LET’S TALK

uyen nguyen

Why Direct-To-Consumer is The Future

Propelled by the rise of digital commerce and media, it’s clear that direct-to-consumer (DTC) is going to represent significant business opportunities for brands. It is no wonder that over a period of 6 years, this rapidly growing market grew from $36.08 billion to a whopping $128.33 billion industry and it shows no signs of stopping.

According to a recent survey, 81% of US consumers plan to shop direct-to-consumer brands in 2023. While this industry continues to grow, the brands that respond fast and include a DTC strategy will significantly profit because they allow themselves and their products to stand out within the marketplace. In addition, they build better and more direct relationships with their customers, which boosts customer loyalty.

In this article, you will get your hands on everything you need to know about direct-to-consumer commerce and marketing. This includes what DTC is, why it is beneficial for your brand, and how your brand can leverage this power to help you build stronger relationships with your target audiences.

What is Direct-to-Consumer?

Traditional retailer vs Direct-to-consumer
Traditional retailer vs Direct-to-consumer

Direct-to-consumer is a business model where brands connect, deliver services and distribute products directly to their end customers without using any retailers, wholesalers, distributors, and advertisers.

For example, before Nike introduced their own direct-to-consumer strategy it had to sell its products to retailers first. Retailers like JD Sports buy sportswear for a low price, take care of the merchandise, and sell it to the end consumers. Nowadays, Nike can advertise directly on its social media, and its customers can buy products directly from Nike’s official website. 

The benefits of direct-to-consumer commerce

Direct-to-consumer gives brands the freedom to connect, engage, and sell to their audience exactly how they want it to. This gives brands that use a DTC strategy in their business model significant control over their services and numerous opportunities and benefits.

Create seamless personalized experiences

Today’s consumers have sky-high expectations around what they need from brands. Most e-commerce experts agree that personalization is the key to attracting and retaining these customers, whether it is via social media, website, or email. 

According to a study from Mckinsey, 76% of consumers said that receiving personal communications was a key factor in prompting their consideration for a brand, and 78% of such content made them more likely to repurchase in the future.

Brands that are able to create seamless personalized experiences will help each customer feel more valued at every step of the customer journey. This will drive consumers to be engaged over a longer time and they will recommend the brand more often.

Boost the customer experience

Today’s consumers have sky-high expectations around what they need from brands. Most e-commerce experts agree that personalization is the key to attracting and retaining these customers, whether it is via social media, website, or email. 

According to a study from Mckinsey, 76% of consumers said that receiving personal communications was a key factor in prompting their consideration for a brand, and 78% of such content made them more likely to repurchase in the future.

Brands that are able to create seamless personalized experiences will help each customer feel more valued at every step of the customer journey. This will drive consumers to be engaged over a longer time and they will recommend the brand more often.

Boost the customer experience

Did you know that selling isn’t just about the product itself? It’s about the connection the consumer has with their favourite brand and how that brand makes them feel. In fact, 73% of people admit customer experience is an essential factor in their purchasing decisions. DTC allows brands to provide content directly throughout the entire customer journey, so they can create an excellent customer experience exactly as they envision it should be.

The Importance of Data Collection in DTC commerce

When it comes to customer segmentation, shopping trends, and overall understanding of the customer base, data collection is vital. 60% of companies around the world already use data and analytics to drive process and cost-efficiency.

The introduction of headless commerce has leveraged this power even more because more brands can use independent CRM tools for their data collection. With CRM tools, DTC brands can collect valuable data from each transaction, including customer trends, shopping patterns, demographics, and other insights. 

Brands use this data to tweak their approach to marketing and advertising to their customers and the benefits are numerous. This goes a long way toward improving your ROI, shortening your sales cycle, and making the kind of expansion you’ve always dreamed of a reality.

Increase revenue

As discussed earlier, DTC helps you build meaningful relationships with your audience, it helps you deliver an irresistible customer experience, and it also gives brands the power to personalize their complete customer journey. 

However, did you know that it can be equally valuable for maximizing a brand’s sales and revenue? In fact, according to a survey described in Modern Retail Research, 54% of the DTC respondents said they saw an increase in direct retail revenue.

A brand that implements DTC in its strategy is able to create a high level of customer loyalty and loyal customers spend more than newly acquired customers. For example, Nike’s revenue grew over the last six years by around 46%. While their wholesale sales stayed the same at around 25 billion, their direct-to-consumer sales grew at least 200%.

DTC strategies and examples

The first thing you need to know about DTC commerce strategies is this. There is no one-size-fits-all DTC strategy because every brand has different goals and targets different audiences. However, most businesses use one or a combination of the following strategies to maximize both outreach and sales. To find out what DTC strategies work best for your business, use the following strategies and examples as a guide.

1. Social media marketing

When you have a large social media following, you have endless DTC opportunities since you can communicate directly with this audience. In order to use social media marketing in your DTC strategy, you must create and publish unique content consistently. By creating valuable content combined with the latest social media trends, you are able to reach a wider audience to engage with your brand.

For example, Glossier is a direct-to-consumer cosmetics brand that sells skincare, makeup, fragrances, and other products. After they emerged with the beauty blog ‘Into the Gloss‘, Glossier founder Emily Weiss started selling products directly to consumers in 2014. She managed to leverage the power of social media channels and connect with their target audience. 

As a result, Glossier generated an incredible 600% year-on-year growth from 2015 to 2016 after launching in late 2014. Today Glossier is one of the most recognizable cosmetics brands in the United States.

Glossier's blog, "Into The Gloss"

2. Personalized emails

Did you know that Automated emails enhance the personalization of your DTC strategy? For example, you can personalize the subject line or the body and by personalizing your emails, your conversions can shoot up by 10% and click-through rates by 14%.

If you want to take personalization a step further, then email marketing automation software is a must-have. For example, ActiveCampaign helps you create personalized email marketing funnels where consumers follow certain paths when specific actions are taken by the customer. This approach is much more effective because these timely emails are sent in response to a shopper’s actions.

