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What Is Brand Advocacy? How To Use It To Grow Your Business

Brand advocacy is a term used to describe actions taken by people who love your brand and continuously support your organization by promoting products and services to new customers and prospects. 

Through brand advocacy strategies, companies can build more vital brand awareness and reach consumers on various platforms like never before. 

Brand advocacy is built on quality customer loyalty, reviews, and data collection. By using reviews and data collection, a company can determine which tactics are working and which are not.

Brand advocacy has been present in the marketing industry for decades, with high-ticket companies such as Adidas using brand advocacy as a leading factor in their national marketing strategy.

With market experts speculating that this is the year brand advocacy reigns supreme, there has never been a better time than now to build and implement a brand advocacy strategy.

In this article we will cover:

  1. What is a Brand Advocate?
  2. The Power of Customer Loyalty
  3. Measuring Advocacy Through Data Collection
  4. Use Customer Experience To Build Brand Advocacy Programs
  5. Key Takeaways

What Is A Brand Advocate?

A brand advocate is someone who elevates your brand through word-of-mouth marketing. Brand advocates leave positive reviews about your product. They also refer new customers and create content on your behalf.

Brand advocacy is impossible without brand advocates. Brand advocates play a crucial role in producing awareness and customer traffic, with 75% of customers saying that word-of-mouth is a critical factor in their purchasing decisions.

Knowing who can be a brand advocate is vital and is one of the essential steps in building a brand advocacy strategy.

Brand advocates can be found in many forms, but more often than not are found to be in four major groups.

Customer Brand Advocacy

The best word-of-mouth advertising to customers is from customers. Hearing a fellow customer talk about a brand or product is the quickest way to dispel any hesitancy or worries a possible customer might have.

Customer reviews are one of the most important factors driving customer brand advocacy, along with being a powerful tool that helps customers empower themselves as brand advocates.

Reviews allow customers to express their opinion about a brand and its products. They enable consumers to become familiar with and gain interest in the brand and begin their journey toward becoming a customer.

Inserting testimonials into brand and product advertisements is one of the best ways for brands to add authority and social trust to an advocacy strategy. Additionally, social media has proven to be an effective area for customer and influencer advocates to reach a wide-ranging array of consumers.

Influencer Brand Advocacy

influencer brand advocacy
An influencer's branded post

Influencers are famous and well-known individuals with a robust social media presence and following. Influencers are known to operate on various social media channels as they cater to their thousands of followers, making the odds of a brand’s message being seen very likely.

The average user connects with over 600 friends and family on social media. Additionally, 61% of customers trust influencers’ recommendations–more than the 38% who trust branded (and often biased) social media content.

Those two facts alone make influencer marketing essential for companies to use when connecting with consumers on social media. Companies need influencers’ social media mastery and skills to ensure the message of their brand and products reach as many followers as possible. 

As influencers advocate for the brand through a post and leave a lasting impression on their followers, those followers will share that post with their friends, and their friends will share it as well, causing a domino effect that spreads the brand’s message and brings in more customers.

Business Partner Brand Advocacy

The relationship between a company and its partners is unique. Business partners such as affiliate partnerships have an insight into the companies they work with that can be used as an impressive and effective brand advocacy strategy. 

Affiliate Advocacy:

Affiliates are seen as trusted sources through the connections they have built with their audience. The fact that affiliates have a strong following makes them a top candidate for brand advocacy.  

When affiliates present a brand or product to their audience, it comes across less as straight-up advertising and feels more like a casual recommendation. Additionally, affiliate websites leverage their reputation with consumers to make their website the number one place for shopping guide knowledge. 

A shining example is the Amazon associate program, built to enable affiliate sites to broadcast and showcase Amazon’s products to the public.

A number one factor for Amazon is being the largest retailer in the world, with over 12 million items throughout all categories and departments. With Amazon having such a large volume of products, their partnered affiliates have a much more extensive range to advocate for the brand, advertise their products, and bring in customers. 

Much like any work, affiliates do not do this for free. Affiliates who work with Amazon can earn up to a 10% commission from each acquired customer’s overall spending with Amazon. 

This example is just one of many stand-out affiliate programs that exemplifies how far affiliate brand advocacy can go in helping a company.

Employee Brand Advocacy

Using employees as brand advocates is one of the best choices a company can make. Unlike customers or business partners, employees are built-in and always there for their company. Employees hold much information about the brand they work for and its products, giving them everything they need to be brand advocates.

21% of employees within organizations were estimated to be brand advocates, and another 33% have the potential to be ones.

However, it is up to employees to be brand advocates, and the best way to make them want that is by creating a comfortable and inspiring company culture. 

Of course, there are more factors to consider that depend on each company’s particular needs. The overall goal for every company remains the same: focus on growing employee brand advocacy. 

Employees are the glue that holds a company together. Therefore, companies need to prioritize nurturing employee experience and loyalty. When customers see happy employees advocating for the brand they work for,  it showcases how caring this brand is for its employees and how customers can expect that same treatment.

All four are excellent brand advocacy strategies that any brand will benefit significantly from using. It would be very time and budget-consuming to implement all of these into one singular brand advocacy strategy. Remember that adding only one of these groups into a brand advocacy strategy is best.

The Power Of Customer Loyalty

Customer reviews are the first step in using brand advocacy to help a business.

As with any review for a company or product, the intended goal is to have it communicate a positive message to consumers. 

However, a company does not need to have a perfect review record. 95% of consumers will find a perfect review record suspicious, leading to them not engaging with the company.

Nothing works better to break down a consumer’s hesitancy and worry than to hear a fellow consumer talk about a company and product.

This way of advertising comes across less as a direct sales pitch and more as a subtle and casual conversation, helping the consumer feel at ease and more inclined to become a customer.

These reviews can be done in different forms, such as a short and sweet tweet on Twitter, a slideshow post on Instagram, or a segmented story on Snapchat.

Customer reviews are not limited to those platforms but are known to perform strongly on social media and lead to higher conversion rates.

A brand can build a strong bond with customers by honing in on customer loyalty, making them feel validated and more inclined to advocate for the brand.

After indoctrinating loyal customers into brand advocates, they will spread a brand’s engaging brand advocacy program to their friends and family as these new customers flock to the excellent and trustworthy brands they hear about from brand advocates.

Remember that customer reviews are much more than just a way for customers to express their opinions. Customer reviews are constantly being made and waiting to be used by brands to reel in potential customers. 

Measuring Advocacy Through Data Collection

Being able to measure the effectiveness of a brand advocacy program through data collection is crucial. Instead of second-guessing and being in the dark about what works and does not, data metrics show brands precisely what works best in their advocacy campaign to increase conversion and revenue, such as: 

  • Quality of posts and channels
  • Consumer-generated impressions
  • Friend and follower engagement
  • Rating and review
  • Share of voice

The most accurate and efficient way to measure customer advocacy is through Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a measuring system that assesses and quantifies the percentage of a customer base promoting the product along with the opposing side detracting from the product.

Net Promoter Score is very focused on data collection and, in doing so, has crafted many ways for companies to connect with and better understand their customer base.

Many of these methods involve crafting a tool for data collection, such as a survey sent through email or an engaging campaign on social media. Additionally, customer reviews are a great place to learn what customers like and dislike about a brand and product.

The main point is that companies must listen to what their customers say to get the data they need to measure advocacy in their brand. That is why Net Promoter Score and customer reviews focus on gathering a brand’s pros and cons from various customers. After acquiring these metrics, a company can make any changes needed to improve its brand. 

