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Do you want double your social engagement and get your content shared like crazy? For small businesses and brands everywhere, posting multiple images on social media has been proven to have massive traction. It seems simple right? But if it was so easy wouldn’t everybody do it?
Like most good things, in life – there’s a catch. And it isn’t not needing a huge budget or incredible graphic design skills.
When it comes to content creation, many people make this simple mistake: they add more visuals just for the sake of it. This is a basic approach. Smart content marketers create a visual content strategy that reaches people’s emotions – content with real psychological impact.
If you’re not a graphic designer or artist, don’t worry. I’m going to walk you through you ten types of powerful visuals that are easy to create and can double your social media engagement. Let’s get started.
1. High quality stock photography
Beware: your fans will smell a cheesy stock photo from a million miles away. Not only will it lead them to discredit your professionalism as a brand, but will deter them from wanting to share your post.
On the other hand, high quality stock photography can do the complete opposite. As well as making your brand seem more credible, high quality and relevant images help establish your brand’s reputation and boost engagement. If you’re looking for original content, check out this handy article that lists and rates over 70 free stock photography websites.
Image: Elite Daily
Take a look at this post on Elite Daily’s Facebook page. By using relevant and high quality stock photography, the band achieves a “wow factor” which immediately tempts the viewer to click through to the blog.
After all, everything your audience shares on social media will reflect back on themselves. You can’t blame them for wanting to look good, but you can choose the right images to make it possible.
2. Screenshots
You’ve probably heard the old adage “seeing is believing.” In terms of visual content, the psychological lesson here is that when people can see something for themselves, they’re more likely to trust the source – which develops its credibility.
Image: Buffer
In this Twitter post Buffer gauges interest around one of its growth experiments by showing two screenshots of an A/B tested email. By doing so, Buffer is able to immediately impress the viewer, intriguing them to read on.
The text used to accompany the post is short yet effective: providing a hook for the article but letting the image become the compelling factor.
3. Infographics
The most basic way to understand why visual content is so effective on social media is to consider that the brain processes visual information 60,000 times faster than text. When we’re scrolling through hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of posts, tweets and updates – images are simply easier to digest.
Infographics take this concept to the next level, allowing brands to capture complex pieces of information and turn them into engaging social media posts.
Notice how Charity World Vision have created a Pinterest board dedicated solely to its infographics. By doing so, they’re able to share large chunks of information in a single visual post.
Image: World Vision
By following design guidelines to ensure your infographics are easily readable and visually engaging, this is a great opportunity to increase impact beyond what a single image could achieve.
4. Personal photographs
The best way to connect with your audience on a deeply authentic level is to show them that you’re human, no matter how successful you are. If your business or brand doesn’t have a human face, people will find it hard to relate to.
To execute this personal element in your visual social posts, add snaps of your CEO or management staff. In this example taken from fashion retailer Nastygal’s Instagram, the brand’s CEO Sophia Amoruso is seen at a book signing of her recent book #GIRLBOSS.
Not only does this boost interest around the book, it builds the authenticity of the brand. Look at her: she’s a boss!
Image: Nastygal
5. Behind the scenes shots of your workplace
Another way to connect people to the human aspect of your brand is to show behind the scenes shots of your workplace. This exclusive insight fosters a personal connection with your fans and strengthens their brand loyalty.
This particular type of imagery is more suitable for Instagram and Facebook, which are often considered the more “social” mediums. Designer Jen Gotch does this well on her instagram account by regularly featuring quirky shots of team activities.
Image: Jen Gotch
These images show the “real people” behind the brand and even encourage fans to consider Jen as a friend.
6. Quote graphics
A throwback to those motivational posters in your school counselor’s office – a quote graphic is still very beloved, and highly sharable. In fact, quote graphics work on every social media platform, including Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.
The three things to consider with a quote graphic are the quote, the font, and the imagery. Go for a short quote with words that are easily digestible. Consider a font that’s readable on smaller screens because a lot more people are viewing through mobile devices.
Be sure to find an image that captures the spirit of the quote without competing with it for attention. The image should serve as a meditation space for the mind to go while its considering the quote.
Image: Canva Quotes
7. Original designs
Branding your images is essential in order to build recognition on social media – a goal that should always be at the forefront of your visual content creation.
Also consider that generic images are rehashed over and over again, so creating unique content gives you a much greater chance of becoming memorable.
