I suggested a friend who owns a retail shop to start their own retail website. The first question he asks 5 minutes after his website went live ‘When will I start making sales?”
Most brick and mortar business owners think their e-commerce website would start generating sales the moment they go digital. Like Kaboom!
“The world is shifting to online purchasing, I’m meeting them at their happy place, why am I still not drawing big numbers in sales?”
Get this: your e-commerce website is like any other business.
You need to get the word out there, build trust, give incentives, promise exceptional service, and then give birth to a lineage of loyal customers.
Social media can help you get there.
And to truly harness the potential of social media marketing to boost e-commerce sales, you need to have a social media strategy and a social media plan- no, the two aren’t interchangeable.
A strategy is to know where you are going whereas the plan is the way to get there.
Here’s how you can use social media for your e-commerce website
Increase visibility– Even if you’re selling the elixir of life people won’t buy if they don’t know about it.
Out of 350 million users, 71% of them are active on Facebook and the second highest number on LinkedIn. Data based on pew Research Centre findings.
Social media has an outreach of more than 350 million people per day. Whether you are looking to launch or promote your business, you wouldn’t get a bigger market than this.
Branding– Even a start-up can rival industry biggies if it has the right customer base- and that comes through branding. Social media is like a big giant buffet, you have to take your pick.
Understand the locus of your customer base on these social media platforms. Are they catapulted towards Youtube or Facebook more? If you have limited manpower, tap into these options first instead of going all out.
A beauty-based website mainly gets traffic from as they religiously follow beauty gurus. But marketing-centric websites would benefit more by concentrating on Google+.
Also, there’s a reason why so many fashion retailers market through Instagram and Pinterest- visual appeal. Product-based retail e-commerce web stores invest in getting professional pictures clicked to be uploaded on Instagram and Pinterest.
Manage Reputation– Social media can taint reputations and the big guys know this.
Remember the Dirty Dominos pizza video that showed Dominos employees messing with pizzas in the most unhygienic ways possible?
Well, guess what, Dominos launched a survey into this across different social media platforms. And uploaded a comeback video featuring snapshots of negative comments by customers posted on social media, the video then goes on to show the changes implemented at the Dominos headquarters.
Customer Support- Most unhappy customers take to Facebook and Twitter to rant. And negative reviews hurt your trust factor and subsequently, sales numbers.
Employ a team to provide customer support through social media. Customers dig prompt reply and personal attention.
Posting success stories and resolved complaints, especially if the negative comment garners some heat helps undo the damage.
And here’ what NOT to do
Image courtesy Abhinav Sherwal
Market Research and Analysis- Your brand is for your customers but is your brand what the customers want?
Conducting surveys through social media outlets gives an insight into what customers think of your products and what they expect.
From reviews, trending topics, competitor’s popularity to a peek into their workings can be highly beneficial when computing your social media plan.
Promotions and Selling- How many times have you noticed coupons pop up on your Facebook page? Social media platforms are perfect for promoting your brand through incentives.
Plus more and more companies are incorporating the ‘sell’ feature on their social media web pages. You can directly buy from their social media site instead of being directed to the parent website.
Propshop24 gained leverage through Instagram and even has some B-town celebs raving about their quirky products.
Image courtesy propshop24.com
Value and Relationship Building- Brands today know that the era of the pesky car salesman is over. Companies are shifting from the ABC (always be closing) sales mentality to value and relationship building.
Proactively managing social media content can go a long way in building stalwart customers.
Spamming feed when you have a new product on the brink of launch and then vanishing in the thin air does not work anymore.
Celebs who fervently take to social media to promote their movie or cause but once that purpose is achieved, they vanish into thin air reportedly have lesser fan following compared to stars who are active consistently
Judicious social media planning and implementation can be the only marketing tool a small e-commerce needs to get noticed and build credibility. If you’re unsure of how to go about it, hire an expert.