As companies gather and listen to customers’ opinions, they will find that this is the top method for understanding and improving customer experience, building customer loyalty, and having it result in those customers turning into brand advocates. 

Measuring your brand advocacy with NPS
Measuring your brand advocacy with NPS

Use Customer Experience To Build Brand Advocacy Programs

No matter what, every brand needs to find a way to connect with its customers through brand advocacy. Many companies struggle with figuring out how to make this happen, but listed below are some who have found ingenious ways to build effective and long-lasting brand advocacy through an engaging customer experience and effective brand positioning.

Apple’s Brand Advocacy Program

Apple's brand advocacy program
Apple's "Shot on Iphone" Poster

Apple’s brand advocacy program is called “Shot On iPhone” and primarily uses customer and influencer advocacy. 

As mentioned but can never be said too often, the best way for a brand to get customers to engage is by engaging with customers first. Apple went about crafting this brand advocacy program with that specific sentiment in mind.

When conducting the “Shot On iPhone” brand advocacy program, Apple asked their customers to do just one thing: take a picture, add a special hashtag, and share it on social media. With the company being so popular and trusted nationwide, waves of loyal customers jumped at the chance to be an Apple influencer. 

As they do, it improves customer experience and builds customer engagement for Apple. After searching through the vast amount of submissions, Apple found the right photos from 24 countries to fit their ad campaign and speak to every type of customer they have.

The best part of Apple’s brand advocacy program is that the customers did most of the work for the company, with Apple only having to add the tagline “Shot On iPhone.”. They put ad spending at a minimum and watch their revenue rise because of the advocacy and social proof their loyal customers add to the company. 

The “Shot On iPhone” program is a leading example of adequately using customers and their loyalty to build a unique and compelling strategy, showcasing the strength and effectiveness of brand advocacy in the marketing world.

Starbucks’s Brand Advocacy Program

Starbucks built a brand advocacy program known as “Tweet-A-Coffee”.

The “Tweet-A-Coffee” program allowed customers to buy their friends and family gift cards through Twitter.

All participating customers have to do is use the handle @tweetcoffee and include the name of the person they want to receive the $5 gift card. 

On top of that, Starbucks’ marketing team ensured to incentivize customers by offering a free $5 gift card to the first 100,000 customers to sign up. 

This brand advocacy program accomplished two goals for Starbucks. The first accomplishment is that it allowed Starbucks to see how many customers the company can engage with and turn into brand advocates. Secondly, the program proved very successful for Starbucks, engaging with over 27,000 brand advocates and turning a profit of $180,000 in “Tweet-A-Coffee” sales.

Key Takeaways

How to Build an Effective Brand Advocacy Program

  1. Pick your brand advocates
  2. Set goals for your program
  3. Engage with your advocates
  4. Be consistent
  5. Create promotions
  6. Listen to your advocates
  7. Measure customer advocacy through NPS

With all this information, now is the time to act and use all the advantages of brand advocacy. 

To learn more about brand advocacy and strategies, make sure you check out this article on customer value and how to generate it for customer retention and loyalty.

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Media, Electronic, Education, and Travel Advertising Spend Each Saw a Boost, amid Inflation

Although some industries that thrived during the pandemic now find themselves scaling back on advertising as a response to the soaring inflation, certain industries see significant benefits in increased ad spending. 

Consumer electronics ad spend increased 284% from the semiconductor chip shortage nearing end through 2022. Advertising for the many new smartphones from Alphabet, Apple, and Samsung throughout the first half of 2022 generated a lot of interest from consumers. The category accounted for $597 million in ad spending, representing 10% of the consumer electronics category. Business software also experienced a surge in spending for software categories including financial (128%), advertising and marketing (274%), and human resources (417%).

Universities are spending big on advertising as students return to class. According to in-person university ad spend, ad spend in the online education sector was up 264% between January and June, as virtual learning continues to reign post pandemic. Business schools (33%), culinary schools (1545%), and humanities programs (1122%) all saw higher spending as a result of H1 2022 compared to H1 2021. 

In addition, industries like traveling and media have constantly increased ad spend to compensate for the stagnancy of services during the pandemic. Despite rising gas prices, travel ad spend increased 83% year-on-year to $2.1 billion as a result of ‘revenge travel’. The cruise ship industry increased advertising by 250% after witnessing a series of pandemic related PR and health crisis as a result of covid. Airline spending is up 140% with Delta, Southwest and United spending 71% of all airlines advertising spending. 

Movie theaters were primarily off limits during the pandemic, however, advertisers have so far spent $1.2 billion to promote movies this year in efforts to get people back through the doors. The media and entertainment industry spent $10.9 billion in the first half of 2022 and also sees a dramatic increase from the $5.8 billion spent in the first half of 2021. Similarly, technology has also seen a major advertising increase of 34% between January and June this year to over $6.7 billion. 

On the other hand, restaurant and bar’s advertising spend dropped by 25% this year as more funding was allocated to strategies like QR codes due to safety concerns and food and beverages delivery. The alcohol industry also sees a huge cut in ad spend as consumers are making the conscious choice to reduce alcohol intake after excessive consumption during quarantine. Alcohol subscription boxes, which took off during quarantine, cut advertising by 96%. 

Home furnishing also saw a slight decline of 1% year-on-year in June. However, it is notable that as companies and consumers alike figure out the best way to buy and sell home furnishings online, spending on Digital will gain ground on Print and TV, which have historically accounted for more than 80% of spending. (Print decreased by 12% YoY ($207mm) and TV was down by 10% from the same quarter last year.) 

Barring something totally unforeseen, Digital will surpass Print and TV in 2023 as the format attracting the majority of ad dollars from these advertisers.

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B2B vs B2C Marketing: 5 Fundamental Differences You Should Know

Since every business is either selling to other businesses or individuals they can be classified as either B2B or B2C. The fundamental difference is that the target audience will make a world of difference in the marketing strategy. In order to fully understand what differentiates B2B from B2C marketing, you’ll find out what defines both concepts and get your hands on their 5 fundamental differences. 

What is B2B Marketing?

An organization that targets other businesses as buyers are referred to as B2B marketing or business-to-business marketing. In a broad sense, B2B marketing content tends to be more informational and straightforward than B2C. This is because business purchase decisions, in comparison to those of consumers, are based more on bottom-line revenue impact. Return on investment (ROI) is a primary focus for corporate decision makers.

With consideration to the nature of B2B marketing, it often targets buying committees in various key stakeholders of a business. Though seemingly complex and challenging, the availability and accessibility of business information and data are of great help to marketers in influencing their target audience’s buying decisions. 

What is B2C Marketing?

An organization that focuses its marketing directly to consumers is known as a business-to-consumer marketing (B2C). A B2C marketing strategy does not only focus on the usefulness or value of the product, but also on getting an emotional response from customers to improve the customer experience.

Typically, B2C purchases are much smaller investments compared to B2B. Consumers generally seek out goods and services based on an immediate need, and make purchases faster, with less research and due diligence than a business would conduct.

B2B vs B2C marketing: The 5 fundamentals

In order to fully understand the differences between B2B and B2C marketing, let’s take a look at the following 5 aspects:

Customer relationships

B2B marketing focuses on building personal relationships and decisions are more often made from a logical perspective. In contrast, B2C marketing’s focus is on a transactional approach by which decisions are made from an emotional perspective.