When designing your own images, always create a style guide to ensure brand consistency. This means determining rules for your fonts, color scheme, and image personality. The goal: you want your brand to be instantly recognizable.
Take a look at how Amanda Fuller, creator of Kaleidoscope Blog, uses a simple yet original design over and over in her posts on Pinterest. Whenever I see a pin from the Kaleidoscope Blog on my Pinterest feed, I know exactly who its from based on this unique calling card design.
Image: Kaleidoscope
8. Images that reflect the essence of your brand
If you want to create images that impact your target audience always consider: what made them choose you over your competitors?
The answer to this question is your unique selling point. By choosing images based around it, you’ll be strengthening the foundations of brand loyalty.
Consider VOSS Water. Propelled by brand values of purity, distinction, and social responsibility, VOSS Water’s visual social media posts always reinforce one (or more) of these ideals.
In the Facebook examples below, you’ll find the distinctive VOSS Water bottle featured prominently as anchor branding. Both images convey a sense of nature/natural living, and the fruit infusions look fresh and healthy, right on target with branding.
Image: Voss
9. Action shots
Stimulate the imagination of your audience with an action or experience shot. Nothing is quite as convincing as a still photo that captures a moment in time.
Charity: Water engages its audience with this vibrant image of clean water and outreached hands. Without reading, you instantly get the visual: What’s a bigger need than clean water? And what’s a great joy than having access to it?
Image: Charity Water
While you may not be providing clean water to those in need, you can still use this type of visual social media post to inspire your followers to feel good about you and themselves, also, for following you.
Share images of your product or service in its ideal use. There’s a reason why, depending on the brand, beer ads show customers partying at the hottest club or lounging on the beach – that’s the desired experience.
Whatever you’re selling, you want a product shot of your ideal customer actively reaping the benefits of it.
10. Images with a striking color palette
Colors can depict and elevate mood. Whether you’re looking to compel or commiserate, colors play a huge role in human psychology. Consider: what are the feelings you want to evoke from your social media audience? Try and replicate that feeling with the colors you choose.An easy way to do this is to use a color picker tool to extract colors from your favorite images. Before you start designing, you should always set out to limit yourself to four main colors – this will help establish a theme or feeling for your designs and increase their impact.
Now it’s your turn!
Adding visual content to your social media strategy is a no-brainer, but using visual content that reaches your fans emotions and catches their eye is the smart marketer’s approach. Whether you’re creating original content, sourcing photographs or shooting your own, always consider how it will impact your audience.
To view the original article please visit: NewsCred
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Vans is among the brands expected to perform well for back-to-school. (Seen here: winning designs from Vans' Custom Culture national high school design competition).
Courtesy of Vans
School doors may have barely slammed shut for summer break but Footwear News is already thinking of the shoe trends that will dominate when students make their way back into the classroom in September.
Industry insiders say there are no major trend surprises popping up yet but many of the usual players are set to do big numbers.
Key brands to watch include Vans, Converse, Skechers and Steve Madden, with canvas and fashion-athletic styles, in particular, expected to outperform. “I think Skechers will be a key winner—especially with adult takedown styles attracting an older child,” said Wunderlich Securities Inc. analyst Danielle McCoy.
B. Riley & Co. LLC analyst Jeff Van Sinderen is equally bullish on the brand.
“Skechers is on fire,” said Van Sinderen. “I think the brand will do well [because they have] a strong assortment of accessibly-priced, on-trend product in kids and plenty of casual/comfort product that appeals to a wide range of older (high school, college and up) age groups.”
CL King & Associates analyst Steven Marotta said he’s placing his bet on Steve Madden which “from a share perspective, is poised to perform well.”
“Steve Madden has a little wind to its back and I think a lot of the styles that are doing well for them in the spring will translate into the fall for back to school—in the fashionable sneaker category in particular,” said Marotta.
Van Sinderen also noted that Nike’s offerings in the basketball category will continue to perform well among kids, teens and young adults.
Retailers forecasted to have the prime share of must-have shoe items include Famous Footwear—Caleres’ standout performer in the family space—and Genesco Inc.’s Journeys.
“Famous Footwear’s offerings are trend-right and in-stock,” said Marotta. “They invested heavily in canvas which has done well in the spring and we think it will do well in the fall.”
McCoy and Sterne Agee CRT analyst Sam Poser also called out Famous Footwear—which reported a 27 percent increase in canvas sales in the first quarter—as a retail chain to watch for back-to-school.
