Live shopping, livestream, or live video shopping has become a powerful tool for driving e-commerce sales. It combines the best of both worlds: e-commerce and influencer marketing.
It provides a dynamic experience that appeals to consumers who crave personalization, excitement, and community. Let’s explore how to maximize the potential of live shopping.
Real-Time Interaction
Real-time interaction management (RTIM) is the technology that enables brands to respond to consumers at precisely the right moment. It aligns all utilized channels and powers hyper-personalized customer communications based on real-time behavior, affinity, and context. In other words, RTIM allows for true omnichannel personalization, making it the core of any digital marketing strategy for e-commerce.
For example, if someone abandons an online shopping cart, the brand can email them a discount or other incentive. It helps to prevent customers from leaving in frustration or feeling ignored. It also allows for a more personalized approach to the next steps in their journey. For example, if they put their credit card information in the cart, the brand can follow up with information about its rewards program.
In addition, if the brand sells experience products such as virtual try-ons, they can use innovative formats to create immersive experiences.
Finally, suppose the brand offers experience products that require additional research and purchase decisions, such as car dealerships. In that case, they can use real-time interactions to provide more detailed product information. It includes providing a complete list of features and benefits and a video or image of the product to help consumers decide.
Personalized Content
When a shopper is on your website, they expect you to show content that aligns with their interests and needs. If they see the same generic content, it is jarring and makes them feel you don’t understand them. 78% of consumers report that personalized brand content increases their purchase intent.
Successful personalization combines your customer data with marketing messages to create the experience that best suits their needs at any point in their journey. Send a triggered email highlighting specific products to interested shoppers, or use dynamic content on your website to display relevant product recommendations.
The brand also uses its site visit and purchase history to upsell customers on items that match or complement their current purchases.
Amazon’s “You Might Also Like” feature considers recent purchases and the items they have viewed and even listened to on the platform (think Netflix and Spotify). Personalizing your ecommerce content is an effective way to increase conversion rates. However, being thoughtful and avoiding being creepy or annoying your visitors is essential.
Limited-Time Promotions
Using limited-time promotions to drive sales, engagement, and new customers is an effective strategy. However, brands should ensure they target the right products for this type of promotion. Products in high demand or generating a higher profit margin are more likely to perform well with this type of marketing.
For example, a seasonal clear-out sale could be an excellent way to boost revenue. This kind of event works because it creates a sense of urgency by suggesting that the product won’t be available for long. An often-used tactic is to provide free shipping to incentivize customers to purchase more. It will increase the average order value and potentially lead to more repeat purchases.
In addition to generating revenue, limited-time promotions can also help build customer trust. It shows that a brand is invested in its customer experience. Building a loyal customer base will take a lot of work if a company is only interested in making money.
Live shopping has grown in popularity worldwide, with 20% of US shoppers participating in a shoppable livestream in 2022. In the future, companies should aim to scale their livestream commerce capabilities while addressing challenges such as logistics and social media fatigue. In addition, they should experiment with different durations and frequencies to find what works best for their business.
Community Engagement
Regarding community engagement, it’s essential to consider everyone a partner, not a bystander. Involving stakeholders makes them feel heard and understood – which can lead to better decisions that improve community cohesion. However, not everyone can participate in traditional engagement methods. It is often because they don’t have access to the internet or struggle with physical disabilities. Online engagement can help overcome these barriers and allow everyone’s voice to be heard.
Live streaming is a growing trend in e-commerce and provides brands with a new channel to reach consumers. Research suggests that shoppable livestreams could account for 5% of all e-commerce sales by 2022. This form of social selling is a cross between TV and shopping, with live streamers showcasing products and allowing viewers to purchase them immediately.
Conclusion
A user-friendly platform that makes it simple to showcase and choose your products is essential to realize the potential of livestreaming e-commerce fully. Then, encourage interaction by asking viewers to drop emojis or hearts on your stream and leave comments. You can also promote your live stream on platforms like TikTok to increase its visibility to a broader audience. It will make your viewers more likely to engage with your content and take action.