Over the past year, there has been a significant shift in the retail industry. Customers’ shopping behaviors underwent a radical transformation due to the trend toward moving traditionally operated establishments online. This factor contributed to the rapid acceleration of expansion in the eCommerce industry.
This expansion raised the pressure on retailers to ramp up their online marketing efforts and guarantee that they produce optimal performance, particularly during high-traffic seasons. Specifically, this growth increased the pressure on merchants to increase their online sales.
However, the goal has switched from simply increasing online sales to establishing customer loyalty. Previously, this was the primary objective. The average consumer anticipates that their shopping excursions will be more convenient and streamlined. Providing this kind of smooth client experience online is another factor that contributes to successful sales and ongoing expansion.
How can you guarantee that your online sales are optimized to satisfy the requirements of your customers? What can you do to increase your market share while making your consumers happy and preventing them from abandoning their shopping carts?
This post will reveal some of the proven strategies we have developed to help you grow your social commerce sales!
What is social commerce?
Selling your wares directly to customers through social media is called “social commerce.” Social media consumers can complete sales, from reading in-app product pages to payment, without always leaving their social network. This eliminates the need for these users to navigate to your website.
You can utilize famous social platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok to sell your stuff. TikTok is also one of those platforms.
It is essential to have a solid understanding of the distinction between social selling and social commerce. The latter involves generating leads on social media, either through paid advertisements or by organic posting, with the ultimate goal of making sales in the future.
Once you have decided to engage in social commerce, you will find several chances to enhance your social media presence by utilizing interesting social shopping strategies such as shoppable posts and live shopping events.
How does social commerce differ from eCommerce?
Because it also involves selling things online, social commerce is frequently likened to electronic commerce (e-commerce). On the other hand, there are a few significant distinctions. People often use commerce when buying things through an online store or marketplace.
On the other hand, social commerce refers to using social media platforms to discover new products and make purchases. In-app buying experiences, influencer marketing campaigns, and “purchase now” buttons on social media posts are some features that fall under this category.
People can more easily share things with their friends and family thanks to the simplicity of social commerce, which can increase brand visibility and sales. Because of all of these factors, businesses now have a fantastic opportunity to connect with prospective clients via social media, which e-commerce could be more capable of delivering.
Here are 10 Proven tactics to increase your social Commerce Sales:
Here are five strategies that you should have in your playbook if you want to make the most of the social commerce space and extend your e-commerce website into social media platforms.
1. Invest in SEO
Improving a website’s visibility in search results is called search engine optimization (SEO). The objective is to position one or more of your product pages among the top 10 results returned by search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing.
This drives more organic traffic (traffic that is not paid for and is free) to your website. According to research by Backlink, an organic result that ranks first has ten times the likelihood of receiving a click as a page that is tenth.
Investing in SEO may be done in a few different ways.
- Conducting research on keywords and using those keywords in your page URLs, descriptions, and blog articles are essential.
- Enhancing your website’s user experience and structure through optimization.
- Creating backlinks from websites that already have a good reputation.
If you do this correctly, you will be able to rank for popular search phrases that are connected to your items. The following snapshot from Google Search reveals that Shopify merchant Everyday Men jackets rank on page 1 for the words “best men jackets,” which generates more than 90,000 searches per month.
2. Utilize the social commerce capabilities, especially the checkout
Customers can purchase items directly from the social sites they frequent with unprecedented ease nowadays. This is because social media networks are beginning to see the value of integrating elements of social commerce into their respective platforms. For instance, in 2020, both Facebook and Instagram introduced a social checkout option.
When developing your social commerce strategy, you should first investigate the social commerce features of various networks to make the most of those capabilities.
The choppy buying procedure of the past, in which customers were required to go on an online excursion to identify and purchase a product, may now be eliminated thanks to social commerce. For instance, if they came across a product that they were interested in while scrolling through their social stream, they would have to go to the brand’s profile, obtain a link to the company’s eCommerce website, travel to the website, and then search for the product on the external website.
Customers can complete their purchases straight within the social networking app of their choice, thanks to eliminating all of these processes made possible by social checkout capabilities.
Additionally, specific social networks enable marketers to publish shoppable posts containing links that take users directly to the shopping cart. And every month, 130 million users click the “Buy” button embedded within Instagram postings.
3. Run PPC campaigns
Pay-per-click advertising (also known as PPC advertising) is the predominant online advertising model used by companies of all sizes. It is easy to grow, data support it, and it provides a satisfactory return on investment.