“Famous Footwear is well-positioned with its new marketing,” said McCoy. “They have been working with a third party to enhance consumer engagement and I think the back-to-school campaigns will reflect the work they’ve done.”
McCoy also noted that the retailer’s assortment mix features key back-to-school favorites that include Keds, Sperry, Skechers and Madden Girl.
Journeys, the chain that continues to boost Genesco against pressure from its underperforming chain Lids, capitalized on the strength of strong boots and canvas trends in Q1. Market watchers expect that canvas will remain the driver for the firm’s sales in the back-to-school shopping season.
“Management continues to feel confident in the business with strong visibility into back-to-school in addition to traffic and conversion driving initiatives such as increased catalogue spend…” wrote Susquehanna Financial LLLP analyst Christopher Svezia in a note on May 29.
Regarding new shoe trends, the market will just have to wait to see if something emerges.
“Outside of the usual brands and retailers, there’s nothing else showing signs of strength right now,” said Marotta.
To view the original article please visit: Footwear News
Today is Monday. On Wednesday I have an long-haul flight to São Paulo and I just realized my traveling sneakers are done. I need my sneakers to be comfortable, because with my luck, the gates for connecting flights are always on the other side of the airport.
I need to find a new pair ASAP.
With everything I have to do to prepare, there isn’t enough time for a trip to the mall. In-between thoughts of the presentation I'm preparing, I browse different online stores and I find what I’m looking for.
But there’s a problem - I need my sneakers delivered overnight or I risk not having them in time for my trip. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take.
I look around the product page of the first store - there’s no information on shipping on that page, none.
I end up buying from my second choice simply because they clearly state next-day shipping is available.
Later I find out that first store also provided free next-day shipping, but that information was provided on the last page of the check-out flow. What a waste.
Have you noticed something that is extremely important in all ecommerce, but that I didn’t care about at all? Something that is the cornerstone of every site that is selling online, but in this instance, didn’t play any role whatsoever?
That all-so-important thing is the “Add To Cart” button.
It didn’t play any role in me passing on my first choice and buying from somewhere else. That button is extremely important, we have written about it before here and I personally have written a whole mega article just about that button here.
While the “Add to Cart” button is important and it’s one of the defining features of an ecommerce site, it does not carry the entire burden of of getting itself clicked.
You can have the most “optimized” button in the world but if it doesn’t work with the rest of your site or you’re just plain sloppy and forget to mention next-day shipping (for example) on your product pages... you are still going to lose business.
This article will try to give you a more holistic picture on what else you need to pay attention to when selling stuff online besides that damn button.
So let’s get started.
How Do We Discover Why People Aren't Clicking "Add To Cart"?
So imagine that we’re online tea sellers, specifically we’re selling Matcha green tea online. The above picture is of our product pages.
We have high-quality product photography, psychological pricing, prominent “Add To Cart” button, some shipping info, instructions about making the tea, brief intro into Matcha teas and so on. Everything seems to be in place.
Additionally our Google Analytics data which tells us how many people land on this page (and how they got here) and we can see how many people clicked our buy button.
This is pretty good, but we also see that only .56% of our traffic is clicking "Add To Cart". That's not enough.
What we really want to know is what we should change about this product page to make even more people take steps towards buying.
User testing is one of the tools that can help us with accomplishing this goal.
User Testing Helps You See The Page Through Your Customer's Eyes
Your shop is online, you have your customers and because you are a smart marketer you have set up email list segmentation which allows you to email different segments (repeat, biggest spending etc) of your customers.
Before we go forward with changing things around based on “best practices” we must first get an understanding on what the buying experience is like for our customers.
You’ve looked at your product pages hundreds of times and you know by heart where everything is situated and it all makes sense... to you - very often, this is the exact opposite scenario for the majority of your visitors.
To solve this, use remote user testing to see first hand how visitors are using your site.
Remote testing works by recording audio & video of what’s happening on your visitor’s screen via screen capture software.
The facilitation is done either through pre-loaded prompts that appear over the top of the website being tested (when using professional user testing software) or simply in the form of activities do be done sent to the testers email.
In the end you will get a video recording where you can see and hear exactly what was going on.
As questions go, our goal is to understand what information is lacking from the buyer's perspective that makes them hesitate clicking "Add to Cart" and if the information they need to feel comfortable purchasing is easily accessible.