B2C vs B2B Marketing Funnel
Courtesy of TrackMaven
Focus on relational marketing

The purpose of B2B marketing is to build personal relationships, which are important for a variety of reasons. Personal relationships drive long-term business growth, enhance your brand’s trustworthiness, and give you a competitive advantage because customer retention is higher. 

Ultimately, building meaningful relationships with customers will be more profitable than trying to attract new clients. In fact, it costs five times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one.

B2C Marketing: Customer relationships are transactional

Instead of focusing on the long-term, transactional marketing focuses on single, “point of sale” transactions. The goal of B2C marketing strategy in this area is to attract consumers to your website and generate sales. To do this, the entire customer experience needs to be flawless. This can be crucial for your business because 73% of consumers say customer experience is a deciding factor when making purchase decisions.

Effective tools to enhance your relationship building with B2C consumers include but are not limited to personalized email marketing, digital marketing on social media, excellent customer service, and blog postings.

The #1 benefit of outstanding customer relationships

Either your B2B as your B2C marketing strategy will benefit out of positive customer relationships because a positive user experience can encourage customers to keep coming back and leave customer reviews. The importance of customer reviews cannot be overstated for your B2B or B2C marketing strategy.

93% of customers will read reviews of local businesses to determine their quality and even bad reviews are helpful – if handled – well – because 95% of customers get suspicious of a rating if there are no negative reviews. 

Branding

Branding is important for either B2B or B2C marketing, but there are a few differences. A branding campaign in B2B, for instance, is more focused on positioning, while a branding campaign in B2C focuses more on messaging.

B2B Marketing: positioning is key

Establishing a strong brand is key for B2B businesses to build deep relationships with clients. Businesses that are able to portray themselves in the market help drive brand recognition and lead generation. Being able to position your brand toward your target audience will help drive brand recognition and ramp up your lead generation.

B2C Marketing: Personalization drives customer loyalty

Providing a personalized brand experience is another vital component of B2C marketing. Strong brands encourage customer loyalty and help customers stay engaged. Personalization helps open if customers are open enough to a brand and can recognize it quickly, they are more likely to find it worth purchasing.

User-generated content (UGC) is an effective way for B2C brands to build a strong brand awareness through their content strategy. UGC delivers authentic messages that inspire a buy and also creates loyalty to confirm credibility while creating an emotional connection with your target audience.

Decision-making process

Businesses often use a step-by-step decision-making process that can help the business make more deliberate, thoughtful decisions by organizing relevant information and defining alternatives. This approach increases the chances that the most satisfying alternative will be chosen.

B2B Marketing: Longer communication process

B2B decision making often takes a longer time because more executives from within a company are involved in the purchase. An average of 6.2 decision-makers are involved in the B2B sales cycle. That means you have to adapt your B2B marketing strategy to convince at least six people in order to successfully sell a solution.

B2C Marketing: Keep it short and simple

The B2C decision-making process is simple and individual. The C in B2C stands for consumers who take the decision whether to buy the product or not, taking into account the following factors:

  • Costs and value
  • Comparing customer reviews 
  • How credible and reliable is the brand?

Audience targeting

Identifying who your target audience is allows your business to focus your marketing efforts on the groups that are most likely to use your products or services. If a business has a properly defined audience, then the business will benefit in multiple ways,

B2B vs B2C Customer Targeting
Courtesy of Yousmarter

B2B marketing: Target your niche

B2B businesses normally work in a niche market, that’s why B2B marketers will focus on key decision-makers within an organization. In order to reach this specific audience, 44% of B2B marketers use buyer personas to attract their niche and make sure that all of their marketing efforts are geared toward this small group of decision-makers. 

By implementing buyer persona’s in your audience targeting, your business can benefit online and offline. For example, Skytap, a self-service provider of cloud automation solutions, implemented a targeted content marketing strategy and saw the following results:

  • 124% increased sales leads
  • 55% increase in organic search traffic
  • 97% increase in online leads
  • 210% increase in North American site traffic.

B2C marketing: Follow the funnel

Unlike B2B businesses, B2C businesses work in a larger-scale market, and the target is much more spread out. B2C marketers can direct their campaigns at just about anyone who is interested in using their products or services, not necessarily the buyer.

Did you know that a full 68% of companies have not identified or attempted to measure a sales funnel? While a good funnel that creates an omnichannel experience can boost the user experience, overall conversion rate, and reinforce the brand message. Without a working sales funnel, it’s nearly impossible to convert leads into sales.

Advertising and Communication

Is there a huge difference between B2B and B2C marketing communication? And what kind of communication is the most effective to use in each approach? Let’s dive deeper into the differences between B2B and B2C advertising and communication.

B2B marketing: Lead generation

For B2B brands, establishing a good relationship with their clients is their first priority in marketing. Communication is mostly focused on lead generation and brand recognition, by sharing content marketing directly with clients through mail or blogs. 

As 92% of small business owners use social media, networking through social media platforms has become increasingly popular. In particular, LinkedIn is a professional social platform designed to facilitate communication between businesses. In fact, 80% of B2B leads come from LinkedIn.

B2C marketing: Content marketing

B2C customers are the ideal targets for digital and content marketing. B2C brands can use a range of multimedia tools like SEO, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and Google ads to advertise and communicate with their audience.

For example, Spotify inspired fans on TikTok to use their brand new feature on GetReadyWithMusic by partnering with digital creators and stars Dixie and Charli D’Amelio. 

Did you know B2B and B2C marketing are not so different at all?

Whether your business or brand practices B2B or B2C marketing, customers are at the heart of your business. Focusing on making your marketing strategy customer-centric will help you create a positive customer experience, which in turn facilitates your business’s sustainable growth. As ad spends continue to soar in certain industries, digital marketing is predicted to trump traditional marketing (if not sooner) in the upcoming years. 

Build your image with a team of brand and design experts who are ready to help you create a seamless digital experience using a human-centric approach that your audience will remember and love, and to enhance your B2B or B2C marketing strategy and set your brand miles away from the pack. 

We are excited to hear from you, because we want to be part of your digital transformation as we strive to help you to succeed and thrive in the digital world.

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What is SEO Web Design and How to Build a Website that Ranks

Did you know that in order to build a website that ranks high in Google, you must always consider two major aspects–SEO and Web Design?

On one side of the equation there is SEO (or search engine optimization). SEO is the practice of optimizing a website so that it ranks well on search engines. In the opposite direction you have web design that refers to the design and creation of a website and all of its pages. Both of these concepts are constantly in conflict. However, in order to rank as high as possible in Google, you must find a way to balance both sides perfectly. 

In this article, you will learn everything you need to know about SEO web design. This article covers what it is, why it is important, the benefits, and 6 things you can do for web design and SEO. By the end of this article, you will be able to optimize your website to enhance its ranking.

What is SEO web design?

SEO web design refers to designing and developing SEO-friendly websites. It covers all the SEO best practices you need to follow when building websites.

Why is SEO web design important?

While SEO is all about getting found on Google, web design has all to do with the visual aspect. Though separate concepts, both aspects actually work hand in hand. For example, if your company website has a beautiful design, but if the content is not optimized for search engines, no one will be able to find it. 

In addition, it works the other way around as well. When you consider SEO best practices like page speed optimization and site architecture, building a website with little to no design will get you the best SEO results. However, the user experience will be low and most of your traffic is most likely to bounce.

