider myself to be a super fan of Nordstrom's. I would consider myself to be a major advocate of them. I've spent a lot of money with them with my family. I've spent money online, I've spent money offline. And I would expect them to know me, but yet you're about to see that they don't. And this is unfortunately too common the experience that we're having. So let me just share with you just a little quick experience. So it's springtime, I see some ladies out there in the audience, and it's time for some updates, my shoes. And so I decided to go do a search on Nordstrom's for some nude wedges. And for you guys out there, nude just means, don't get too excited, it just means flesh-colored shoes. So I'm looking for some nude wedges. So I go to Nordstrom's and here I am and this is what I get. I started searching around, I'm like, I don't like any of these, this is not what I was looking for. But oh wait a second, I'm not logged in. So I'm going to log in as Heather and I'm gonna go in there. I'm like, okay great, so now I'm in. They're going to know me, you know, I've been shopping with you for years, you're going to know me. So I start to go look around. So I go do the same search for nude wedges and I get exactly the same results. Nothing is different. They're exactly the same. Although I've bought a ton of shoes there, a ton of other things, but yet nothing's changed. I get exactly the same results. So I'm like, okay, well then maybe I haven't given enough, I trust this brand, maybe there's some tools out there that I wasn't aware of. I'm going to go and figure out and see what's out there and I'll go share more about myself to go see if I can get them to better know me. So I go look around and I'm digging and I'm digging and it's not until I kind of get in there I find, oh, there's this thing called True Fit. So I'm like, okay, cool, True Fit, I'll give this a try. I was kind of looking for shoes but hey, want to go ahead and take a look at this. And so I get in there and right away they're like, let's start your True Fit profile. Gender? Don't you already know that I'm a woman? Don't you know I'm Heather? I'm already here. So I've got to fill in, okay, woman. I was trying to buy shoes but I couldn't buy shoes so now I'm going to something I buy from them, dresses. So I select dresses and now they're starting to ask for some information: height, weight, age. And yes, I'm in the dreaded, I'm a birthday into the dreaded 45 to 54 age category. Yay. And so then I'm like, okay, I'm going to keep going. Now they're asking me body type: stomach, torso, hips, rear. Okay, they're starting to get really personal. All right, I'm going to keep going, I'm going all right, I'm all in on this True Fit. And now, what's your bra size? I'm like, oh God, okay, I'm going to flash this one quickly. All right. So then, what's your favorite dress? And they don't give me anything from things I already purchased previously. I've got to think about what did I actually shop for, what have I bought there before. Okay, Michael Kors kind of comes to mind. He's kind of a middle of the road brand so I'll type in Michael, get there. And so then I get a Michael Kors. Great. And then what's your typical size? Okay, here's my typical size. Okay, great, you're all done. Okay, voila, I've got my True Fit. So I'm like, okay, let's go shopping. So I'm ready to shop. So I get in there and I go to my first go-to because I was profiling on dresses, so I'm going to go to the dresses. I go here and this is what they freaking serve me: mother of the bride dresses. F you, mother of the bride, come on now. So I was pissed. But then I realized, you know, I am pretty old so, you know, digitally, okay, you, I told you, you know, 45 to 54. Okay, so I'm going to forgive you. So I'm going to keep going. So here I am, I'm going to keep looking at what they give me and I'm scrolling and scrolling. Like, none, like June, that was like the June Cleaver category. And here's this one, I'm like, don't like him, don't like him. Scrolling, oh, oh, I'm going to go back. 10 scrolls in, 10 page scrolls in, I finally find something in the top right here that I actually like. I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool, I'm going to take a look at that. I get in there, I'm like, okay, this is good, okay, great. And you'll notice that True Fit tells me that Medium is the right size. If you look at the top it says medium is size 6-8. Wow, that's insightful. Okay, cool, thank you. Okay, great. So I always check reviews, so I'm going to go check the reviews in this product to see what other people are saying. Cool, it's got good reviews, 4.5, people mostly like it. Okay, cool, I'm going to go do this, get this dress, sounds good. And so I go to the checkout. But again, like, you freaking already know me, why am I having to do anything more than just like say I want that dress and get out? And so this is kind of really what I want from Nordstrom's is for them to give me like a mini boutique for just me that's in my size with things that I like, with the brands I already wear, that's available, that I can just say I want this, I want it now, with basically, I want to have basically Nordstrom's catalog with a Stitch Fix kind of experience with an Uber payment, boom, I'm done and I'm out and I got what I wanted. So that's what I want from my web experience. And I would say all of us want, consumers want that. When they're willing to give you and they trust you and they're an advocate, they're willing to share information