If I’m the owner of an online shoe shop, a customer would most likely want to know if they have my size, shipping info, materials used etc.
Possible tasks for user testers would include:
Browse around the site, what kind of shoes is X selling?
Find a pair of men’s loafers that you like.
Do they have your size in stock?
Add a pair of loafers to the shopping cart, then open the shopping cart and change the size of the shoe one size down.
Find another pair of shoes you like and add that to the cart.
Are the shipping options clear? How much are they, and what is estimated delivery time?
Etc..
You get the picture. Try to imagine yourself in your customers shoes and what they would need to know to buy from you. Then derive tasks from that and use them.
Once you have gone through the process once with your current setup, it’s time to analyze and improve based on that feedback and then go again for another round.
The question of who should to the testing is an easy one - your own customers!
Like I said earlier, you are a smart marketer and you have set up your list segmentation already. The only thing left is contacting those segments and asking for help with improving your site - you can offer discounts, free shipping etc to get customers to be more willing to join you.
As segments go start with your best customers, since they have bought from you numerous times already they trust you and are more willing to help you out. Be aware though, that you shouldn’t only rely on them - they have used your site extensively so try to include customers from all segments to get a fuller picture.
Additional segments you can test might be:
New users
Email visitors
Social Media visitors
Referral visitors
High spenders
Etc
Displaying different messaging to these kinds of visitors can be configured with an optimization tool such as Optimizely.
If you need to make a case before investing in these tools, you can use any screen capture software, and instructing users to follow the think aloud protocol as they perform a set of tasks given to them in an email. Windows 10, for example, has screen capture build right into it, so your users don’t need to install any additional software at all.
Using Session Replays And Heatmaps To Watch How Visitors Interact
User testing on it's own can lead to some serious bias however. Because people know they're being watched, it can influence the answers they give.
Session replays are similar to user testing in that it enables you to see customers interacting with your site - where they click, what drives attention, which form fields they hesitate on etc. - without having a test administrator standing over their shoulder.
With the session replay, you're viewing videos of users screens as they use your site - there is no possibility to make them complete tasks or ask questions afterwards.
It’s biggest strength and weakness is that it records everything that everyone does - so depending on what you're trying to find, you may need to watch a lot of replays to get what you need.
Let's say you're wondering why more people aren't clicking "Add to Cart" and you watch through some session replays. In the replays for one of your more popular items you see that a significant portion of people are clicking the "size" dropdown, but one of the sizes is out of stock.
After which they either 1.) Leave or 2.) try to find another item in a similar size. If they leave, it's an easy assumption that they had no reason to click "Add to Cart" because you just didn't have what they wanted.
Using Heatmaps to Find Where Your Visitor's Attention Does And Doesn't Go
Moving on from session replays, heatmaps are the next step to find out how to get more people clicking "Add to Cart".
Strictly speaking heatmaps are divided into 2 categories - click-tracking heatmaps (see where the user is clicking and moving with his/her mouse) and eyetracking heatmaps (tracking users eye movement). By far the more popular is the clicktracking variety simply because it’s way more cost effective.
Another big difference between them is that click-tracking is used in real-time while eye-tracking requires specialized equipment and is usually done in focus groups and in a lab environment.
Then there is the debate if mouse-tracking has a high or low correlation with eye movement.
Meaning that, depending on who you listen, my mouse is either always around the area I’m reading or my mouse is in a random place while I’m reading. There really is no right or wrong answer here, so just use it with caution.
As a word of advice, use heatmaps that show actual clicks and disregard everything else.
With either tool however, the point is to see where the "hotspots" are on the page, or if the right elements are getting attention at all.
It's not uncommon to discover when viewing heatmaps for the first time, that important areas of the page aren't grabbing the visitor's attention, and therefore might as well be invisible.
Click-Tracking Heatmaps
Click-tracking heatmaps enables you to get progressively more data. With user testing realistically you’re getting data from 20 - 25 people, with session replays around 150 - 200 (you don’t really want or need to look through all the thousands of sessions).
And finally with heatmaps it combines clicking data from all your store's visitors and overlays them graphically over your website with easy to understand “hot” and “cold” areas - with the hottest ones getting the most clicks and vice versa.
Popular Click-Tracking Tools
As far as tools go, most of the popular ones include both session replay and heatmapping capability along with a host of other features like form analytics and scroll maps.
Tools also different on the definition of what a heatmap even is - some include mouse movement (hover) data while others count only clicks.