When it comes to building and growing your email marketing list, you will need a lot of time and resources, which is why partnering with a team of experts can be beneficial. When done properly, your business will highly benefit from it:

3. Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing enables direct-to-consumer businesses to leverage the existing reputation of an influencer. With more and more noise on social media, consumers are nowadays extremely skeptical about paid marketing campaigns. As a result, 61% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations more than the 38% who trust branded (and often biased) social media content.

One of the brands that have leveraged the power of influencer marketing the most is Gymshark. With over 3.8 million followers on TikTok alone, it’s clear that they’re getting it right with their DTC social media advertising strategy.

GymShark's TikTok for influencer marketing
GymShark's TikTok account

4. Custom products

Despite the fact that some direct-to-consumer brands only sell ready-made products, custom products can often meet the preferences of each customer. With more customers looking for personalized items, there’s a growing market for custom-made products of all kinds.

Customization of products means that customers can select features like colour, design, functionalities, add-on components, or other options to make a more unique item rather than a mass-produced one. For example, Vans allows their customers to design and order one-of-a-kind sneakers through their online platform.

5. Social activism

Brands that think they can attract their audience with low prices and a positive customer experience are wrong because there is among consumers a growing trend toward corporate responsibility. In fact, 74% of consumers aged 22 to 37 believe that brands should take public positions on social values.

One of the best examples of social activism today is Warby Parkes. They are famous for their “buy a pair, give a pair” initiative. Every time someone buys a pair of Warby Parker glasses, another pair is donated to a person in need.

Is your business ready for the future?

With more consumers demanding higher expectations from their favourite brands, there’s never been a better time for brands to consider investing in DTC. It provides everything brands need to allow themselves and their products to stand out within the marketplace. In addition, they build better and more direct relationships with their customers – both online and offline – which results in building loyalty and raising their revenue.

It is critical to know that creating and implementing a DTC strategy is a long-term strategy that takes time to develop. If you find yourself in a situation where you want to implement direct-to-consumer in your business but you or your business isn’t ready yet, partner with a team of brand and design experts who will guide you through the complete process, this will help you save unnecessary costs and dozens of hours you can spend on your talents.

Get in touch with our team today and experience how we can help you create a digital transformation within your business.

Share:

What is Headless Commerce and Why is it the Future of eCommerce?

Since the start of the global pandemic, the retail e-commerce market has exploded and it shows no signs of stopping. In 2022, global retail e-commerce sales will surpass a whopping $5 trillion for the first time. The rapidly growing market challenges businesses to respond fast and accurately. While traditional commerce can’t keep up with the pace, businesses that use headless commerce are thriving in the industry. 

With an estimated 12 to 24 million eCommerce sites across the globe, it has become incredibly difficult for eCommerce stores to stand out. The brands that actually do stand out are the brands that align with customer expectations, needs, and preferences for ease of use. Headless commerce is the last piece of the puzzle most businesses need in order to realize this.

What is headless commerce?

Headless commerce architecture (Source: convertcart.com)

Headless commerce is a structure that separates the front end and back end functions of an ecommerce platform or application. Companies that use this structure become more agile and flexible when it comes to testing and it enables the brand to enrich the customer experience.

Headless commerce focuses more on the back-end processes of your site. The backend does what it is supposed to do and APIs pass data between the frontend and backend. This architecture allows brands to make changes to their webshop without impacting the real-time customer experience.

With the flexibility and agility that headless commerce brings, more and more businesses decide to transform their business. If you are on the edge of deciding if you should use headless commerce or if you want to know more about it, here’s everything you need to know. 

Why is headless commerce the future of e-commerce?

In a constantly evolving market businesses should have the ability to improve constantly. Headless commerce gives businesses the opportunity to do that, but in complete silence. That means they can make any changes without disturbing current processes in the front end or decreasing the customer experience.

Headless commerce has much more potential for the future, here are 3 trends that will skyrocket the potential of headless commerce.

Omnichannel commerce is in need of headless commerce

With the rise of omnichannel commerce, the customer journey has become critical in business. Here are 3 key reasons why omnichannel commerce is something to keep in mind:

A simultaneous implementation of headless commerce and omnichannel commerce will help businesses constantly streamline the backend development process of a seamless user experience. Any potential errors will be monitored in real time and rectified immediately.

Search Engines love headless commerce

Did you know that 63% of all shopping begins online? Even if the purchase itself happens in a store, search engines are one of the main drivers behind people’s buying behavior.

Headless commerce sets your eCommerce SEO efforts up for success on the search engine results page. Since the front end and back end are separated, it’s only the front end that needs to load for site visitors and search engine crawlers to access it.

Freedom to choose any headless content management system

With headless commerce, there is no need to use the same content management system (CMS) as your eCommerce back end. Traditional commerce platforms include a fixed CMS, but with headless commerce, you can choose the headless frontend CMS that’s right for your business. 

With a headless CMS you can publish frontend content updates anywhere you want simultaneously – web, mobile, social, IoT, and even VR. As soon as a business introduces content to its front end, those updates are reflected almost instantly. 

Headless Commerce vs. Traditional Commerce

Traditional commerce platforms don’t need a lot of set-up costs and are relatively easy to deploy. Frameworks, scripts, and templates can be easily applied, but the downside of traditional commerce is that changes are almost impossible to make.

Headless commerce platforms on the other hand tend to be more expensive and complex than traditional commerce. The backend does what it must do and APIs pass data between the front end and back end. This makes it easier for brands to make changes to their webshop, changes that boost the customer experience.