with you, they want that exchange of value in return. But the minute I get off Nordstrom's site and I'm on another website, boom, Adte for the win. Adte knows exactly about me and they know what I've been searching for, what I've been doing, and they serve me up this ad. So why is Adte so smart but yet our web tech doesn't know me and is again delivering with me basically a relatively dumb experience? We have the opportunity to change that. We here in this room, in terms of the WordPress community, the WooCommerce community, we have the opportunity to change and really take digital commerce to the next level. And it all goes back to what I was saying before about that relating to the personal experience and that path to creating advocacy. What do we want? We want to be treated just like if I walked into a Nordstrom store or walked into the coffee shop, hello, how are you doing? Welcome back. I know you, do you want that same kind of tea again? Do you want, oh, last time you bought this kind of shoe, do you want this kind of shoe again? Thank you for being a customer. Just that genuine personal relationship, we want that. And we can emulate that. It's going to take us being focused and committed to it, but we can emulate that in our digital experience. And so I'm going to lay out for you a couple of different examples and kind of unpack this, but kind of revisit that we can create the same path to advocacy that we do in the human world, we can do that in our digital world. So the first one is in terms of building credibility. And I think Toms is a great example of a brand that their online presence really creates a lot of credibility about who they are, their purpose, their personality, you know, their whole mission around one for one and what they're doing. They have a compelling value proposition that's very clear, defined very clear around their imagery, what they're doing on their site. It's a killer website experience in terms of finding content that's relevant, that's energizing, that you see a lot of social proof, etc. And they also have a very, very engaging offsite, a very, very engaging social presence that's tied back into their site, building that credibility around people excited about their brand, excited to share their experiences, all coming back to the site and creating that credibility as a brand. And again, I say when you're creating credibility, part of that is creating, we're creators, we're artists of our brands, artists of our products. How can we be creating that thought leadership, compelling imagery, compelling videos, etc., to be creating to build that credibility with our potential customers or current customers? Respect. So again, respect is all about that exchange of value. So now I'm kind of giving you a shot, I'm buying your products. And so now I'm there in that exchange of value. How do I give you ideas for how to best use and enjoy your products? Can I invite you to subscribe to valuable resources that might help you to better enjoy my brand and protect, have you spend more? And how do at every interaction that I have with you have frictionless help and support guiding you along the way? And I think that Birchbox is a really great example of a beauty subscription service that is tailoring, giving you samples of products every month to your skin type, your hair type, your different kinds of preferences, etc., and tailoring that to you. And then once you get it delivered, you're getting right away that same day videos, how-tos, how to use the product, is super engaging. So it ties the physical back to the digital and encourages people to share, give feedback and tips about how they're using it. And I think one of the things that Birchbox does really well in terms of earning that respect is they're very grateful at every interaction. Thank you for being a customer. We're excited about you. We want to keep you. They kind of have that tone of gratitude. Trust. Trust takes time, it's earned. But when you have trust, you've earned the right to be more curious. You've earned the right to ask more questions, to personalize experiences based on what you know about your customers, and to share more ideas about what other content and other things it might be, other products, other ways in which they might be able to leverage your services to add even more value to the relationship. Again, trust takes time. And again, don't we all want loyal, high lifetime value customers that we've earned their credibility, we've earned their respect, we've earned their trust, and they're sharing all that with others? And so again, we've earned that opportunity to be curious. And I thought that this was a really cool example to share with you guys around what Glasses.com is doing where they're using this 3D technology to use a tablet or a phone so that you would take a 3D kind of a panoramic of your face and you can use that to actually, and upload that from your app into the site and you can actually see your face on the glasses. And if you're not comfortable with that, kind of going back a step in terms of credibility or moving your way from credibility to respect, you can use another model that maybe has a similar face style to you to try it on. So again, building that experience around, I feel confident about using the site, they're giving ways, and then if I'm comfortable, I'm ready to go ahead and give them my face to see how glasses look for me. And again, to build that incredible value. So again, that ability to be curious and ask for more, people