CrazyEgg, for example, has click-maps that show different traffic sources in different colors - great for visually seeing how behaviour differs between traffic sources.
On the other hand, it doesn’t include session replays which more advanced tools have. So your best bet is to read up on a couple of tools and their use cases, what they can and can’t do and decide then depending on your needs and budget.
When it comes to analyzing, go and read “Analyzing Survey Responses” section in this article to get started. It talks about user surveys, but same principles hold true here.
To see heatmapping in action, let’s look at an eyetracking study that Nielsen Norman Group ran on ecommerce category pages from Pottery Barn and Amazon.com:
In the case of Pottery Barn (left picture) thumbnails of bookcases were studied intensively, while descriptions were mostly left alone. The opposite was true for an Amazon page which featured TVs (right picture) - only 18% was spent on photos, while over 80% was spent on the text.
In the case of the TVs, pictures were of no help whatsoever when deciding. Are you really going to choose your TV based on what’s on the display? So because you like football and there’s a picture of a football player on one of the TVs I’m going to buy that one? Of course not.
Still, be very careful when making these sweeping generalizations. Just because it works for Amazon doesn’t mean that it will work for you and vice versa.
There is no substitute for running tests yourself on your products with your audience. This is just to exemplify that different things work in different product categories and surprising results can be found.
Using Exit Surveys And Live Chat To Discover Why Visitors Leave Without Buying
Remember the story at the beginning of the article when I chose another vendor because I wasn’t sure that they provided overnight shipping?
If the store owner looked at their data, all they would have seen was that I was looking for sneakers, landed on a product page and then left without clicking "Add to Cart".
Fortunately there are ways for marketers to get more context on why I left and thus make changes to make me stay longer on my next visit and possibly buy. I’m talking about exit surveys and live chat.
Exit surveys pop up usually on the right side of the screen just as you’re about to leave the site. They can either provide text based answers where you choose the correct one or a free form field. In the shipping example the exit survey could have looked like something like this:
While this wouldn't have persuaded me to buy, it would give me the opportunity to let them know why. But for me as an business owner it gives me an answer to why people are leaving which I can then use to improve my store.
Another way to achieve the same goal is to use live chat where customers and potential customers can get answers to their questions and continue shopping with the piece of mind that what they were searching for is either available or not.
And that is exactly what your customers are doing - already back in 2012 customers said that they liked live chat because they get their questions answered quickly (79% of responders) and 46% agreed it was the most efficient communication method. We'll be going more in-depth on Live Chat later this week (subscribe to the blog to get notified).
Now I understand that all this feedback and mountains of data can be overwhelming.
User tests, session replays, heatmaps, live chat etc all produces a lot of data and it takes a lot of time to go through it all. But here’s the thing - you don’t need to go through every single piece of data and analyze it like a mad person.
The idea is to “triangulate the truth” by watching and learning, and to develop a well-informed hypothesis, which will be the basis of a testing plan focused on getting more people to click the “Add to Cart” button.
Use Personalized Content To Tailor Messaging To Specific Traffic Sources
It’s no secret that traffic from different sources converts at different levels.
You can’t reasonably expect that traffic coming from your newsletter and traffic coming from organic Google search will convert at the same level. That’s never going to happen.
Different traffic sources want different things and their behavior and clicking patterns are different. People that know you (like your newsletter subs) have bought from you and they trust you already, while people coming from other sources may have never heard of you and so you must work harder on earning their trust.
One of the easiest things you can to do earn great trust right away is to make sure the messages you're promoting outwards on your social channels, ads and the like match what is happening on your actual pages.
They are using the same words and call to actions (not to mention graphics) on both the ad and the actual landing page. That’s the way all clickable ads should be done.
Personalization
Getting messages to match on ads and their respective landing pages is relatively easy but what if we could personalize pages for all the different traffic sources you are likely to encounter?
Now that would be awesome, and luckily for you it’s doable.
We already have all this data that we gathered through Google Analytics, user testing, watching session replays and exit surveys and live chat and heatmaps and more.
So why not put this into good use and instead of simply visually seeing how different sources interact differently with our pages but also change the pages depending on their browsing behaviour?
This is where personalization and behavioural targeting software comes into play. There are a multitude of different companies that offers these services starting with your favourite A/B testing software like VWO or Optimizely and a bunch of companies like Personyze, Monoloop, Monetate and more that offer these services.