If you want to save yourself valuable time, money, and rankings in Google, It’s smarter to combine SEO and web design together. In fact, you can build a foundation for your SEO strategy via your website and its design. Let’s dive deeper into some top benefits of SEO web design.

Boost high-intent traffic with your SEO web design

People using high-intent keywords are more likely to take specific actions based on their search terms. They often use a highly-specific question they’re hoping to find more information about. The page that shows up on top of the search result indicates they have the exact answer, as a result it is most likely traffic will click over to that page.

With SEO web design, you can elevate your website by creating top-of-mind awareness with your audience. While only 2.35% will convert the first time they visit your website, by using SEO web design you increase the probability that they will come back for other related questions. Having a high-intent traffic is a way to win in the long run. That’s why it is considered even more valuable than other traffic.

SEO web design increases organic traffic

Did you know that 91% of searchers do not go past page 1 of Google? Your position in Google Ranking is vital in order to get as much organic traffic. Therefore, SEO web design is an effective way to boost your ranking.

Organic traffic to your website is any kind of traffic coming from search engines that hasn’t been paid for. These are website viewers who found your site after using specific keywords to search for something on Google and browsing through the top options. 

Ignite Visibility conducted research in 2020 that backs this data up. While the top 3 had a click through rate (CTR) between 29.90% and 43.32%, it drops off quickly from there where the 10th position gets 3.11% of the clicks. Optimizing your SEO web design can be very beneficial in order to increase the organic traffic.

SEO web design enhances the user experience

User experience (UX) design has finally come into its own as a key factor shaping how companies do business. Every dollar invested in UX brings 100 in return, an ROI of 9,900 percent.

While SEO is essential in any marketing strategy. Google empowers websites that are user-friendly to prevent its own user experience from being impacted by poor websites. The websites that work well and are easy for a visitor to navigate will be rewarded and rank higher in the search engine.

Courtesy of HubSpot

SEO web design maximizes the potential of your marketing budget

An SEO strategy can take some time to implement, but the changes tend to be free. Many business owners can put SEO parameters in place themselves with a little bit of website knowledge, or they can defer it to someone on their team.

Implementing an SEO strategy is a long-term investment that can take some time to gain traction. SEO takes 3-6 months to gain traction. Once you start to see traction, growth is exponential.

Profitworks estimates that the average ROI of its SEO services is $2.75 for every dollar spent, or a 275% ROI. The point is that SEO is a low-cost strategy for helping your website to reach your marketing goals and increase your overall ROI.

Optimize for web design and SEO with these 6 factors

Now that you have a better understanding of why SEO and web design need to be perfectly balanced. To rank a website, Google considers more than 200 factors. In order to help you climb the Google ladder today, let’s start with the low-hanging fruit by optimizing the following 6 elements:

Mobile-friendliness

For years, a growing number of internet users browse on smartphones rather than other mobile devices. As of 2021, mobile traffic represented 55% of all worldwide traffic. It’s estimated that three-quarters of the world will only access the Internet via smartphones by 2025.

Let’s take a look at this website example from The Heart Company. They’re ranking on page one for keywords like local flower shop and flower delivery.

Their desktop version
Their mobile version

The mobile version is a more simplified form of their desktop version to allow for faster speed loading and legibility on a smaller device. Most of the main functions and buttons, such as the search bar, drop-down menu and delivery on the website are still retained on the mobile version.

Having a mobile-friendly website will not only increase the user experience. It will also increase the chance of ranking well because mobile-friendliness is a ranking factor for Google.

Readability

Readability is the quality of text that is simple and enjoyable to read. This is a very important factor in your Google ranking, since if your website visitors can’t read your copy or it’s not enjoyable to read, then your traffic will most likely bounce.

To enhance your website’s readability, make sure you use the right fonts throughout your website to ensure it’s easy to read. Use these free tools and websites like Hemingway, Grammarly, and Yoast SEO to check and improve the readability of your website.

Best practices say that big, bold serif, or sans serif fonts should be used throughout your website, its headers, and its copy blocks to ensure it’s easy to read.

This website by the infamous skincare brand, Then I Met You has bold headings and legible text body consistently throughout all the pages. 

Then I Met You's landing page

Right of the bat, the first thing visitors notice about their website is that their best-seller is an award winning product, and this skincare line is what they are best known for. All of this information coupled with readable and consistency font reinforces the site’s credibility. 

Images

Did you know that mobile searches for “image search” have grown by over 60% in the past two years? In comparison to other technologies, 62% of younger searchers prefer visual search capabilities. 

If you want to get the most out of your images on your website, keep the following 3 aspects in mind the next time uploading images:

File names

Instead of simply using standard file names like “IMG_001.jpg” or header-image-top-1.jpg, use descriptive local file names to name your images. Inserting relevant keywords into the descriptions helps Google identify what the image is about, but don’t stack them. The ideal image names are descriptive and easy to read for Google.

For example, let’s use the first part of the title of this blog as a file name example. “Whatisseowebdesign.jpg” will be difficult for Google to understand. Instead, name it “What-is-seo-web-design.jpg” for a better understanding.

File size

Having large images can be appealing to the eye, but they contain more data. An excessive amount of data on your size slows down page load time, which decreases the user experience and increases the bounce rate.

According to a 2019 study by Portent, a 0-4 second load time is best for conversion rates. With each additional second of load time, website conversion rates drop by an average of 4.42%. Too many large files will not only damage your conversion but also your rankings.

Alt tags

Alt text (alternative text) describes exactly to Google’s algorithm what is displayed in your images. Google Images is the world’s second-largest search engine. It’s responsible for 20.45% of all online searches. Using keywords in your alt text will improve your image’s Google ranking, making it easier to find in Google. 

 

Anatomy of Image Alt Tags
Alt Text definition

It is important to accurately describe your image and include the keyword you want to rank for in the Alt text of images, so Google can position them accordingly on their result page to allow its users to find relevant information. 

Website navigation

Navigation is one of the most important components of a positive user experience, and because of that, you should keep it simple. Google uses crawlers to read people’s websites through internal links. The better these crawlers are able to navigate and read through your website, the better you will rank.

It’s the same with site visitors, if they can easily find what they need on your site, they are more likely to convert and spend more time on your website. This lowers the bounce rate and your overall SEO score will rise.

The aim of this phase should be finding a balance between optimizing the website for SEO and making it appealing with web design.

URL structure

Your URL structure will help Google understand what keyword(s) you want the specific page to rank for. That’s why each of your pages should have a descriptive URL that describes what content there is on the page.

To get the best results out of this make sure to do keyword research for each page you plan to include to your website. Done properly, your URL slug makes your pages easier to understand for search engines, and easier to remember for visitors.

Metadata

Your metadata (meta tags) includes the title and the meta description that appears in Google search results. Considering 36% of SEO experts think the title tag is the most important SEO element, make sure your metadata is optimized. 

If you want to update your title tag and meta description. Make sure to use a focus keyword and use the right number of characters, or use Yoast SEO to guide yourself.

– Your title tag can have a maximum of 60 characters

– Your meta description can have a maximum of 160 characters.

Start climbing the Google ladder today with a seamless SEO web design

The key to ranking high in the Google Search engine is understanding the relationship between web design and SEO. Both are incredibly important but they can’t outcompete each other and it’s your job to keep the shared lessons in mind while optimizing your website.

If you are considering to start a design or redesign project, but you feel overwhelmed with what has to be done, or you are looking to implement a proven and tested SEO strategy to rank #1 in Google, Advesa can help.

