Episerver scores UK retailer’s content marketing maturity in new Content Marketing for Digital Commerce report

The new report showcases the firm’s “marketing maturity index”, a new scoring system designed to measure how effectively retailers are combining content marketing and digital commerce for maximum impact online.

The index has been created by Episerver, outputting a score that combines 24 different criteria^* relating to retailer’s content marketing, ranging from editorial style to search engine optimization metrics. Each of these metrics is then provided with a rating from 1 (no signs of practical application) to 4 (demonstrated with clear competency), ultimately resulting in a total percentage score. This score can then be used to access where a business sits on the content and commerce maturity curve.

In order to demonstrate the effectiveness of this score, Episerver has launched a 20-page report, outlining the content and commerce index and applying it to five top UK retail sites.

From this initial sample, Episerver has found that several UK retailers are still showing significant areas for improvement in their content marketing approach, with Scott’s Menswear, Littlewoods and LastMinute.com all receiving an average “intermediate” score. One brand that did score particularly highly was B&Q, which was awarded a “Leader” status after achieving a 97% positive score.

Episerver has created two further iterations of the report looking at retailers in both Sweden and Benelux. Compared to these other regions, the UK retailers scored were ahead of the pack in generating creative and entertaining content, but falling down on the basics of distribution.

Commenting on the new report, David Bowen, Product Manager at Episerver said, “The trickiest aspect of a content and commerce strategy is in striking the balance between the two – knowing when to push content and when to push for the sale. Our maturity index can help online businesses to take some of the risk out of this decision and better understand how and where their content marketing strategies can be improved.”