Essentially what they offer is an interface that allows you to choose your variables and then what kind of content they should be greeted with.
You can segment by traffic source, previous purchases, their location and more. This is where all the research that you have done before comes in handy - you are creating different experiences for different customers based on what works best for them.
This is the holy grail of ecommerce - customer sees only the things that interest them in a way that is personally unique to them.
Conclusion
"Add to Cart" - these 3 simple words are the most important words in ecommerce, although you might be mistaken seeing as I have only mention the actual button once or twice throughout this article.
It is unquestionably a very important piece of the ecommerce puzzle.
All these small things play a huge and important role in your success. Just remember,it doesn’t live in a vacuum and to be truly successful you need to look at the whole picture and work on all the different parts of the puzzle.
It’s not going to be quick, it will take time and hard work but I promise you it will pay off in the end.
To view the original article please visit: Shopify
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Is your business’ website doing more than giving customers your location, hours of operation and phone number? Is your brick-and-mortar retail site encouraging customers to check out your website? Cross-marketing your physical and online spaces increases awareness, engagement and revenue for your business. When looking to boost your marketing efforts, here are a few points to consider:
Ensure They Boost Each Other
Marketing across channels is an excellent way to reach new customers and encourage existing ones to return. Although a website can’t deliver the highly-personalized services of a skilled salesperson, it can serve as a valuable bridge to attract customers’ attention. Make sure your website delivers the information your customers need about the products and brands you sell. Include high-quality photographs that encourage them to visit your store in person for a closer look. Boost your website by encouraging retail store customers to sign up for emails that announce sales, pre-orders and other specials.
Discovery: This phase gives customers who aren’t in your geographic area the chance to find you through local online searching. You can expedite this phase by adding your website to local search engine directories so local customers can find your retail space. Make sure your website content includes geographic and product keywords that customers are likely to use in their searches.
Connection: The second phase lets customers see if your store provides the products or services they need without making an actual trip to the store. Develop website content that informs and educates your customers about specific products. Demonstrating knowledge and expertise helps persuade them you’re a credible and trustworthy business.
Sales: The final phase can happen online or in your store.
Impress With Your Landing Page
Most online searches take the customer directly to the website landing page. Like your store, it must convey a positive first impression to encourage visitors to stay and browse. Your site also needs to make your customers feel safe and secure, not like they’re being spammed. Show perks of shopping online, such as free shipping or promotion codes. Also display security badges that testify to your site’s security. A good site will show that its site is accredited by the Better Business Bureau, approved by Norton Secured and a verified merchant from Authorize.Net.
Let Them Research Online and Buy in the Store
Many customers invest more time researching expensive products online before purchasing them from a physical location, according to ShoppinPal. This gives businesses with both online and in-person stores an advantage to target customers. An infographic on MineWhat cites research from RetailingToday that says 60 percent of consumers begin product research through a search engine and visit at least three online stores before deciding where to make the purchase.
Although nothing can replace a personalized, in-store experience, a well-designed website can be a valuable sales tool that encourages customers to visit your store to forge that relationship. For example, Spencers TV & Appliance embeds links on its website that users can click on to call and check on specific products, prices and availability. It’s easy to visualize a good salesperson using this opportunity to bring a potential customer into your store.
Photo Credit: Provided by Social Monsters with permission to use.
To view the original article please visit: Retail Minded
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Holographic displays have evolved since their Tupac debut; as Paul Smiths shows, now retailers are using them too.
A window display concept developed by Carl Bresnahan aims to engage and attract potential customers through some technological trickery. The interactive holographic display, titled The Window that Never Sleeps, can be operated even after hours when the store—in this case, a conceptual Paul Smith facade—is closed, embedding a standout image in the minds of shoppers and prompting them to return when the store reopens.
A recently released promotional video by Bresnahan demonstrates the capabilities of the leveraged holographic display of the storefront to attract customers by presenting multiple different colored animated yet uninhabited suits performing human-like actions such as playing with a yo-yo or ‘making it rain.’
An interactive holographic shop window display concept for Paul Smith on Floral Street, Covent Garden, London, Bresnahan’s concept aims to engage and attract potential customers in one of the busiest places in London out of hours. This concept was a degree project and only mocked up in the Floral St window, therefore, it is not currently on display.
The three suits—one a blueish purple, one red and one near-burgundy—are just three of the many available offerings within the store, and watching them move offers a nearly 360 degree visualization of the suits themselves and their fitting.