Benefits of changing from traditional to headless commerce

Traditional commerce works if you just started your eCommerce store. However, if you are looking to scale your business to the next level, then headless commerce is the one and only solution because it unlocks endless opportunities for your business, some of which include:

Boost user experience

User interface (UI) and user experience (UX) designs are critical when designing a headless application with the end-user in mind. Headless commerce gives businesses the ability to boost the user experience with:

  • The flexibility and adaptability of the designs.
  • The interaction flexibility
  • Customized and personalized customer experience

Increased personalization and flexibility

Did you know that 45% of consumers say they are more likely to shop on an eCommerce site that offers personalization? Businesses that are able to create an unforgettable customer experience increase their chances of converting these customers.

Headless commerce empowers the creation of an unforgettable experience because it is designed for flexibility and personalization, without disturbing other processes. For example, you can A/B test across devices, and personalize the entire customer journey, without impacting or making changes to the backend.

Connecting online marketplaces and social media platforms

Selling through online marketplaces and social media platforms has become the gold standard. Empowered by trending digital marketing techniques such as influencer marketing, more and more customers engage with a brand on social media before they decide to buy a product or service. In many cases, customers no longer visit a webshop to make a purchase. Headless commerce allows e-commerce stores to connect to online marketplaces and social platforms.

3 steps on how to transform from traditional to headless commerce

Now you know exactly what headless commerce is and what benefits it brings to your business, you might want to consider using headless commerce for yourself. If you want to transform your business from traditional commerce to headless commerce, you use the following steps to transform your business:

Step 1: Consider if your business is ready for headless commerce

Headless commerce can help you win in today’s e-commerce atmosphere. That doesn’t mean that headless commerce will work for every business. Here are some challenges you might consider before starting out:

Slow loading website

Did you know that a one-second delay in page load time will drop your conversion rate by 7%? If you want to improve your eCommerce KPIs – site speed included – then headless commerce is a solution for you.

Your brand doesn’t stand out

With traditional commerce platforms, your webshop looks pretty much the same as your competition. This might be easy and cost-effective, but it affects your branding efforts. Implementing headless commerce ignites your personal branding because it gives you the ability to create a distinct and personalized user experience. 

You sell and serve over multiple customer touch points

If you are already selling through multiple channels and devices or want to adopt an omnichannel strategy, headless commerce gives brands the flexibility to design their customer touchpoints.

You sell in multiple countries

Do you sell products in more than just one country? If you do, then you are aware of the fact that content management systems that are included in traditional commerce platforms are not built to handle complex content management needs.

With headless content management, all content is unified in a centralized content hub. You are able to sell in multiple countries and multiple languages from one central place. This architecture boosts your brand consistently and it drastically decreases manual error and room for error.

Step 2: How to choose the headless commerce platform works that resonates the best

Deciding to use a headless CMS is one thing, but knowing what CMS fits your specific needs is quite another. When you start doing research on what CMS platform aligns ideally with your business, here are some considerations:

Determine the scalability and customization of the platform 

In order to find the most suitable platform, seek out a platform that comes with reliable and fast APIs that help automate and customize your store. Save yourself valuable time and resources by making sure the platform has plenty of one-click apps or built-in integrations that connect and update in real-time. This will help you scale seamlessly without hiring additional front-end developers.

Ability to provide an omnichannel experience

Your digital presence across various channels is vital, whether it’s marketplaces like Amazon or Etsy or social media platforms like Instagram or even TikTok.

Choose the platform that offers you centralized channel management, so you manage products and prices across channels from one place.

Ease of use and security

Productivity is one of the major concerns for every team or business. When choosing a headless CMS, pick one that is efficient and easy to use and gets the job done in the shortest amount of time.

One of the critical benefits of headless commerce platforms is the enhanced security it offers. Not every platform provides the same safety. Make sure the back-end systems are compliant with PCI, GDPR, and other regulations as required, like SCA under PSD2 to ensure a secure payment flow.

Step 3: Decide what headless eCommerce platform works for you

Whether you’re looking for B2C or B2B eCommerce, there are a lot of different solutions that can meet your business needs. To simplify the process, here is a list of 10 leading Headless eCommerce platforms. 

In order to achieve the highest results, make a list of the platforms that are most compatible with your business requirements. Filter till you have two platforms left and try demos before making the final decision. 

Use the future of eCommerce to level up your business

Headless commerce is rapidly changing the eCommerce retail landscape and it is a matter of time before more businesses will follow this trend. In the end, businesses that utilize the headless commerce model remain far more adaptable, flexible, and cost-effective than those that use older, less agile web construction models.

In addition, this industry-revolutionizing model also gives you the added benefit of a more personalized approach and it offers you the opportunity to speak to your customer in a more impactful way. If you’re thinking of making the switch – and your business is ready for it too – then it’s time to make the transition. 

Use the steps and tools given in this article to ignite a digital transformation in your business. If you don’t know where to start and you want to see how your business can benefit the most from this digital transformation. Get in touch with a team of brand and design experts and see for yourself how you can transform your business so you will be ready for the future.

Share:

KOL Marketing: What It Is And Why You Should Know About It

Along with influencer marketing, KOL marketing has been around for a long time but has gained a lot of attention in the past few years due to the growing demand for authentic product reviews. 

KOL marketing enlists the help of a key-of-leader in a specific niche, building authenticity along with trust, and growing conversion rates.

This type of marketing is redefining the marketing world, giving brands enhanced communication and improvement of customer experience.

What is KOL Marketing?

Key-of-leader (KOL) marketing, is a strategy where brands work with people who have the expertise and knowledge on a specific subject that is connected to the product/service promoted or that is of interest to their target market.

Most modern KOL marketing occurs online, often on social networks or social video sites. In some cases, the KOLs have built their names on popular niche blogs. 

How KOL Marketing Works

Here is a simple equation to help better understand KOL marketing.

The KOL Equation: Authenticity + Trust = Customers

Keep in mind, KOL marketing isn’t as simple or easy as just putting those two factors together and having customers appear out of thin air.

It takes precise planning and calculation in finding the right person for the brand to push the product toward consumers.

For example, when a skincare company wants to increase their product exposure and credibility with the ultimate goals of increasing sales and increasing brand awareness, they usually seek to work with beauty bloggers or beauty influencers to bring their products closer to their communities. 