are willing to do it if they see there's going to be the value. And then advocacy. So kind of that ultimate, like building our fan base, make it really easy for your fans to share and make it fun for them to share experiences about your brand. Delight them with even more personalized experiences. And this is something that you can do both online and offline. I know a lot of you might say, wow, this sounds really heavy, sounds really expensive, I don't know if I can afford to do that. Even if you were just to say, I'm going to commit on a Google doc or on a whiteboard to just know who my top 10 most super fan customers are and just go out of my way to delight them, you could, we can all do that today. And if you could even take it from the 10 to the 50, to the top 50, to the 100, how are you going to treat those people like gold and make sure that they know that you are so grateful for the relationship with you and make them feel even more like super fans and treat them as such? And you can be more bold. You can ask them to do more things for you and ask them to share. You can put your advocates, you can put those super fans to work for you. And I think GoPro is a great example of this. GoPro's brand is their customer experience. Everywhere you look, it's customer-generated content across their brand experience, across their social. They've integrated their purpose, their mission, which is to make you, the customer, the hero. And they're going to show you in every interaction how they're making that happen, why you want to engage with that brand. So again, when you have those advocates, be bold, leverage them, and build that base. So just leave you with a few things for you to be thinking about here is that how do you make your customer experience strategy your digital strategy? Commit to doing that. Again, it doesn't have to be all about the tech, although the tech exists to go make this happen. It's all about committing first to knowing what your customer experience is, mapping it out, knowing it, act like a customer as many times as you can, talk to as many customers as you can, gather that information to know how you're going to bring that customer experience into your digital strategy. Invest in a single view of the customer. This is another thing that's really difficult in some ways but can also be very easy. And again, we're also building the future. We should be continuing to think about how do we have customer data more simple, easier to analyze, and more integrated with our overall customer experience so we can have that single view of the customer. That's invaluable for us to unlock this type of possibility and create more personalized experiences for each customer. So again, you know who your super fans are, you know who your customers are at each stage of the journey. Think about how you can delight them and give them a more personalized touch. And for those people who have shared information with you, use it. Find ways, even if it's offline, sending thank you notes, inviting them to certain things, inviting them to preview products with you. Aveda does a really great job of this. They know who their super fans are and they actually send them early previews of products so they can test them, give them feedback on it, and actually see the social proof on their products before they launch the products. So again, what are some ways where you can really create those personalized experiences and also experiment with different techniques to engage, listen, and learn? How are you committed to using social? Which social are you peanut butter spread and you're just kind of doing a little sprinkling everywhere? Or are you really focused on, no, these are the channels my customers care about and I'm going to go deep on them and I'm actually going to really listen and learn? How am I using things like user-generated content, feedback? How am I using that and incorporating that? And what's my review process for that to listen and understand what the customers are having in terms of experience with you, whether it's experience on the product, experience on service? So making that be part of your overall fabric of how you think about your digital experience. And really, I think it's important. I mean, all of us as people, we want to do business with people that we really can, again, that we respect and that we're willing to start to work on a path to earn towards trust and advocacy. And I think it's really important that we all act at every interaction with our customers with gratitude and with integrity. And I think if we do that, again, people will feel it, they'll sense it, they know that you care about them. And again, they're willing to kind of stick with you through thick and thin, through those different opportunities in their journey with you. So we here in this room, we're really the folks who have the opportunity to break away from a lot of the paradigms of where we are today. 20 years into e-commerce, we have the ability to go really create the next generation of what digital commerce looks like, to rise the occasion of our customers who are demanding this, who are wanting this. And I would say the best brands, the best retailers that will really win and succeed will put their customers first. They will focus on this, on the customer journey, and they'll be successful in turning their customers into fans. So I thank you very much. I hope you guys have an awesome time here in Austin and have a great rest of your time here. Go Woo, go WordPress. Thank you.