Far ahead of its time, Bresnahan’s holographic window display is sure to catch the attention of any and all passerby, with a layer of interactivity eliciting an enchanted response that sets the store apart from any others nearby.
Since there’s a significant lack of information available on the Internet regarding the display, why not pay a visit to London and watch a person-less suit throw holographic bills in the air?
Study after study has proven that referral marketing is one of the best forms of marketing when it comes to sales and conversions. Simply put, referral marketing, sometimes also called word-of-mouth marketing, is just people purchasing products based on someone else's opinion or influence. It's a powerful marketing channel because people trust the opinions of other people in their lives and people they respect, whether that be family, friends, social media influencers or big stars.
It makes sense, we regularly get advice from our friends on which TV shows to watch, movies to rent, or restaurant to go to. And, as end consumers ourselves, we wan’t to share our stories, the products we buy and the brands we choose. This becomes magnified when the buying experience and products are exceptional.
In this post, we will show you the three fundamental reasons referral marketing is so powerful, some examples of extremely successful referral campaigns, and provide you with seven tactical steps to build a powerful referral marketing engine for your business.
Let's jump into it.
Why Is Referral Marketing So Powerful?
We know that word-of-mouth and referral marketing is powerful and is continually rated as one of the most powerful forms of marketing, but why?
Let’s take a look at three core reasons for this:
1. Precision Targeting
Have you every tried using Google Adwords or Facebook Ads just to watch your money disappear, literally before your eyes? Many times this isn’t the fault of the platform, rather your targeting. A great marketing campaign involves two key components, a great message and laser targeting.
Referral and word-of-mouth marketing tend to be much more targeted because people tend to know their friends and social audiences pretty well. This allows your brand message to spread more effectively than with most other marketing channels.
2. Trust Factor
Trust goes a long way when it comes to convincing someone to buy something. If we don't trust someone, we aren't going to listen to them. Consider the last time a salesperson you know is on commission tried to sell you something. You likely had doubts about his authenticity due to a lack of trust. With referral marketing though, the sales pitch is usually coming from someone that you either know well, like friends and family, or it's coming from someone you have trust in, like a favorite blogger.
Time and time again, studies have shown that people almost always trust these people's opinions over generic advertisements and sales pitches carefully crafted by the brand themselves.
Need proof? A recent Neilson Trust Study showed that referrals are the most trusted form of advertising by a large margin:
But wait… there’s more. If you looked at the graphic above and only looked at the first row (Recommendations from people I know), you may of missed something. Position three (Consumer opinions posted online) and position four (Editorial content such as newspaper articles) are all also forms of referral marketing.
Remember, referrals aren't just limited to friends and family. They can come from a variety of sources, provided the receiver of the message trusts them. So what are the major types of referral channels?
Friends/Family
News Publications
Customer Reviews and Opinions Posted Online
Influencer Opinions (Bloggers, Social Media Influencers)
Testimonials
3. Reach and Acceleration
Not long ago, reach of the average reach of a typical consumer was limited. For the most part it was contained to the number of people they saw in person each day or talked to on the phone. In this day and age though, the average consumers' reach is much larger and for many people with strong social followings, it can be enormous. Some consumers now have the power to make or break a business by what they say about it online.
With a simple Facebook post, Twitter tweet or Instagram selfie, the average consumer can now reach hundreds, if not thousands or friends (who again trust their opinions) in a matter of seconds. That kind of social reach is a critical reasons to why referral marketing has only gotten bigger over the last ten years.
Referral Marketing Examples
So now we know referral is huge and understand the reasons why it's so important, let's look at a few examples of companies that used referral marketing to catapult their businesses.
Example 1: Dollar Shave Club
Dollar Shave Club is a great example of an ecommerce company that used referral marketing in the form of a marketing video to launch their business. Dollar Shave Club created a honest and cheeky video that now currently sits at 16 million views.
Take a look at the video below:
According to Entrepreneur.com, in the first 48 hours after the video debuted on YouTube, over 12,000 people signed up for the service, by the end of the week, that number over doubled to over 25,000.
Although many people would call this a viral marketing campaign, the truth is every single one of those 25,000 customers was referred by someone that had an enjoyable experience with Dollar Shave Club by consuming their video content.
Example 2: Harry's
Harry’s, a new grooming product company in the ultra competitive market of shaving suppliers for men grew extremely quickly, thanks to referral marketing.