 

One of the most sought after key-of-leaders in the beauty industry is Susan Yara, has tested just about every product out there so you don’t have to. She is also the founder of channel Mixed Makeup and co-founder of new skincare brand Naturium. 

More than 400k followers and almost 1.5 millions subscribers turn to her to discover the latest and greatest makeup and skincare trends. With KOL marketing, brands tap into her reputation and credibility to effectively approach their target audience. 

Understanding these fundamentals is key for a business to use KOL marketing and what makes it distinct from other forms of marketing.

But why do people keep pitting it against influencer marketing?

KOL Marketing Vs Influencer Marketing

KOL marketing and influencer marketing tend to get mixed up quite often in consumers’ eyes.

Both techniques have the same goal by bringing in partners to build brand awareness. But one main difference between them is how they go about establishing authenticity.

To start with, influencer marketing stays true to the name and has brands seek out and recruit influencers.

The search process for influencers is often more focused on finding an individual or group of people who are contemporarily popular and have a huge following on social media platforms.

The biggest priority when it comes to influencer marketing is reaching the most amount of people as possible.

For every 100,000 followers that see a sponsored post, that is 100,000 potential customers. The idea is that the more people that hear or view a message, the more likely the brand will see a rise in conversion rates.

The proven effectiveness and popularity of influencer marketing continue to make it a tried and true method that many brands will continue to use, especially in the coming year. 

However, influencer marketing tends to fall short when it comes to reinforcing a sense of authenticity.

This is an area that KOL marketing exceeds in and makes it vastly superior to influencer marketing.

The benefits of KOL marketing

1. Directly reach a pool of your target audience

KOL Marketing all starts with the search process, and how it contrasts with influencer marketing.

Instead of partnering with mega-influencers on the internet to advertise their product, KOL marketing focuses on finding someone with a history and background knowledge that fits their brand.

This helps brands tap into pre-existing goodwill their key opinion leader has with consumers in that particular field.

2. Increase brand awareness and credibility

The key opinion leaders within the communities that each brand wants to target hold authority in their areas of expertise.

The kol’s reputation helps brands build authenticity with consumers and is the foundation of turning them into a customer.

With authenticity from a key opinion leader, consumers let their guard down and open their ears to hear a brand’s message.

As they are listening, the key showcases the features and benefits of the product, along with making it known how much they trust the brand.

3. KOL’s strategic contributions

Influencers mainly spend their time on major social media platforms, which works well for connecting with their huge following on those social platforms.

However, as soon as their followers see that post, it is only a matter of seconds until their thumbs scroll off to the next thing, the impact of that post is lost, and all of the brand’s hard work is for nothing.

KOL marketing remedies this issue by utilizing and leveraging functions specific to each social media platform for an in-depth presentation of products and services. 

How these platforms deliver a solution is by being optimized for proper communication over flashy presentations, enabling key opinion leaders to deliver an in-depth brand analysis to their followers.

This in-depth analysis aims to showcase all of the features, benefits and values of the marketed product to consumers, making the focused brand and product truly stand out.

The strategies for KOL marketing in 2023

1. Authenticity is key

KOL marketing example
Former beauty editor and co-founder of buzzy brand Dieux Skin is your one-stop KOL source for all things skincare science.

With the surge of Gen Z social media users, authenticity and personal identity become the new way to sell on social media. 

Since content has become more commercially driven, and sometimes profits trump authenticity and originality, consumers are much more skeptical of product recommendations by influencers and KOLs. For these reasons, consumers tend to do plenty of research on KOLs and scramble amidst profiles to find the most authentic one and depend on his/her opinion. 

It pays to be strategic and intentional when it comes to selecting the suitable KOLs to work with as a brand. 

In fact, 61% of consumers trust KOLs’ recommendations–more than the 38% who trust branded (and often biased) social media content. Smaller KOLs have higher engagement and are in large supply. So, it is no surprise that brands and markets prefer to work with micro KOLs than traditional celebrities for their promotional campaigns. 

Collaborating with the ones that align with your brand value and mission will bring you closer to your target audience. 

2. Tapping into the power of community groups

Facebook groups as part of the KOL Marketing
Facebook groups examples (Source: Facebook.com)

Facebook groups have new features like live video content, story updates, and join as a business page. With changes in Facebook’s algorithm, groups have become the go-to place to connect with your audience in the current social media landscape.

Through groups, you can not only get feedback on your products, but also create additional engagement. A similar effect has been noticed on Instagram, where KOLs have started making their profiles private. This is done to avoid the influence of the Instagram algorithm.

Instagram Stories also have a “Close Friends” feature. Through it, brands can showcase their Stories to a select number of people for insider insight. This can even give people a more unique feel and they also feel privileged to be able to see Stories. Such segmentation trends can be expected to evolve and shape the future of social media marketing.

3. Dig into live streaming with KOLs

Smartisan founder and speaker, Luo Yonghao, held an e-commerce live stream on Douyin and sold US$15.5 million worth of products in the session. (Source: https://www.scmp.com)

Live video content is another popular trend on social media. Live video launched first on YouTube in 2008 and then on Facebook in 2016. Instagram and Tiktok also added the livestream features in 2018 and 2019 respectively.  

In fact, 80% of audiences would rather watch live video from a brand than read their blog post. Livestream videos allow brands and KOLs to even demonstrate products and receive engagement from their audience in real time. 

Recently, Tastemade, one of the biggest video publishers and livestreamers on Facebook teamed up with Pinterest for a global strategic partnership to scale creators, content series, and live streaming on Pinterest. 

As Tastemade pins  already generate more than 200% saves than average pins, this project aims to provide the platform users inspirational content experience through Idea Pins, new content franchises, and live streaming, with Pinterest’s and Tastemade’s Creators front and center. 