Work alongside a team of experts to develop a truly authentic Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy. We leverage many decades of industry experience to help you obtain great returns on your online investment.

We are excited to hear from you and to be part of your digital transformation as we strive to help you to succeed and thrive in the digital world.

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The Rise in User-generated Content and the Reason Behind it

While social media has evolved into communicative and content-sharing platforms and tools that allow users all over the world to connect, it also provides immense potential for businesses to engage with customers across their customer journey. Businesses are increasingly incorporating user-generated content (UGC) into their social media marketing strategy to increase their brand exposure and value proposition. 

Here is everything you need to know about this powerful tool in this article:

1. What is UGC

2. User-generated content examples

3. Tips for effective user-generated content

What is UGC?

User-generated content (also known as UGC) refers to brand-related content created by users or consumers of a specific brand and published on social media or other media channels. UGC comes in many forms such as images, videos, reviews, and audio. 

Who are the content creators?

Customers

The rise of social media and advancement of content creation tools have allowed everyone to become a content creator. Think of all the unboxing videos on YouTube or TikTok, where they showcase products given by or purchased from brands. Customers also generate reviews and testimonials for brands they want to engage with or create conversations about. These are brand’s valuable and effortless assets in increasing brand awareness.

user generated content example
A user generated post for Soul Cycle
Brand advocates

Brand advocates, so-called brand loyalists, refers to people who love your brand and continuously support your organization by promoting products and services to new customers and prospects. Winning the heart of customers and influencers within your target niche is crucial to building powerful brand advocacy.

Employees

Most businesses forget that their employees are their brand advocates too. If the employees tell the world about the amazing company they work for and the great products it has, then sales and customer support will benefit.

Creating and nurturing a healthy and supportive company culture will create exceptional internal brand advocacy. Businesses with a good company culture grow their revenue by at least 400% compared to those that don’t, according to a major study conducted over an eleven-year period.

Starbucks UGC examples
UGC content by Starbucks's employees

How is UGC different from branded content?

User-generated content solely comes from the creator’s motivation or love for your product/service. Given that people are very influenced by the opinions of their peers on social media, this makes an organic (re)post have all the more impact. It immediately generates way more trust and credibility than an advertisement or a paid sponsorship.

Branded content on the other hand, means any post that you create in collaboration with an influencer. If their post is in return for a payment, then it’s branded content.

Types of UGC content

User generated content has become more prevalent and been greatly loved more than ever. Here are common UGC content types and formats you can utilize to your advantage:

  • Images
  • Videos
  • Podcasts
  • Reviews
  • Testimonials
  • Blog posts
  • Social media posts
  • Comment mentions or shoutouts on social media

Why is user-generated content important?

Businesses are increasingly incorporating user-generated content (UGC) into their social media marketing strategy to increase their brand exposure and engagement across all social channels. In a gigantic sea of information and new content rolling out every day, authentic content is the floater for content creators to stay afloat.  

Bringing authentic elements to brands

Authenticity is increasingly important to consumers. Approximately 90 percent of consumers reported that authenticity played a factor in their shopping decision, up from 86 percent in 2017. This comes as no surprise as consumer awareness increases in a saturated market. People are more likely to trust and buy products recommended by people who have no affiliation to the brand.  

60% of marketers agree that the authenticity of a brand’s product/service is as important as its quality as they both contribute to the brand value. There’s no other content type that’s more authentic than the one directly from your customers who have experienced your product or service. 

Increasing brand’s credibility and lead conversion

Before the rise of the internet, customers usually ask their friends and family for recommendations. Nowadays, this habit is still the same, but the channel they use is different. Most customers turn to fellow shoppers and make purchasing decisions based on their online reviews, due to a growing skepticism in traditional advertising.

61% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations–more than the 38% who trust branded (and often biased) social media content. Over 50% of millennials base their decision to buy a product on recommendations from their family and friends, so this is where UGC can shine since it is precisely that: a personal recommendation.

Winning the heart of customers and influencers within your target niche is crucial to building powerful brand advocacy and brand value. Who doesn’t want to buy a product that is valued and said to work by other fellows? 

Complement the power of social media and social commerce

The advancement of technology, including the rise of augmented reality and content creation softwares and functions have given rise to more user-generated content. Getting recognition is one of the key reasons people post on social media, and user-generated content gives every user a chance to be an influencer.

As shopping became more virtual during the pandemic, social commerce is becoming the future. The number of social media commerce buyers in the US alone will predictably exceed over 100 million by 2023. Social commerce allows audiences to convert natively within a social media app with as few clicks as possible. 

UGC and social commerce work well together because UGC is influential in driving conversions. Nearly 80% of people say that UGC impacts their decision to purchase, making user-generated content and social commerce a perfect combination. 

More effortless and cost-effective for brands to execute

Without knowing, most people work as marketers for an organization when they share their personal experiences of your brand on social media. These brand advocates offer brands free positive online visibility without any direct influence.

If influencer marketing often costs up to millions of dollars on average, user-generated content technically costs little to nothing. Moreover, brands don’t need to invest effort into generating brand content themselves or hire an agency to do so. 

To leverage the power of your engagement marketing, your aim should be to create interactions with your audience and nurture these relationships. Brands usually do this by commenting and engaging with their followers’ posts and reposting their featured content on their story and feed. 

For smaller businesses, UGC is cheaper and easier to manage than full-scale marketing campaigns. 

User-generated content examples

Glossier

user generated content example from Glossier
A user-generated content post for Glossier Mega Greens Galaxy Mask

Beauty brand, Glossier drives engagement with its social content by encouraging customers to get vulnerable and share their selfies. It does so by posting customer stories that are personal and heartwarming, which they use Glossier products. Glossier is one of the brands that relies more on customer-submitted imagery than it does on professional models and product shots.  

When the brand launched its Mega Greens Galaxy Mask, thousands of users shared selfies of themselves in the mask with the hashtag #maskforce, which Glossier reposted on its own social accounts.

La Croix

UGC content example
A UGC post for La Crox

The social media feed of sparkling water La Croix are filled with user-generated content. From fan art to photos of young adults — its target demographic — posing with their favorite flavors, La Croix populates its feeds with content created by people who clearly love its product.

La Croix manages to maintain a consistently branded look, although their content comes from different sources. Scroll through its Instagram page and you’ll see bright colors, sunny landscapes, and smiling faces again and again.

 

La Croix accomplishes this in part by hosting giveaways of branded merchandise, such as the shirt featured below, and by providing interactive displays that its fans want to engage with.

Aerie

UGC example
User-generated content for the #AerieREAL campaign

This lingerie and swim brand invites their customers and followers of all ages and sizes to share pictures of their designs. Their aim is to emphasize the message that beauty comes in different sizes and shapes, and there shouldn’t be any standard on how someone should look. 

To promote this message through UGC, the brand donates $1 to the National Eating Disorders Association for every unedited swimsuit photo an Instagram user posts with the hashtag #AerieReal.

Coca Cola

Coca Cola UGC example
UGC for Coca Cola's "Share a Coke" campaign

Launched in 2011, the Share a Coke campaign featured hundreds of the most popular first names on Coca-Cola cans and bottles. Traditional ads and in-store displays encouraged customers to find a bottle or can with their name on it and post a picture of it on social media with the #ShareaCoke hashtag.

