Effective Strategies for E-commerce Success

In recent years, e-commerce has proven its importance to retail in the digital landscape. As the number of online consumers grows exponentially, businesses need to adapt and implement strategies to distinguish themselves in an increasingly saturated marketplace. This is where social commerce becomes key to attracting potential customers. Let’s delve into the strategies that can be effective in social commerce.

Leveraging Shoppable Posts

Social media platforms are no longer only about photo sharing and social connectivity. These platforms have become key marketing instruments capable of generating direct sales from posts. The advent of shoppable posts on platforms such as Instagram and Facebook has revolutionised how businesses interact with potential customers, thereby streamlining the purchasing experience and enhancing conversion rates.

Shoppable posts are social media content facilitating direct product purchases without redirecting users to external websites. This seamless integration process has introduced an effective way for Enterprises to reach their target customers.

Companies usually capitalise on shoppable posts in the following ways.

Discretion in product selection - Usually not all the products are displayed. The focus is on visually compelling products that photograph advantageously and can capture the attention of someone scrolling in their feed.
Engaging captions - This is usually having copy that does well with visuals. The captions can usually be narrative, highlight salient features, or create a sense of urgency.
High-quality pictures- Professional photographs with visually appealing products make it more likely for your target customer to buy your product.
Accurate product tagging- This may seem like a pedantic entry, but companies must ensure that customers are directed to the right product in a tagged post. Inaccuracy results in frustration for the consumer and a lost potential customer for the company.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing still carries weight. The ability of a person with thousands of followers to promote your product is the go-to strategy for social commerce. The reasoning for this is the trust the influencer has built with their followers over time. The trust carries such a weight that any endorsement from an influencer will come off as a recommendation to try a product from a good friend.

It is not about which influencer has the biggest following (with Harvard stating that smaller influencers may be a better bet). Rather it's a targeted approach to leverage someone's reach that is beneficial towards your company and the influencer's audience. To determine the validity of an influencer marketing strategy, the following questions will need to be asked.

Does the influencer's audience align with your target market?
Aside from the number of followers, does the influencer have a high engagement rate for their content? Since this is a question of engagement, and every post will have different levels of engagement, it is fair if a rough rule of thumb is followed at this stage. A good rule of thumb is that if the last 10 posts average an engagement rate of 3% of the influencer's total followers, the influencer has a high engagement rate.
Does the influencer genuinely align with your brand values? Here's the truth, people are sceptical of influencer advertising since an ad could be argued to be not truly authentic. Therefore, finding an influencer that aligns with your brand values (and hopefully uses your product) introduces an element of transparency that is not usually seen in influencer marketing campaigns.
Will the influencer be paid upfront or be paid after every sponsored post? This saves budgeting headaches and makes your stance clear come the negotiation stage of entering into an agreement with an influencer.

Creating Engaging Content

Even in the age of AI, not all content is created equally. There is a need to create engaging content that not only relates to your target demographic but is also engaging and visually appealing enough to stop a person from scrolling on their feed.

Video content has grabbed the attention of the general population. Product demonstrations and behind-the-scenes videos have become a way for brands to build rapport with their customers. Videos that are not overly produced and show the not-so-flashy parts of the company behind the brand adds a layer of authenticity to the brand voice.

Polls and quizzes are a low-cost way to not only measure engagement but also get market research. For example. If you. were Apple, you could host a poll asking what has been the go-to colour for the cover of your iPhone. The poll will not only bolster engagement but also give insight for Apple’s R&D for colour development on their flagship products.

However, if you still want to have an authentic approach of an amateur-style video without really showing the behind-the-scenes operations of a company, User Generated Content (UGC) may be the best way to go. In essence, you encourage your followers to take pictures and videos with your product and you share this content under a common banner (usually under a hashtag or through featured posts on the company’s home page). This form of engagement is powerful due to the rapid community building that can happen through UGC.

Utilising Analytics for Improvement

After a campaign to use social commerce to sell your product is over, you want to track the performance of the campaign to measure your ROI. The best way to approach this is through the use of data analytics.

As we know, it is not only about having access to data, it is also about extracting relevant parts of the data and interpreting it in a structured manner to set up future campaigns' success. The best data to extract and interpret to determine the ROI of social commerce is the following:

Engagement metrics- This is not only the likes and the number of followers that interacted with the posts relating to the product. But also paying close attention to the comments, reposts and click through rates of all the posts that had mentioned the product.
Conversion rate data- Which posts drove the most sales? What were the commonalities of the posts and see if you can repeat the process for future campaigns.
Customer behaviour data- This is where you determine what type of content performs well (carousals, video or mini blogs), how the brand's followers interact with the content, what times your followers were the most interactive with your data and which platforms did you see the best return in terms of engagement.

Irrespective of the stage your company's is in, success in e-commerce necessitates a multifaceted approach. By leveraging shoppable posts, forging strategic partnerships with influencers, creating engaging content, and utilising analytics, you can create a robust strategy for e-commerce success. It is imperative to remember that the digital landscape is in a constant state of flux, so maintain your curiosity, continue to learn, and be prepared to adapt your strategies as required. Here's to your continued e-commerce success.