One of the questions manufacturers ask us most often is, “What can I do to improve my content in AQ?” AQ is a vital part of your sales and marketing strategy, and to drive the most value from, and grow your sales through AQ, it’s essential to take advantage of all the platform offers to optimize your AQ listings. Recently, we hosted a webinar sharing some best practices for manufacturers to ensure your content is optimized to get the most traction for your AQ-listed products. In case you missed it, we want to share what we presented during the webinar.
Two general areas of focus that will have an immediate impact are: Improving your media and documentation, and following best practices to expedite the content submission process.
FOCUS ON MEDIA BEST PRACTICES TO OPTIMIZE YOUR AQ LISTINGS
Visuals and documentation matter to consumers, no matter what you are trying to sell. AQ can host a variety of media and product information to help you position your products best and provide all the decision-making information that your customers need to make the right selection.
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Expand Your Audience with CAD blocks & Revit families
Design, as part of the quoting process, is the norm for many AQ subscribers even if “design” is not technically in their job description. Providing CAD/Revit to your customers through AQ ensures that they have access to what they need in AQ, which is one of the main reasons you list in AQ, to begin with. Also, subscribers can search for products using CAD and Revit filters, so hosting these files in AQ puts you in more searches and expands your audience to consultants and designers in the FES space who use AQ.
If you have CAD and Revit, get those files to your AQ content account manager. If not, the investment in CAD blocks and Revit families is worth it – AQ can help with Design Studio services for manufacturers.
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Great Images Sell More Stuff
As with any marketing tool, you want to communicate the personality of your company and the unique value props of your products. Compelling, high-quality images are what stop customers from scrolling. Low-res, or out-of-date images will keep customers moving past your products and onto another that looks more current. At a minimum, make sure you are providing a “hero” image, and at least one secondary marketing, environmental, collection, or usage shot that puts your product into context for your customers.
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Your Products are More than Just a Model Number
Our customers expect AQ to be a one-stop-shop for everything they need to evaluate and understand your products. You can provide up to eight supporting documents for each of your products, including spec sheets, catalog pages, manuals, part lists, and warranty information. If your customers can’t access supporting documents for your products, they are calling your team for it. Save time and take advantage of the robust capabilities included in AQ Listing Pro.
4. Effective Marketing Descriptions Move More Products
Compelling marketing descriptions are the foundation of driving online sales. Most likely, you already have marketing descriptions for your products available in your existing sales and marketing materials. As AQ prepares to release a new eCommerce API, more dealers are going to be looking for these concise, compelling descriptions for your products to populate their e-comm websites. By adding these to AQ, you're making this information readily available to your customers in the place they trust to provide all of the information they need to sell your products online. Connect with your AQ content liaison to submit your descriptions. If you need help creating or enhancing marketing descriptions, you can reach out to CFI Marketing, a full-service agency serving the FES industry at sarah@cfimkt.com. CFI is extending discounted pricing on copywriting services to AQ manufacturers.
EXPEDITE THE CONTENT SUBMISSION PROCESS
Performing regular audits on your content will help you understand where you have holes in your listings – your content account manager can help you with this. As your products evolve, your listings on AQ should reflect that, and we want to make the content submission process as painless as possible for you. While update requests made via email are accepted, we can provide your AQ content liaison with a pre-populated spreadsheet that enables you to make multiple updates to your product listings efficiently. Using this streamlined spreadsheet, you can submit critical data like new pricing, model number changes, and call out discontinued models quickly.
MEASURE YOUR PROGRESS WITH AQ INSIGHT PRO
Now that you're on your way to optimizing your AQ listings, you can start tracking your products’ performance with AQ Insight Pro. AQ Insight is an analytics platform for AQ manufacturers that provides visibility into your company’s footprint on AQ. AQ Insight is included with your subscription fee to AQ Listing Pro and highlights your positioning in the categories you list in. Insight Pro offers another level of data and allows you to drill-down into those categories to access product-level data. Currently, you can access Insight Pro at no cost through June 30, 2020. You can log in at www.AQ-Insight.com with your AQ credentials now – no set up required.
NEED HELP?
We want to make sure you are getting the most out of AQ year-round, and our teams of content and customer success experts are here to help. If you have any questions or want to learn more about how to maximize the value of AQ, reach out to us at customersuccess@AQ-FES.com.
Related Links: Unlock Online Sales with Marketing Descriptions, Three Questions AQ Insight Can Help You Answer Right Now