From creative-directed Instagram posts to casual selfies, the campaign inspired great examples of UGC. Not only did Coca-Cola get more authentic content for its social networks, but it also let consumers engage with the brand while expressing their creativity.

LEGO

LEGO UGC example
Submissions for LEGO Ideas

LEGO launched their LEGO Ideas campaign in 2015 to invite their fans to create their own logo design and gain public support on LEGO Ideas websites. If the creator gets 10,000 supporters then the LEGO board reviews the creation and decides whether to make it into a LEGO product to be sold around the world

This brilliant campaign encourages and honours Lego fans’ creativity and promotes brand awareness through the sharing of ideas and gaining support from the online community. Most importantly, having people vote on an idea shows LEGO what its users want to see in the shops. This campaign took UGC to the next level by turning customer ideas into an actual line of retail products.

Tips for effective user-generated content

Define your marketing engagement objectives.

Without a goal, you can’t make a successful strategy. Even though UGC content seems more casual and requires less execution and management on the brand’s end, it requires a compass and guidelines for users to create the content that the brand aims at. 

It’s important to take into consideration your own brand philosophy when setting goals for your user-generated content to ensure the content aligns with your identity. Once you know what you want to achieve with your content, you can sit down with your social media team and draft a social media strategy to help you achieve that goal. 

Here are some things to keep in mind before planning your content:

  • Know where your target audience usually spend their time
  • The social platforms you want to have the content generated for
  • The type of content you want your audience to generate
  • How you want to measure your success 

2. Consistently interact and engage with your target audience

Genuinely building and nurturing relationships with your existing audience and target audience is the foundation of any successful campaign and strategy. That’s why engagement marketing is crucial to creating 2 way communication between your brand and your audience. Relationship building and user engagement should be an ongoing process and integral part of any marketing strategy.

When you approach your audience with a curious, value-oriented and solution-driven mindset, you will understand what they want and what they need and encourage the sharing of information, including feedback, reviews, testimonials, and content. Without direct request, your audience will become your brand advocates who work as marketers for an organization when they share their personal experiences of your brand on social media. These brand advocates offer brands free positive online visibility without any direct influence.

3. Utilize the power of hashtags

One of the most powerful tools of the social media powerhouse is hashtags. Yet they are often overlooked and underutilized. In addition to engaging captions, attaching relevant hashtags to your post will help increase your exposure. All of these factors are needed to beat the Instagram algorithm.

Using hashtags can help you get discovered by new audiences. When someone sees a hashtag on a post they are interested in, they can click on that hashtag to discover more relevant content. Even though social media platforms are not search engine friendly, users can get access to relevant results to each hashtags they search. 

As a result, brands can learn more about the niche for each hashtags by studying the content pattern and which content performs well within each hashtags in order to generate relevant and engaging content. In addition, brands can create their own hashtags to increase engagement and exposure. These hashtags can act as their archives for their target audience to discover relevant content. 

4. Collaborate and support a community

Since UGC indicates engagement and the relationship between brands and their customers, it also fortifies community building. 

For consumers, receiving a repost and share from their favorite brand can make their day and encourage them to create more future content. 51% of consumers are more inclined to engage with brands that focus on community building by reposting and sharing their users’ content.  

For brands, when consumers share content related to their brands, these shares expose them to new audiences and potential customers, creating the potential for viral posts. UGC is the glue, bringing new people together through conversation and building bridges from those interactions to the brand. Ultimately, it builds credibility. And if done correctly, you’ll drive users down the marketing funnel. 

5. Track and measure your user-generated content

As you plan your social media campaign and calendar, you need to determine how you will evaluate your success. Without metrics to track the progress of your strategy, it’s hard to know which efforts are paying off and how to optimize your resources.

The number of followers alone is not always a good indicator to reflect the level of your success. There are other more reliable indicators that you should take into account when tracking your social media marketing efforts. 

Here are some common KPIs you should pay attention to:

  • Engagement rate, including likes, comments, and shares
  • The number of content generated by your users
  • Impression/reach

User generated content is a great way to interact more with your audience and build a stronger community among your audience. It is also important to keep up with all the social media trends in order to understand user behaviors and identify relevant content to generate. We have compiled all the social media trends for 2023 so we can prepare for a winning social media strategy. 

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What is PPC? 7 Steps on How to Use Your Advertising Budget Effectively

Did you know that 85% of consumers use the internet to search for local businesses? That’s one of the main reasons why businesses that use pay-per-click advertising (PPC) prosper in comparison to businesses that use organic advertising.

Today you’ll get your hands on the 7-step framework for effectively spending your advertising budget. So you will maximize your return on ad spend (ROAS).

Before you’ll exactly get to know what PPC is. Here’s why pay-per-click advertising is crucial for you to include in your advertising budget:

  • PPC is one of the top three generators of on-page conversions.
  • Paid advertising returns $2 for every $1 spent, that’s a 200% ROI rate.
  • Traffic brought through PPC advertising yields 50% more conversions than organic advertising.

What is PPC?

Pay-per-click, or PPC, is a form of advertising that allows you to pay a fee every time someone clicks on your ad. For example, the top 2 search results with the word “ad” shown in the figure below indicates pay-per-click advertisements in Google search.

7 steps to maximize your Pay-Per-Click advertising budget

If you follow the following steps precisely, then you can quickly begin to understand where to invest your PPC budget to gain the best ROAS.

Step 1. Define your business objectives

Starting with defining your goals is crucial when it comes to creating an effective campaign strategy. Start to determine your business objectives and break them down in actional goals. 

“If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.” – Benjamin Franklin.

Step 2: Get in the mind of your target audience

Define crystal clear who your target audience is and find that one problem that keeps them awake at night and document it. Create a persona (or ideal customer profile) to visualize your target audience. The better you do the research, the more results you’ll get in the next steps.

Pro tip: Learn how your business can build customer value. So you can leverage the knowledge you have on what keeps your ideal customer awake. If you can link these two factors, your success rate will significantly increase!

Step 3. Keyword analysis

Make a list of potential keywords that resonate with your target audience and focus on the long tail keywords that resonate the best with your audience. Here are 3 things you must do to do proper keyword research:

  • Use the planning tool from Google Ads or Ubersuggest to find out what keywords work best for you.
  • Document those keywords and bundle them together into different campaigns.
  • To make sure the right people will find you. Make sure you filter out the negative keywords. These are the words you don’t want to be found for.

Step 4: Optimize your landing pages

Before you start to create ads, it’s vital to review your website and landing pages first. To run a successful PPC campaign, everything has to be congruent. Here’s why:

When prospects click on your PPC, and the page behind your ad is too slow, too difficult to navigate, or it’s leading to the wrong page, then your prospect will most likely exit shortly.

Step 5: Create ads that transform viewers into action takers

The final destination when it comes to creating your ad is to turn viewers into action takers. That could be a click, follow, view, etc. To maximize the outcome of your ads you have to optimize them. So experiment with different copy, visuals, and media.

Step 6: Analyze and optimize your PPC campaign strategy

To create the highest ROAS, you must constantly analyze and improve your ad campaign. 

If you use the right tools (Databox), then most of the work will be done for you.

Focus your analysis on identifying what keywords and targeting features help drive your campaign goals. Here are some metrics you must know in order to analyze your campaign:

–  Click-through rate (CTR)

–  Conversion rate

–  Cost per click (CPC)

–  Cost per acquisition

–  Return on ad spend

Keeping track of your key metrics over time helps you check what advertisement elements you must improve. It also gives you insights into the most valuable keywords and audience strategies.

