The holiday season is here and pumpkin spice is in the air. With holiday demand expected to rise as high as 9% by 2021 HTML, it’s time to review your sales strategy and make sure you are ready for success.
Adopting new sales channels is one way to increase your sales and reach more customers this season.
Social commerce platforms such as Instagram and Pinterest can give you the visibility that you want.
In fact, 45 percent of North America’s Holiday 2020 shoppers posted their product discovery via social media platforms, amplifying merchants’ efforts.
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The accessibility of purchasing has never been easier thanks to allowing brands to sell direct from the places where consumers are spending their most time.
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“A strong Omnichannel Strategy is about connecting with your customers wherever they are. This is especially important during the holiday season. These channels, which have 3.45 billion users on Facebook and 1 million on Instagram, can be used to help merchants reach more customers and drive sales. It’s important to remember, however, that shoppers expect seamless shopping experiences across all channels, including websites, brick-and-mortar shops, and social media.
Sharon Gee, VP and GM of Omnichannel at BigCommerce
Let’s take a look at our strategies and tips to make sure you create seamless experiences with your social media channels.
Optimize your Shops on Facebook and Instagram
1. If your product catalog is not already strong, connect it.
It is easy to connect your BigCommerce product catalogue with Facebook or Instagram. This will enable shoppers to quickly discover your products, share with friends, and then checkout from your Shops on Facebook or Instagram. BigCommerce handles orders from Instagram and Facebook just like storefront orders.
After connecting your BigCommerce store with Facebook via channel manager, it’s possible to start tagging products directly from your catalog in your Facebook or Instagram photos. Your products can be viewed and linked to by users.
Shops located in the US may also apply to enable checkout on Instagram. This allows customers to shop for the products they find on Instagram from their phones. If enabled, any new products that you tag in posts will use the app checkout process rather than redirecting to BigCommerce.
Reminder: Instagram checkout is only for US-based stores and customers using USD currency.
Learn more:
2. 2. Tag your products often
130,000,000 people tap on product tags to find out more about the products they see on Instagram every month. Product Tag Let customers know more about your products by highlighting them from BigCommerce.
Because people are spending time on Instagram in different places, the most successful businesses use product tag frequently across all formats (feeds, stories, Reels and IGTV, captions, Live, captions, and IGTV).
Product tags are essential to give shoppers an easy way of finding your brand and to allow them to make a purchase. You should incorporate product tags into your Instagram strategy when posting images of products.
Facebook data shows that merchants who tag more than 5 days per month in their feeds see an average of:
- Visitors to product pages have increased by 278%
- Purchases up 231%
- Sales increase by 216%
You can create more shoppable posts by using product tags regularly. This will help you reach new customers and make your shop more profitable.
3. Your shop should reflect your brand.
You can enable Shops on Facebook or Instagram to customize and curate the shopping experience for customers.
You can organize products with collections around seasonal events such as holidays promotions or upcoming launches. Visual merchandising is another way to showcase your brand. Make sure to arrange your collections in a way that allows people to see the featured and new collections first.
4. Make your content actionable.
A strong call to action (or CTA) is essential to any marketing campaign. Facebook/Instagram Shops is no exception. Do not assume that your shoppers will know what you want. Instead, tell them clearly and persuasively.
Melissa Dixon, Director Content Marketing at BigCommerce
Shoppable posts and videos are a great way for consumers to interact with the app. Engaging and actionable posts can be created about your products through Stories, Reels, and posts. This will increase your reach and build shopping habits.
- Make clear calls to actions to tell consumers how to shop your products on Instagram.
- Let shoppers know they can shop from you on Instagram by updating your Instagram profile To help customers understand that they can shop for your product via Instagram, you could add phrases such as “Start shopping below” or “Start shopping below”.
Create an emotional connection with shoppers
1. Your brand story and mission should be shared.
People want to connect with their families, businesses, and communities during holidays. Before making a purchase, consumers are more interested in a brand’s mission and values.
These are some of the ways you can share your brand’s story this holiday season in order to increase engagement
Join forces with a charity
To highlight your mission and give back, find a charity that is important to you. Offering digital donation options at checkout is a simple and inexpensive way for your customers to give back.
You can choose to donate to a specific charity by integrating the app. Here are a few app integrations you might want to consider:
- This integration is free and allows customers to donate any spare change to charity by simply rounding up their orders (e.g. $15.50 to $16
- ShopGives: Customers can choose to support a charity organization they wish, and then you pledge a donation at checkout. All donations are tax-deductible.
Highlight and encourage user-generated stories
You can show appreciation to your customers by creating personal messaging that makes them feel valued and seen. Great examples of user-generated content amplified in posts and stories are SpearmintLove, and Sacked By Suzie
2. 2. Consider an influencer marketing strategy.
Who and where can we look for recommendations when we need them? It may be someone we know or one we follow on the internet. These are also common characteristics.
- Honesty and authenticity
- Trustworthy
- The same values.
Let’s now consider a word-of mouth recommendation. If you don’t know what the product is or where to buy it, then get in touch with influencer marketing on Instagram.
A product’s interaction with shoppers is a key factor in how comfortable, confident, and familiar they feel about it. Influencer marketing campaigns and brand-led communication are key tactics to connect users to brands.
This is the first step in establishing a relationship with consumers. From a strategic perspective, there are many types of influencers you should consider.
Different Types Of Influencers
Different niches have different followers and different methods of creating content. It is important to determine which type of influencer works best for your brand, taking into account both relevance and budget.
These are the four categories:
- Influencers: Influencers are typically less than 10,000 followers. They resemble everyday people, like your family or friends.
- Micro-influencers – These micro-influencers are less than 100,000 followers. They are often recognized as experts in their industry or specialists in a particular niche. They are very similar to nano-influencers.
- Macro influencers: These macro-influencers are able to have 100,000- 1 million followers. These influencers may be celebrities but they are often just micro-influencers that have grown their following. Their full-time job is Instagram influencer marketing.
- Mega-influencers : These mega-influencers have over 1 million followers. These influencers are often celebrities or prominent public figures.
You can make your shop more successful by finding the right influencer who aligns with your brand. Click to learn more about influencer marketing.
3. To plan your posts, create an editorial calendar.
You can identify the cultural moments that are important to you and your audience, especially during this holiday season. Then create content that is relevant to these moments. Planning ahead is not only beneficial for product launches and announcements but also helps to build brand affinity and emotional connections with customers.