Online ad space on websites, social media platforms, and search engines are common targets for pay-per-click (PPC) advertisements. These advertisements are effective for eCommerce firms because they are directed at shoppers who are prepared to make a purchase, and they have the potential to result in more extensive sales than organic marketing.
The most popular websites for running pay-per-click (PPC) adverts are Facebook and Google. Advertisements on Google Shopping are widespread for online retailers. You’ve probably seen these advertisements before. If you do a sea search on Google for something like “men’s boots,” you will get an ad that provides extensive information on a variety of goods o your search.
On the other hand, advertisements on Facebook may be seen on both Facebook and Instagram. You can also direct your efforts on particular personas and use several different ad styles when promoting your items.
One of the primary advantages of using pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is the ability to target campaigns more precisely. You have complete control over who will see your advertisements as well as the format of those advertisements.
Displaying retargeting ads to shoppers who have already viewed specific landing pages or commercials on your site might bring back customers who are interested in making repeat purchases.
If you own a shoe business and recently received a new line of boots, you can generate advertisements for those new boots. The shoes may be made of rubber and have water resistance.
You can generate advertisements focusing on phrases such as “best rain boots.” This indicates that individuals who are interested in purchasing the product or service selling are seeing your advertisements.
4. Make the process of dealing with customers as painless as possible.
The role of customer service via social media has become increasingly important in recent years. This is especially true for companies that have already transitioned toward social commerce. Wouldn’t it be reasonable for consumers to anticipate receiving customer support on the social media platform where they purchased the product?
When a consumer is “in the market to buy” on social media, they want nothing to go in their way of making a purchase. This is something that companies are well aware of, which is precisely why they are turning to social features such as Facebook Messenger that enable them to create delightful, in-the-moment customer support experiences.
According to research, sixty percent of consumers who complain on social media anticipate receiving a response within an hour or less. Fifty-four percent of customers would communicate with a company via social media rather than by phone or email.
The use of chatbots has grown increasingly widespread as a means of satisfying these rigorous requirements. Customers can quickly get answers to critical questions they have concerning their purchases by typing in their inquiries and receiving practically fast responses.
5. Use an AI chatbot to automate sales and support for customers, and streamline
A deal may be made, or a customer’s shopping cart will be abandoned, depending on how quickly and professionally you respond to their query—automating your customer service and ensuring that it is attended to around the clock. Every day of the year may be accomplished with the help of the correct technologies (a.k.a. even when your team is not online).
Engage with your consumers on the most critical channels by utilizing a product such as Mobile Monkey, which will also help you turn customer service interactions into sales.
Mobile Monkey is an artificial intelligence chatbot that links your online store with social media networks. It is designed specifically for retailers. It allows you to automate up to eighty percent of your customer conversations.
When consumers reach out to you on social media with questions about the status of their orders or inventories, the chatbot provides immediate assistance to those customers (and passes more complex inquiries over to your support team).
Customers who have previously indicated an interest in a product may have Mobile Monkey send them reminders when the product is back in stock or when the price of the product drops. This is another way Mobile Monkey can assist you in increasing sales.
6. Utilize the power of influencer marketing to its fullest potential.
The fact that influencers already have a built-in audience that trusts and values what they say is beneficial to your company in terms of both demand planning and increasing the demand for particular items. You may expand your reach and make more sales by forming partnerships with other social accounts related to your field and tapping into the audiences they attract.
It is necessary to locate relevant influencers. When it comes to the majority of companies who sell their products online, these “micro-influencers” will not be well-known celebrities but people with a specialized account and a small but dedicated following of people interested in the same subject.
You may even get your existing customers involved as influencers in your campaign. Using a hashtag campaign, a rewards point program, or the possibility of being featured on your website, you can encourage customers to post material about your business and identify things they adore. According to several studies, customers genuinely like participating in such activities.
7. Offer assistance online with a focus on sales.
It is sure that the number of inquiries regarding your promotions, shipping timeframes, and return policies, among other topics, will skyrocket as internet traffic continues to rise. If you provide your customer care team with the appropriate resources, your website will be prepared to handle the increased traffic that the holiday shopping season brings.
Throughout the consumer buying experience, your support channels are essential touchpoints that they may interact with. In addition, as was said before, they are beautiful chances to expand the size of the customer’s basket, make an up-sell or cross-sell, and cut down on the number of customers who abandon their shopping carts.
Take live chat as an example; when it is automated and targeted appropriately, it not only gives consumers proactive real-time support but also helps raise conversation rates and maximizes online sales. Live chat is just one way to provide clients with proactive support.