In a detailed post on the 4-Hour Work Week blog, Jeff Raider, co-founder of Harry’s describes the referral based launch campaign they used to acquire over 100,000 sign-ups before ever even launching.
By setting up a referral marketing campaign on their pre-launch landing page that rewarded people with free shaving products in exchange for sharing their brand, they were able to launch to a massive audience and have continued to grow to over 40 employees.
So maybe these are two very extreme cases of referral marketing done right. However, the underlying message you need to understand is that all this was possible because of the power of referral marketing.
How Do You Use And Implement Referral Marketing?
Implementing your own referral strategy to increase referrals and sales isn't difficult. Here’s seven tactics you can implement today for your own online store:
1. Provide Exceptional Customer Service and Buying Experience
Are the core of every and all referrals is great products, exceptional customer service and a great overall buying experience. This is fundamental to any referral campaign.
To start, evaluate the buying experience of your own store, looking at it from a customer perspective and ask yourself what's worth sharing with your friends?
2. Pay Attention To Your Analytics
You’re probably already getting referrals and don’t even know it. Google Analytics has a whole section on referrals that can help you pinpoint other sites that are linking and referring people to you. This report can be can be broken down to not just visitors but customers as well, giving you a deep understanding of which of the referring websites are the most qualified.
With this knowledge, you can reach out to those sites and work out a plan to acquire even more traffic.
For example, you may work out:
Additional mentions in upcoming posts
Guest blog post
Referral program to share profit with them
3. Make Your Products and Product Experience Sharable
There are many ways to create a wow factor for your customers. Consider your packaging and unboxing experience. In a previous post on shipping and fulfillment we introduced you to the exceptional effort Trunk Club makes to create a great, share-worthy experience for customers.
You can see from their packaging below that their customer unboxing experience is very central to their overall brand experience and makes for a great photo to share on Instagram and other social networks.
Trunk Club does an such exceptional job at wow'ing customers with the packaging experience, that customers make unboxing videos on YouTube which furthers amplifies Trunk Club's reach through referral marketing.
Everlane is another great example of a brand that uses their packaging as a marketing channel. Items from Everlane arrive wrapped in craft paper with an Everlane sticker and a thank you note that encourages people to share a photo of their purchase on social media.
Consider how you can provide a wow factor to customer that makes them compelled to share your products and refer your brand to their network.
4. Make It Easy For Visitors And Customers To Refer Your Brand
You always want to make sure you’re making it as easy as possible to share your products and refer your brand. There are many ways you can do this. Consider how MeUndies Underwear has done this on their site by adding it right to their main navigation. There is no doubt that referring friends is an important call-to-action for them.
After you click it, they also make it easy by pre-populating the Twitter and Facebook message so you don’t have to think of one.
How can you make it as easy as possible for people to share your products? You may also want to consider smaller, but effective tactics like adding social sharing badges to every product page.
5. Implement a Referral Program
Sometimes people need a nudge. Providing rewards for referrals can be just the thing to get your visitors and customers sharing your brand with their friends and family.
In the example at the beginning of this post, we showed you how Harry’s offered several tiers of rewards in the form of products to get people to share their pre-signup landing page. You can do similar by offering rewards through a referral or loyalty program.
There are lots of really solid apps in the Shopify App Store that can help you quickly implement a great referral/loyalty program.
Influencers within your niche can be a goldmine of referral traffic and sales. The key is to find influencers who's following is close as possible to your target market.
So maybe you're not at the point you can afford to pay Hilary Duff to refer your product, however there are plenty of other influencers out there with small, although still huge audiences you can work with. We touched on influencer marketing in this post and this post, but influencer marketing can be as easy as reaching out to a popular blogger, YouTuber, or Instagramer and asking if they do sponsored postings or if they would like your product for a review.
7. Reviews Are Referrals Too
People trust what other customers say about your company more than what you say so make sure you encourage customers to leave reviews after their purchase.
As an example, looking at the product page for BeardBrand Tree Ranger Beard Oil, we can see they have over 400 reviews and an average rating of 4.7 out of 5. The reviews might not drive new traffic to your site but they will help people still on the fence convert.
Conclusion
Referral marketing is a powerful and important component for every business. Implementing some basic tactics can help encourage and facilitate the referral process which can be a major source of new sales.
For more information and tips and tricks when creating a referral program for your brand, check out the bonus section below.
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