While some industries have taken a hit during the pandemic, e-commerce continues to boom. Online purchasing adoption has been accelerated as it offers shoppers the convenience they need. Despite the growth, e-commerce continues to experience some challenges.
Below are 4 Social Commerce actionable insights to solve for e-commerce challenges today:
1. Meet consumers where they are by leveraging paid social.
It isn’t surprising that consumers are spending a lot of their precious time on social. Scrolling around for hours seems like the perfect opportunity for brands to connect with potential buyers. To amplify reach, engagement and targeting potential, a paid approach is key.
Based on your specific industry, goals and objectives, you may also want to consider partnerships with macro or micro influencers. According to the 2020 Gartner Marketing Technology Survey, nearly two-thirds of marketers have fully deployed or are piloting influencer marketing programs.
2. Convert customers where they are.
Once you grab someone’s attention with your engaging ad, make it count. Make it easy for consumers to buy your product, right then and there, where they are. Complicated, time-consuming checkouts can negatively impact your conversions. Providing customers with the opportunity to purchase your product within the social app reduces the potential for website issues at checkout.
3. Don’t set your Ad and forget it! Optimize.
Metrics are key and should always be part of the strategic plan. Never set it and forget it! Unlike traditional marketing, you have the power to make adjustments to your content and targeting to improve results as you go. If you are faced with limited budgets, you may want to test platforms against each other, and based on results, shift investments as necessary to maximize your efforts.
4. Build loyalty & advocacy with an always-on approach.
Once you acquire customers through social media marketing, then comes nurturing those acquisitions, in hopes of building brand loyalty and advocacy to grow the business. As a brand, you want to stay top of mind and keep your audience engaged even after purchase.
Social media can bring growth opportunities to your brand by helping you reach and build brand awareness, engagement, loyalty and drive higher conversions. Since this space evolves quickly, make sure to stay up to date with the latest social platform’s products and offerings to engage successfully. It is all about the consumer and how you as the brand can make the purchasing process much easier and convenient for them.
For additional analysis on how social commerce can help achieve higher conversions, and the type of content consumers like to prioritize, be sure to check out Design Social Commerce Features That Convince Consumers to Buy (subscription required).
Source: Gartner Hybrid Cloud