Here are 3 ways to improve your online store’s customer service:
- To better serve your customers during busy sales periods, you should: 1. have answers to frequently asked questions pre-written to respond quickly; 2. have a plan in place to deal with any issues that arise, and Using of a predetermined set of responses can cut down on response times and help you preserve your brand’s voice while preventing errors. This might be a starting point for your canned responses if you maintain a frequently asked questions (FAQ) website.
- Co-browsing allows chat agents to assist consumers collaboratively when they need it most. Thus it’s essential to have this feature available. With this feature, your support staff can see exactly what a site visitor sees on their screen as they navigate your site, allowing them to more effectively direct customers to the resources they need and encourage them to complete a transaction. This is a foolproof method of providing personalized, proactive support to customers in a digital format and shortening the time it takes to resolve their issues, even during your busiest time of year.
- Having a live chat on every page of your website is optional, and only some customers will want help simultaneously. Refrain from squandering your energy on consumers who don’t need your assistance. You may help your website’s users who are in need by manually creating guidelines or utilizing AI to target your messaging.
8. Embed Instagram
Instagram is one of the social applications expanding at the quickest rate currently available. It connects consumers, influencers, and companies and has more than 500 million daily active users.
Suppose you shoot appealing photographs, make clever use of hashtags, and publish at the appropriate times. In that case, you will be well on your way to creating a significant following on Instagram comprised of individuals interested in your items. Engagement with your followers is essential to mastering the organic presence you want to cultivate on Instagram.
How can you best interact with the people that make up your target audience on Instagram? You might run contests or give visitors a behind-the-scenes look at the production process in order to show them how your product is manufactured. You may also pay to gain access to certain features on Instagram.
Regarding e-commerce promotion, including items in your Instagram posts, Stories, and Reels provides your followers with a clear path to purchase, which is essential for raising the number of sales you make online.
As soon as you have your Instagram store up and running, you will have access to the following features:
- Shoppable Stories
- In-app checkout
- Influencer tagging
- Shoppable posts
- Explore Shop
Connect Shopify with your Instagram Shop to synchronize your product catalog and handle your orders directly from the Shopify admin.
9. Stand out with interactive advertising.
For companies in the retail industry, the busiest periods of the year for sales also happen to be some of the most competitive times of the year for advertising.
By marketing your campaigns across paid channels using rich media interactive advertisements, you may avoid getting your audience blinded by banner ads and cut through the noise. Interactive advertisements enable companies to deliver one-of-a-kind advertising experiences, enhancing conversion rates.
They are distinct from static display advertisements in that they invite customers to engage with the promotions and frequently incorporate other media types, such as video, photos, music, or animation.
Compared to static, non-interactive commercials, interactive video ads can increase the amount of time people spend with advertisements for your company by 47%.
Interactive ads often respond to the actions taken by the user, such as becoming more extensive as the user scrolls down the page, starting a video when it is clicked on, or growing more prominent as the user hovers over it. It is a potent tool marketer may use to extend customers’ time with their brand.
Because giosg works with advertising platforms such as Google Ads, Adform, and Xandr, it is simple to build and distribute interactive advertisements using this software (AppNexus).
The advantages of using interactive advertisements for online shopping:
- Your purchasing experience will be enhanced since, unlike static advertisements, they do not direct the user to the publisher’s website and, as a result, do not interfere with the shopping or browsing experience of the visitor.
- Increase the number of leads captured. Interactive advertisements will enable collecting leads away from your eCommerce site by incorporating lead form extensions directly into the ad.
- It has been demonstrated that rich media advertisements have a high click-through rate, surpassing banner advertisements by 267%.
10. Utilize feedback from customers and other forms of user-generated content.
Reviews and other types of user-generated material (also known as UGC) are examples of social proof, which are powerful tools that may convince other individuals to conduct business with your company. People participating in your social media contests or posting a review on your Facebook page should be rewarded to encourage them to provide material of this kind.
You should include all of these different pieces of material in your content schedule and curate them on your social media profile. User-generated content should have a favorable impact on the brand.
Suppose clients are consistently leaving nasty comments about your company. In that case, you should prioritize expanding your presence in social commerce and addressing the most critical issues to your clientele. When you make a name for your company and get people talking about it, you improve your chances of increasing sales on Facebook and Instagram.
Bottom Line
Experiment with some of these strategies for social commerce and see how well they perform for your business. Experiment with various platforms, different types of content, and techniques to determine what will perform best for your company.
Keep a record of your outcomes so that you may learn from your achievements and failures and use that information to improve in the future. You can significantly raise the amount of money you make through social commerce with little time and work.
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