Step 7. This is how you maximize your advertising budget

Congratulations! You’ve set goals, done the research, launched a campaign, and installed all the tools to keep track of your metrics. I’ve gathered some expert tricks to maximize your advertising budget.

Bid Adjustments

Bid adjustments help you improve the effectiveness of your advertising budget. It allows you to increase or decrease your bids based on performance and also enables you to make adjustments based on different categories.

Let’s work with an example… 

If a keyword doesn’t perform as well on a laptop as on a mobile, you can prevent yourself from bidding too high with a negative bid adjustment. When someone searches the keyword on mobile, your bid will automatically be X% lower than your normal bid.

Conversion Tracking

Your keywords and ads might be good. But if your landing page doesn’t perform, then all your work is for nothing. Because you’ll lose your customers. With conversion tracking code you can monitor where you’ll lose the most customers. The only thing you have to do is to make adjustments.

Keyword Monitoring

Websites like HubSpot help you monitor and manage your whole campaign structure. This highly rated PCP recourse makes it easy for you to keep track of your ad groups, keywords, and A/B tests.

Let’s get started with PPC Advertisement!

In order to create the highest ROAS, spending your advertising budget effectively is vital. These steps will help you in this process. But in order to thrive in this digital age, you must make sure your business model is repeatable and scalable.

A repeatable and scalable business model helps you to maximize your sales, save unnecessary expenses, and create more time to spend on your talents. We’ll tell you all about it in our step-by-step process to create a digital transformation.

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Get Dressed Up with A Personalized Spotify Playlist Based on Your Outfit

Did you know Spotify has launched a brand-new feature that helps you create the perfect vibe when getting ready? Whether you are getting ready for a workout, preparing for a night out with friends, or just taking a day off. With Spotify’s GetReadyWithMusic, you can create personalized playlists for all of your daily routines.

The feature uses a simple step-by-step process to create a playlist of songs that are relevant to the colors and style you are carrying. It uses a questionnaire that determines the vibe and selects the songs based on that. 

The music app partnered with digital creators and stars Dixie and Charli D’Amelio for their GetReadyWithMusic launch and to inspire fans to create their own personalized getting-ready playlists. The feature became instantly popular among Spotify users because of the simplicity of the user experience and the personalization it offers.

Spotify's GetReadywithMusic
Courtesy of Spotify

How to use this feature

If you want to get started on your own GetReadyWithMusic playlist, then follow the steps below.

  1. Open the Spotify app and click the banner that invites you to create your GetReadyWithMusic playlist. If not, get started with GetReadyWithMusic by clicking on this link with your iPhone or Android.
  2. Wait for the GetReadyWithMusic intro to finish, tap the ‘Connect with Spotify’ button to log in, and get started creating a personalized GetReadyWithMusic playlist by tapping the ‘Let’s go’ button.
  3. Pick an outfit based on what activity you’re going to do. You can choose between Taking It Easy, Getting Stuff Done, Breaking a Sweat, Going Out Tonight, or Up for Whatever.
Courtesy of Spotify
  1. Choose the 3 primary colors of your outfit and change colors by moving the disc with your finger. If you want to make your color lighter or darker or even white or black, use the slider at the top and move it to the left or right.
  2. Choose what “vibe” your outfit gives. This might sound confusing, but Spotify refers to what kind of fabric you want to wear. Choose between Smooth, Fuzzy, Wavy, Bubbly, Cozy, Crisp, and Shiny.
  3. Finally, enter your name and take or upload a photo to serve as the playlist’s cover art. In case you don’t want to add a photo, enter your name and tap the button “Skip Adding Photo”.
  4. Spotify needs less than a minute to generate your personalized getting ready playlist. Once it’s finished, it will show you a summary of your answers. 

In addition, it allows you to select multiple options, preview your playlist, share your personalized playlist, and you have the option to view your Music Closet.

If you select the button “preview Playlist”, you will have access to your personalized two-hour playlist that matches your outfit. You can repeat this process as many times as you want, whenever you want for all your styles. 

Every GetReadyWithMusic playlist you create gets saved into the Music Closet – where your complete outfit playlists are stored – for you to check out. If you want to add the playlist to your Library for quicker access, then you’ll have to use the Spotify desktop app and drag it from your profile to your list of playlists.

With constantly newly added features and major partnerships, the competition among Spotify, Apple Music, and YouTube Music is more intense than ever. By introducing brand new features, such as GetReadyWithMusic, Spotify blend playlist, Karaoke Mode, and many other updates, Spotify is expanding its personalization features to enhance user experience and remain the most popular streaming device in the industry.

If you want to stay up-to-date and get your hands on all the latest news and technology, click the link here.

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Perfecting Your Product Description – How to Create Summaries that Sell

A product description supplies a crucial preview of what customers can expect from your product or service. Will it meet their needs? Does it address particular pain points? Will it enrich and improve their quality of life?

Product descriptions can provide all these insights and more. That is if they’re executed correctly.

Several crucial criteria can make or break whether a product page comes across as humdrum and generic or features product descriptions that sell. In this sense, while it may not seem like a vital element to devote time to, these descriptions provide valuable context for potential customers.

They are also a critical means for reaching your target audience, increasing conversion rate, promoting a healthy sales funnel flow, and establishing a sturdy foundation for your eCommerce business.

So, while it may seem like an afterthought for selling your product, a good product description is a pivotal feature that heavily impacts a customers’ purchase decision. It could be the difference between a sale and an abandoned cart or, for you, the difference between driving or losing sales.

Today, we’ll be outlining precisely why great product descriptions are so important, how to write them effectively, and provide helpful tips and tricks using relevant, real-world examples.

We’ll cover:

The Importance of a Great Product Description

A product description is essentially a form of persuasive marketing copy that outlines what a product is and its various features and benefits, with the objective of convincing customers why they should want to buy it.

There is no one uniform method for writing product descriptions. However, there are certain techniques that can substantially impact their efficacy.

A common misconception that many business owners and marketers alike fall victim to is believing that the primary goal of a product description is merely to describe the product. This line of thinking can lead to a crucial mistake when attempting to write product descriptions that sell. 

Au contraire! They are actually much more complex and require far more consideration.

What sets a good product description apart from a great one is extending your thought process to encompass the real people you’re selling to. 

Going this extra mile is one of the most crucial strategies to set your product description apart from one that merely provides a run-down of the product for search engines and one that establishes a legitimate connection and serves as a valuable resource for potential customers.

Particularly in the context of an eCommerce website, you don’t necessarily have the luxury of engaging with customers on an in-person basis. 

Instead, you rely much more heavily on tools such as practical yet engaging product descriptions to not only outline product features and benefits but also to convey your unique selling proposition and brand philosophy to your target audience.

In fact, according to a study from the American computer user interface and user experience consulting firm, Nielsen Norman Group, 20% of purchase failures are potentially due to missing or unclear product descriptions.

This isn’t to say that writing product descriptions is an easy task. As we said, there are a lot of criteria to consider. If you’re intimidated, don’t be! In the following section, we’ll outline the fundamental basics of how to write effective product descriptions.

5 Techniques to Use for Product Copy that Sells

As we said, there’s no one specific product description template to ensure success. However, certain characteristics distinguish more compelling product pages from those that are clearly written as a means to an end.

Below, we will expand on five crucial tips for how to write product descriptions that will entice and engage customers.