With livestream videos, KOLs and influencers can give your brand a closer look by creating Q&A live video sessions. This adds the human elements and allows consumers to resolve their doubts in the video itself by chatting with you.

The potential of ‘live commerce” is not only from the genuine showcase of products, but also the actual engagement between fans and the approachable KOL.

Summary

KOL Marketing is all about using the authenticity and authority of the key opinion leader to legitimize your brand and build trust to convert consumers into customers.

Granted, there is more to learn when it comes to KOL marketing, such as building a  KOL campaign or a more in-depth look at the search process for key opinion leaders.

If you found this article helpful, be sure to check out more from Advesa to keep up to date on the ever-changing world of digital marketing.

The Rise of Avatars in The Fashion Industry

From simple Wii’s Miis and 2D Habbo Hotel characters to AI-driven avatars in the forms of Snapchat- and Metaverse avatars.

Over the past decade, a digital transformation has transformed avatars beyond the generic. Avatars have become a digital embodiment of people’s personalities, which can reflect what they look like, or what they aspire to look like. Early adopters in the fashion industry have already recognized this potential and are taking action. For instance, Ralph Lauren and Gucci recently joined forces with Asia’s biggest metaverse Zepeto to reach a wider audience. 

Digital figures are becoming more ubiquitous than ever, with its presence greatly felt in the fashion industry. The ongoing digital transformation only drives this advancement forward.

Ralph Lauren x Zepeto Collaboration

A digital transformation propelled by a global pandemic

It is no secret that the Coronavirus pandemic has seriously impacted the fashion industry. Besides having a rotten reputation for overproduction and waste, they also had to deal with worldwide lockdowns and social isolation.

Throughout this period, designers and fashion brands had a chance to take a step back and re-evaluate their strategies for the future. This inspired some courageous brands to embrace the idea of creating fashion for a brand-new type of audience, the direct-to-avatar economy.

Growing demand from a new generation

Currently, with over 3 billion active gamers, gaming is the world’s biggest social platform. 

Their character allows them to be how they want to be without the fear of judgment, for example:

  • Individuals who identify as trans or gender non-conforming can reflect their true selves more accurately. The development and rise of digital avatar help in enabling more self-expression for people from the LGBTQ+ community.
  • People with disabilities can explore unique activities through avatars and interact with others through them.
  • Your avatar can help avoid harassment. For example, it has been found that some women choose male avatars in World of Warcraft to avoid misogyny.
avatar in marketing
Fortnite Rainbow Royale skins

As gamers have become more comfortable expressing themselves online, their desire to do so has grown as well. In response to this growing desire, Fortnite provided as one of the first games the ability to buy skins so players could customize their avatar. In spite of the fact that the game is free-to-play, in 2021 they generated $5.8 billion in revenue mostly from these microtransactions.

The growing popularity of clothing in games has prompted fashion brands to get involved. For example, Animal Crossing and Net-A-Porter partnered to create a fashion island where users can dress their avatars in new season designer gear. 

Zepeto connects both worlds

avatar in marketing
The Zepeto platform

Like Fortnite, Zepeto is a free-to-play app for iOS and Android that is like a social network and a metaverse. Over 320 million registered users already have the ability to turn selfies into 3-D animated avatars, which allows them to connect, interact, and game with other users.

They can also buy virtual items or make money by creating and selling their own. This makes them extremely relevant for brands and influencers connected to the fashion industry.

DressX & Monica Quin

DressX is the first digital fashion retailer that has announced a partnership with Zepeto. Together with Monica Louise – one of the most well-known users in the platform’s fashion world – they launched a collection of digital-only wearables through the online metaverse platform. 

Monica Louise, a Canadian woman known as Monica Quin, earns her a whopping six-figure salary by designing and selling digital apparel on Zepeto. She is one of the most well-known users in the platform’s fashion world. 

Zepeto’s users can buy the collection of wearables that Monica and DressX launched with Zepeto’s currency, called zems. Zems can be purchased with real money, and creators who sell products receive $106 for every sale worth 5,000 zems.

Shine with the brand-new digital Gucci collection

With over $8 billion in sales coming from under-35-year-olds, it is no wonder why Gucci is killing it with millennials. According to their estimates, millennials and Gen Z will even spend 45% of all luxury goods by 2025.

To achieve the desired results and create short-term sales and long-term loyalty, Gucci partnered with Zepeto. As part of their collaboration, users are able to buy the virtual collection of 16 fashion items including clothes, handbags, shoes, and accessories through in-app purchases.

Engage in Ralph Lauren's themed virtual world

In August 2021 Ralph Lauren announced an exclusive partnership with Zepeto. Together they feature ‘The Ralph Lauren x Zepeto collection’, where users will be able to get their hands on 12 different looks, with over 50 unique items. These items include a mix of vintage Polo, limited edition skateboard, and Ralph Lauren designs and pieces from current summer collections.

In addition to this exclusive partnership, users will also have access to a Ralph Lauren themed virtual world. This includes digital versions of three iconic brand locations such as the Madison Avenue Flagship and Ralph’s Coffee Shop where they can connect and interact with others. 

Complete quests to claim Nike products for free 

As part of the collaboration between Zepeto and Nike, users can complete in-game quests to claim free digital products. People can receive Nike-shirts and Nike wristbands worth 100 zems for free by completing certain quests in a virtual recreation of Hangang Park. This is a simple and effective method to let users engage with Nike in a fun and interactive way.

The future of virtual fashion

avatar in marketing
Virtual outfits shopping

Over the last 15 years, simple 2D avatars have evolved into customizable AI avatars. Avatars have become an extension of our personalities, where users can be how they want to be without the fear of judgment.

Fashion brands are no longer being held hostage to reality. With metaverse platforms like Zepeto, they can reach millions of potential customers. This new direct-to-avatar economy has already proven its power to early adopters like Gucci, Ralph Lauren and Nike.

This digital revolution can also be beneficial for smaller creators and influencers. The next Coco Chanel might be an 18-year-old who designs and sells digital apparel.

