Getting started with your shoppable media campaign can present challenges as well as opportunities, so keeping these key pointers in mind during the early planning phases will safeguard your results…
First, let’s address the media itself. If your content isn’t engaging, it will fail to drive sales. Thankfully, the amount of data you can collect gives you a reasonably accurate picture of what content works and what doesn’t.
This is a double-edged sword. Traditional, non shoppable media is harder to attribute actual revenue to. Content marketers used to be able to justify their work using metrics like views on videos, with only an estimated impact on actual sales. Shoppable media can’t hide behind any of that when you know exactly how many conversions were achieved per piece of content.
Use the data to build a clear picture of your real revenue generating audience, not your ideal one. Create content for this audience and don’t be afraid to drop ideas which you personally like but aren’t working. This can take serious time and resources; so make sure you budget for that.
As of now, huge opportunities exist for brands to let prospective customers know that the rules of shopping have changed. Plenty of people out there have never so much as scanned a QR code in their lives. Others might have tried interacting with shoppable media in its infancy and had a poor experience.
A great deal has changed since those first baby steps. Advancing technology lets mobile wallets plug straight into platforms like Apple Pay and Shopify. That makes the experience easier and more secure, but not everyone knows it happened.
With the use of dedicated shoppable media landing pages, brands can provide a first-class ‘post click’ experience which smooths the path to the sale. Dedicated landing pages are much more common in the B2B world – the idea is that it provides less distraction and choice for the user, but the same fundamentals ring true in the B2C world as well. Try using a dedicated landing page for each of your products, rather than sending consumers to a generic product page. If you can make use of that extra space and lack of distractions, you'll notice the impact on conversions.
You should also make sure your shoppable media campaigns enable consumers to purchase your products from their favourite online marketplaces, like Amazon. Nobody in Ecommerce can compete with the fulfilment and customer service offered by Amazon, this is why Amazon is the top eCommerce platform in every country in which they operate.
Brands that are ahead of the curve facilitate this phenomenon rather than fight against it, or ignore it, and as a result are able to minimise exposure to competitor products on marketplaces and retailer sites. This can be done with Shoppable Media software from ChannelSight.
When you’re developing your shoppable media campaign, a solid understanding of your customer is your biggest asset. This can help you to produce content that resonates with them and know which things to emphasise to convert the sale.
ChannelSight’s Shoppable Media software provides a huge amount of granular detail on user behaviours, enabling you to build a more accurate picture of your ideal customer. Then all you have to do is use what you know to make that content shine. ChannelSight’s software enables complete design freedom, with the ability to use custom HTML and CSS so everything is in line with your branding.
If it’s a form of media that enables a purchase, it’s shoppable media. That’s a broad definition, limited only by your imagination. But some types are definitely more tried and trusted than others…
ChannelSight enables you to make any social post on any channel, shoppable. Product images are clickable and buyable right away, sometimes without even leaving the platform. They’re a simple but effective way to turn passive browsing into an active purchase without disrupting the browsing experience. Facebook has about 2.9 billion monthly users. Instagram has two billion. TikTok has a billion. With shoppable social media posts, those platforms become your stores. In the US, 55% of people aged 18-24 bought something through social media last year.
Video marketing isn’t new, but making videos shoppable helps clear up some ambiguities which some take for granted. For example, 62% of traditional video marketers measure success using engagement, 61% use views, only 27% use bottom line sales.
Shoppable videos give you a clear, trackable metric that shows how content translates into conversions. You get all of the well-established perks of video marketing with way less guesswork.
Long-form content; articles and blogs, are still powerful tools to show off your authority and knowledge. Many junior marketers fall into the trap of thinking nobody reads lengthy content, but seasoned content pros know better.
The average first-page Google result is 1,447 words long. Articles of 2,250-2,500 words get the most organic traffic. Those over 2,500 words get shared the most on socials. Even titles should be 11-14 words if you want to score the most shares.
While you’re flexing your expertise, making an article shoppable also lets it drive sales. A how-to article might link out to the products it recommends using. A recipe could let readers drop ingredients into their cart as they browse. The list goes on and on.
In a world of ad blockers and banner blindness, your ads need to work extra hard to earn a place in the audience’s psyche. Part of that comes down to strong creative. The other half lies in providing the smoothest possible path to purchase.
Making ads shoppable removes the customer’s need to remember you or search for you once they’ve seen an ad. They click straight through to purchase and you make the sale, nice and easy. Of course, earning that click is easier said than done.
Ultimately, how you choose to implement your shoppable media content will determine the success of your strategy, so choosing wisely is crucial. Leveraging our sales data from Shoppable Media will give you the information needed to measure performance and track return on spend.
For Shoppable Media solutions to suit your company goals, learn more by booking a demo with ChannelSight here.