1. Focus on Your Ideal Target Audience

When writing your product description, one of the most effective approaches is to be specific. 

If your description is too broad and caters to too general an audience, it ends up coming across as generic and irresolute. In this context, being too inclusive could actually produce an adverse effect. 

In other words, by trying to address too broad of an audience, you aren’t genuinely connecting with or reaching anyone. 

The objective is to present your product or service as the answer or solution to your customers’ questions or concerns. The best product descriptions address your target audience directly. So, you want to make your language approachable and similar to what your target audience would use. 

For example, using the word, you, is a common approach to this strategy that provides empathy and a sense of commonality with the consumer. It’s about imagining your ideal buyer and putting yourself in their shoes. 

What’s their personality? What type of humour do they find funny? What words don’t they like? What questions do they want the answers to? 

A practical tip for this scenario would be to picture what you would say if you were trying to sell the product or service to a customer in person, face-to-face. From there, try and integrate that language or approach into your eCommerce website to create a more authentic digital dialogue.  

For example, the music festival Coachella incorporates this mentality into their product descriptions for their merch. Take the above image. They are essentially selling a plain black t-shirt. However, it’s how they phrase their product description that caters to their specific clientele.

It uses language like “must-have that complements your band tee collection” to establish a connection with the customer based on a mutual affection for music and the desire to collect souvenirs to remember concerts past. 

It plays on the nostalgia factor in a relatable yet straightforward way.

2. Highlight Benefits as a Solution

Sephora doesn't just tell, they show. Telling customers why your product is just stating that it is can be the difference between a conversion or a bounce. (https://www.sephora.com/ca/en/)

When you’re at the helm of a business, it’s only natural to become caught up in your product’s various cool and intricate features. While some may find the magic in the details, your customers are focused on how it benefits them and why they should buy it. 

They aren’t as captivated or actively invested in the mundane features. They want to see what this product can do for them and how it’ll address their particular needs.

In this way, it’s crucial to highlight your product’s benefits and key features from the get-go by plainly outlining them in the product description. 

These insights will require a bit of research on your target audience to determine the specific pain points or concerns you want to address. It also requires a bit of creative writing to make it sound enticing!

Be sure to use positive language while remaining concise and to the point. There’s a fine line between features and fluff! 

Multinational French retailer of personal care and beauty products, Sephora, does this beautifully. 

As you can see in the description of the company’s Sephora Collection Ultra Glow Serum, the product description features specific highlights where the consumer can see precisely and concisely which target areas and needs this product helps. 

The ‘About the Product’ section delves further into the details surrounding what it is, which skin types and concerns it helps with, and key ingredients. This information provides the customer with the necessary insights relating to finding the ideal benefits that would serve as the most effective solution for their particular needs.

3. Make it Straightforward & Easy to Read

It's tempting to be descriptive but a list of bullet points is easier to digest than a short novella. (https://www.mec.ca/en)

For the most part, customers don’t want to read a novel when learning about or trying to understand a particular product. Short and sweet is key! A common method for avoiding a lengthy product description is by using bullet points. 

Bullet points are a practical and efficient way to highlight a product’s essential features, present the necessary and most pertinent information for the customer, and convey its intended purpose without bombarding them with unnecessary fluff. 

Most of the time, users will skip most of the description and simply skim the bullet points to get the gist of whether or not the product meets their needs. So, why not make it more accessible? 

Canadian co-op company Mountain Equipment Co-Op is an excellent example of this approach. 

On the product page for one of their sleeping bags, customers can easily see the necessary information to determine whether it will work for their specific hiking or camping adventure(s).

Not only does the product description highlight key features, such as draft tube blocks and Pertex Quantum nylon lining, but it also uses the more casual “you” and “your” language to create a connection with the consumer.

4. Tell a Story

Product descriptions are a great opportunity to let your brand personality and story shine through. (https://www.ebgames.ca/Home/Index)

Everyone loves a good story! Sharing stories is part of what makes us human. This mutual experience can also be a practical and powerful marketing tool, especially when writing an effective product description. 

Creating a story in your product description is a discreet and understated way to show that you put the customer and their experience first. 

Ultimately, customers purchase products to enhance or enrich their lives. If it can extend to other areas of their interests, that’s an added bonus! 

The best way to approach this story-telling strategy is to put yourself in the customer’s shoes. What would best ignite their imagination? How can your product best support that story? What are the buyer’s underlying emotional and psychological drivers for purchasing this product? How could that story potentially feature your product? 

Like writing any good story, incorporating these features into your product description starts with the drafting phase! 

American retailer catering to computer enthusiasts and “geek culture,” ThinkGeek, does this exceptionally well. For instance, consider their Star Wars Alliance Special Forces Rucksack. To some, it may look like an ordinary backpack, but to fans, it’s a piece of usable memorabilia.

Instead of just focusing on how it looks like a prop from the franchise, the product description takes things a step further by telling a story. 

The language makes the customer imagine that they’re actually in Star Wars before even buying the product. With playful language like eluding to the bag fitting “your Ewok BFF,” it creates a link between the business, the consumer and their favourite franchise that brings the product to life. 

Does it describe an actual feature of the bag? No. However, it contributes to the overall experience of the item that consumers can connect with on a nostalgic level.

5. Avoid Unnecessary Language

Nike keeps it simple and to the point making sure to avoid any superfluous language. (https://www.nike.com/ca/)

We’ve highlighted it multiple times, but it bears repeating. Product descriptions don’t need to be wordy or extensively long to be compelling and effective. If you’re stuck trying to find the right words or don’t know what else to add, it’s time to stop writing. 

Adding more than what’s needed can actually serve to undercut the intentions and objectives of your product description by adding unnecessary, generic language. 

As we said  before, there’s a fine line between features and fluff! 

For instance, conventional phrases like “excellent product quality” can work against rather than for you. 

When a customer reads something like that, they’ll likely think to themselves, “well, yeah, sure, that’s what they all say.” After all, if the objective is to sell, no business owner in their right mind would describe their product as “so-so” or “mediocre.” 

All this is to say that you tend to become less persuasive when you use such generic, predictable phrases that make consumers think of you as just another business trying to make a buck.

To prevent this reaction, it’s crucial to be specific in your product description about how your product, specifically, is superior and cut out any unnecessary filler language. 

For example, when marketing their Air Max Alpha Trainer 4 shoes, American footwear manufacturer Nike doesn’t simply describe the product as being of “excellent quality.” Instead, it explains the technical details of the specific model plus their benefits without mentioning the quality at all. 

However, highlighting the various key features describes the product’s quality indirectly. It adheres to an easy-to-follow structure that defines an element and expands on how that specific characteristic benefits the product’s overall performance. 

This approach to product descriptions is much more effective because it provides the necessary insight while remaining to the point and efficiently highlighting how these features could address consumers’ particular needs.

Key Takeaways

Product descriptions are so much more than merely describing various product features. They are a window into how a particular item could benefit and enrich a customer’s life.

In this way, selecting the proper words, perspectives and approach could set your brand apart from the countless others who don’t put as much time or effort into creating captivating and convincing product descriptions.

Ultimately, these descriptions serve as a valuable marketing tool to generate a more meaningful relationship with consumers by featuring a more authentic human element.

Going the extra mile to incorporate a sense of relatability and approachability can be an incredibly effective method not only brand advocacy initiatives, as well.

Who knows. It could convert a one-time sale into loyal, returning customers!

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