The future of digital goods has arrived. It is up to brands to decide if they want to fight for their spot in the metaverse or not. 

Share:

Key Strategies for Influencer Marketing: How to Get More Social Media Followers and Sales

As the power of social media continues to grow, influencer marketing has become a popular yet saturated market. Standing out is becoming more difficult. 

Consumers are now extremely skeptical about paid marketing campaigns and influencers for their reliability and value. Despite all the noise, influencer marketing is still considered a powerful marketing strategy that is worth over $13.8 billion. When utilized properly and strategically, it can create substantial brand awareness and growth for businesses.

To help you leverage the power of influencer marketing, this article includes proven strategies to skyrocket your social media following and sales. Let’s begin right away!

What is influencer marketing?

influencer marketing example
An Instagram influencer's post

Influencer marketing is a strategy where brands partner with social media users to bring awareness and engagement to a product or service that they provide. These can be regular social media users, content creators, and celebrities. This powerful marketing tactic has been predicted to become one of the leading social trends in the upcoming years. 

Influencers can be extremely valuable for your business because they are viewed as experts within their field. Influencers seamlessly incorporate products that they endorse into their paid and unpaid content and let it do the talking. There’s no need for explicit advertising content when followers are genuinely interested in their lifestyle and products that they use. That’s why they followed them in the first place right? That’s the magic of social media. 100,000 followers mean 100,000 potential customers. 

Influencer marketing example

Currently one of the best influencer marketing examples is Youtube celebrity Mr. Beast. Among his last creations, he recreated ‘Squid Games’ which racked up 142 million views in 8 days and has now reach 242 million views. 

 In case you don’t know, Squid Game is Netflix’s most-watched show of all time. It is a Korean series about a group of morally-gray characters who take part in children’s games with deadly twists. The stakes are insanely high when they fight to pay off their debts.

Mr. Beast’s 25-minute video required a whopping $3.5 million to make. He funded a part himself, while a part of the sponsorship came from “Brawl Stars”, who saw a 41% increase in downloads shortly after the video was uploaded. 

The benefits of influencer marketing to your social media strategies

Your influencer marketing strategy benefits you in all sorts of forms. It can benefit your social media strategy in the following ways:

Build trust and credibility

influencer review
An influencer's review of Glossier products

Influencers help you build trust and credibility along with their following. They do this by sharing their knowledge and experiences with your brand.

When the influencer posts brand messages on their social media accounts, for example, for promotions of your products and services, their followers – your target audience – will find it helpful, informative, and useful. Collaborating with the ones that align with your brand value and mission will bring you closer to your target audience.

Boosts your brand awareness

Fun fact: You don’t need a massive budget for your influencer marketing strategy. Unlike traditional social media strategies such as ads, where you will waste a lot of money. Here are some statistics that back up this statement.

  • 60% of marketers shared that influencer-generated content performs better and drives more engagement compared to branded posts.
  • 89% of marketers said that influencer marketing’s return on investment (ROI) is better – $5.78 for every $1 spent – than or on par with other channels

How to create an influencer marketing strategy?

Creating an effective social media marketing presence starts with an organized and well-defined planning. This step-by-step process will help you create your own influencer marketing strategy.

Step 1: How to find the ideal influencer for your brand?

The first step in creating a powerful influencer marketing strategy is research. During your search for the best influencer, your research should include all the details you need to know to execute your strategy.

Determine your brand voice and messaging

Each influencer has their own target audience and has built a community of followers for themselves. Therefore, understanding your audience and how to reach them is crucial to choosing the right influencer for your brand. 

If you know who your target audience is, what words they use and where you can find them. Then it becomes easier for you to find an influencer who has an audience base that resonates perfectly with your target audience.

Understand the influencer landscape

Instagram Influencer Tier
Instagram Influencer Tiers

The influencer landscape is broken down into different platforms and categories. Discover what social media platforms your audience uses. Then find out which of the five categories resonates the best with your audience.

  • Nano influencers: between 1,000 and 10,000 followers
  • Micro-influencers: between 10,000 and 50,000 followers
  • Power or mid-tier influencers: between 50,000 and 500,000 followers
  • Mega influencers: more than 1 million followers

Step 2: Set out goals and create a plan

Without a destination, it’s impossible to know what direction to go. Start with defining your goals and budget, then you can map out your timeline to achieve your goals. Here are some goals you can consider for your next influencer marketing campaign:

  • Boost your brand awareness 
  • Reaching new audiences
  • Facilitating Lead Generation

After defining your goal, it’s time to map out your campaign. Unlike traditional social media strategies like ads, creating a successful influencer marketing campaign involves more time and energy, but the return is worthwhile. You might need to spend more time monitoring your partners’ success and following up with them.

While mapping out your campaign, be sure to include time for planning, executing and reviewing your influencer program. You can choose to do this process all by yourself, but if you have the time and money. You can hire an influencer marketing agency that will do the work for you.

Step 3: Conduct influencer outreach

When you have a clear understanding of what you want to accomplish, you can move forward to influencer outreach. Here are 3 different approaches for you to find your ideal influencer.

Influencer marketing tools

There are plenty of tools that will help you find influencers in your niche. What tool to use depends most of the time on the platform you’re looking to promote. You can choose to pay or use one of these 24 free influencer marketing tools that will help you in your journey. 

It is important to note that engagement rate varies by the size of the influencer and the platform. The popularity of TikTok marketing is great news for brands who want to capitalize on influencer campaigns. TikTok influencers with fewer than 15K followers have an incredible 17.96% engagement rate, trumping Instagram’s 3.86% average.

Hashtags

This cost-effective method performs well but it takes time. Use hashtags to find influencers that talk about similar products or services as yours. Take a closer look at the followers of the influencers you’ve just discovered. If they are in line with your target audience, then you can list these potential influencers to reach out to in the future.

Use your following or spy on your competition

Another cost-effective way to find influencers is to use your followers or spy on your competition. Click on a few of the people who are already following your brand. Scroll through the accounts they’re following and see if you can find any influencers there.

You can also observe what your competitors do and who they partner with. Don’t copy, just use the information to understand better what direction you should take.

Step 4: Track, improve, and repeat

If you’ve created well-defined goals, then tracking results becomes really simple. Monitor direct results from your influencer campaign. Then use data to identify what works and what doesn’t so you can improve your strategy.  

Use these influencer marketing strategies to skyrocket your following and sales

Every marketing tactic needs an intentional strategy in order to succeed. Use these ideas to create a winning influencer marketing strategy for your brand. 

Partner with influencers and create viral content

Working with influencers can be an extremely effective way to boost your social media following and sales. Create content based on the latest social media trends to increase the chance to go viral.

Leverage the power of social media trends

Reaching more people exposes your brand to more potential customers. To reach more potential customers, you must create viral content. Following and applying trending social media content is an effective way to do that. Before you post new content ideas, here are some extra tips to leverage the power of social media trends to create viral content.

  • When launching a viral campaign with an influencer, creating unique hashtags is fundamental for your audience to associate the viral content with your brand. These hashtags also allow you to boost your branding and increase awareness on your social networks. 
  • Viral content has great potential to skyrocket your reach to a new and wide audience. A simple and effective way to create viral content is to use social media trends. In addition, your viral content can potentially impact millions of social media users to follow your brand or buy your products.

Get influencers to review your products

An Influencer's post to promote Daniel Wellington watch and discount

Did you know that 61% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations more than the 38% who trust branded (and often biased) social media content?

Today’s audiences are skeptical of the claims put forth in branded marketing collateral. It is more likely that new audiences will trust your brand if you allow influencers to review your products.

Use discounts to skyrocket your sales

Before buying a product, 97% of people look for deals when they shop for new products. Adding discounts to your influencer reviews is one of the easiest ways to boost your sales.

Expert tip: Use a specific type of discount to create scarcity. This will entice your audience to take action. Some of the most common options include:

  • Percent off discounts for encouraging sales
  • Shipping discounts for introductory transactions
  • Price break discounts for high-volume orders

Flourish on social media and create your influencer marketing strategy

While most businesses choose to refuse to take action, you have the opportunity 

Since the rise of influencer marketing, the dimensions of social media marketing have completely shifted. Use this blueprint to distance yourself from all the noise and to connect and engage with your target audience. 

Now the time has come to take matters into your own hands and create your own influencer marketing strategy. If you can’t find the time and resources to do the work, it’s wise to partner with a team of brand and design experts. Either way, your business will flourish on social media.

What Is Growth Marketing? Why You Should Start Implementing It

Growth marketing is the process of using data gained through marketing campaigns and experimentation to drive growth. It usually involves constant tracking and refinement of strategy to make improvements.

When it comes to marketing, companies and their executives are in dire need of proven and effective strategies to consistently grow their business. Too often they fall back onto and are very reliant on traditional marketing, which can take longer to measure, execute, and refine.

Growth marketing transforms the traditional “make a product, then market it” approach into “make, then market, then analyze, then remake and remake”. As straightforward as its name, growth and progress are at the centre of this type of marketing.

What exactly is growth marketing?

Growth marketing is a form of marketing that is focused on building a better customer experience and brand value and in turn creates long-term sustainable growth. It relies on cycles of innovation rather than on extended efforts. It is characterized by flexible micro campaigns that respond to the ever changing needs and demands of the time.

With growth marketing, you don’t need to have a fixed and comprehensive strategy to get started. The key to is to start small and gather information on the marketing resources you need. Then, focus your effort on the resources that the collected data supports. As you go, you can can adjust your strategy and budget based on the conclusion derived from the said data.

Growth Marketing > Traditional Marketing

Before anyone loses their minds and thinks traditional marketing is dead, rest assured, it is not.

It is still a tried and true way of bringing in consumers and converting them into customers.However, when it comes to long-term success and scalable revenue, growth marketing wins every time.

The reasons as to why it is superior are very simple:

  • Customer Experience
  • Customer Relationship
  • Customer Loyalty

Meeting customers’ desires is the main focus of this strategy optimization, as opposed to traditional marketing, where the only goal is to acquire customers and raise conversion rates.

Growth marketing goes beyond that to make sure customers are truly satisfied, while using their trusted feedback to change and grow the company.

The impacts go beyond their existing customers

When customers feel valued and cared for by a company, they will let all of their friends and family know.

As all of their friends and family get the exact same customer focused treatment, they will continue the cycle of brand advocacy.

All you have to do is focus on the customers you have, make sure they are having a good experience, which will build your relationship with them, and their loyalty will create brand advocacy.

When you hit that point, you don’t even need to focus on traditional marketing, because your customer’s brand advocacy is doing all of the customer acquisition for you.

With that being known, it is no wonder as to why many companies have switched their strategies from traditional marketing to growth marketing.

Growth Marketing’s Winning Scientific Method

Growth marketing cycle

One of the many added benefits of employing growth marketing is how easy and efficiently it works with controlled experiments and marketing tests.

This is known as the scientific method, a process of objectively establishing facts through testing and experimentation.

The process is very intuitive and straightforward:

  1. Find a goal/question to achieve/answer.
  2. Research and gather data on the topic.
  3. Predict what will happen.
  4. Conduct a test to see the true outcome.
  5. Collect the data and analytics.
  6. Draw and report your conclusions.

Data gathering and analysis are key

There are so many ways than just one to begin testing with customers and collecting data to improve business.

– Conduct email campaigns and make sure they see you in their inbox.

– Use social media platforms to instantly connect with customers and nurture relationships while building new ones.

– Write blogs and create a podcast to better inform and bond with your customers while building a strong sense of community and loyalty.

– Analyze the data and crunch the numbers to see the results of current customer experience.

– Continue using the new tactics that are working to innovate your company and build brand advocacy.

Be creative when it comes to bonding and strengthening your customer base, but make sure to always test, scale, and track your data to get the most out of growth marketing.

Where Can I Get Help With Growth Marketing?

If you happen to be a business owner, want to implement growth marketing, but get tired from just reading about it, then you need a growth marketing specialist, known most commonly as a “T-Shaped” marketer.

Keep in mind that T-Shaped marketers are not all-knowing oracles that can fix every single problem when it comes to growth marketing.

However, they tend to specialize in certain parts of growth marketing and become experts on those topics.

In doing so, these T-Shaped marketers make sure that they are ready to fix and take care of any problems that fall into their area(s) of expertise.

That is why T-Shaped marketers are absolutely necessary for a business to succeed in growth marketing, without them you run the risk of having all your hard work be for nothing.

Hire one today and in no time your marketing journey will become so much more easy and streamlined.

Use Growth Marketing to Your Advantage

If it wasn’t clear enough, growth marketing is the next best step for your company if you have already not taken the leap.

Companies such as Instagram and Tinder are where they are today because of this marketing strategy and how it transformed their business.

For Instagram, growth marketing tactics enabled the company to continuously rework and scale the company. Building a better brand through their customer interactions and scientific method.This led to Instagram becoming such a powerhouse of a company, that Mark Zuckerberg and his Facebook team did everything they could to acquire Instagram.

And in the end, that’s exactly what happened, with Instagram being bought for $1 billion dollars.

The t-shaped marketer model
The T-Shaped Marketer model (Source: digital marketer.com)

Growth marketing is more than just a fad

In a world that is constantly changing, it is time to use tactics that can keep up and better frame your business for success.

Once seen as nothing but a passing fad, growth marketing has cemented itself as one of the best forms of marketing with a strong focus on customer retention.

Do not forget, the best way to retain customers is by improving customer experience, building relationships with customers, and providing relevant value to inspire brand advocacy.

The more customers you retain, the more you know that you are doing something right.

The only way to sustainable growth is to take a chance, and try a different way of marketing.

Do yourself a favor and hire a “T-Shaped” marketer.

Implement this type of marketing and watch your business rise through customer focus along with brand advocacy.

After all of that happens, you can thank yourself for realizing that growth marketing is the future for your business and the world of marketing.

Share:

J.C.Penny Pioneers The Use of Digital Advisor and AR Try-on Makeup Among Department Stores

J.C.Penney partnered with Reverie to offer a skincare advisor and AR try-on capabilities for its shoppers on Thursday, September 8th. 

The department store launched an AI driven skincare adviser experience, which employs diagnostics technology to analyze selfies and provide recommendations for a personalized skincare routine.  

In addition, J.C.Penny also released AR makeup try-on capabilities. 

As a part of their effort to execute a new beauty concept, J.C.Penny is turning to technology to leverage their customer experience after their previous partner, Sephora teamed up with Kohl’s. The vision centers around inclusivity, which entails selling a variety of products across the mass, masstige and prestige categories. 

“We want to be the shopping destination of choice, offering a personalized approach that fully celebrates and honors them as unique individuals,” says Michelle Wlazlo, Chief Merchandising Officer at JCPenney. “Our partnership with Revieve allows us to deliver on our customers’ desire for personalization regardless of age, gender, race, skin tone, beauty regimen, or budget.”

The update came into effect and has been made available to 10 stores in October 2020, with inclusive beauty site Thirteen Lune serving as a flagship partner. The department store aims to roll out this offering to all of its locations by 2023. 

JCPenny’s Skincare Advisor leveraged Revieve’s proprietary Skin Diagnostics technology and AI-powdered product recommendations as a seamless, end-to-end experience in which consumers can find a personalized skincare routine with a simple selfie. 

The updated features allow visitors to take or upload a selfie and answer a quick questionnaire about their skin type and issues in order to receive in-depth skincare therapy and product suggestions. Through Skin Diagnostics technology, Revieve analyzes over 120 skin elements to provide users with a comprehensive sense of their skin and to recommend JCPenny Beauty products and skincare education based on their requirements. 

Personalized product recommendations and AR try-on capabilities have been made popular for years since the pandemic halted in-store makeup and skincare try-on. In fact, they are more than just a trend during the pandemic. AI-powerful AR technology is predicted to take over social media platforms alongside the proliferation of beauty filters to create a better customer experience. 

Snapchat has teamed up with fashion titans such as Prada and Farfetch to introduce a new machine learning technology that utilizes ‘3D Body Mesh’ to mimic real-life fits as users try on clothing through the camera by utilizing voice-enabled controls to let the application know they want to browse and try on. In the midst of the beauty revamp, Clinique opened a “Clinique Lab” concept at Macy’s that employs diagnostic tools and facial scanning technology to analyze skin and provide product recommendations accordingly. 

As for J.C.Penny, the employment of AI and AR technologies to provide a more inclusive and seamless customer experience is a part of its effort to reinvent itself, after its bankruptcy in 2020. With customer experience being emphasized and constantly refined more than ever, personalized experiences powered by artificial intelligence and augmented reality will soon become the norms for beauty retailers and other industries.

Stay up-to-date with all the industry news and technology here. 

Share:

Why Customer Reviews Are The Number One Salesperson

When was the last time you checked out customer reviews before purchasing a product on Amazon? Or what about Tripadvisor, have you ever used it to determine whether a hotel or restaurant is worth your time and money? It’s not uncommon to do so. In fact, nearly 90% of customers read online reviews before visiting a business. 

Nowadays customers rely on reviews for some of their most significant life choices. So, what can YOU do to leverage the power of customer reviews to make your business flourish?

In this article, you’ll learn everything you need to know to turn your customers into your salespeople, from the importance of brand advocacy, the secret behind getting customer reviews, to the power of customer experience. 

Getting customer reviews is vital for your business

An example of customer reviews

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.

As a result, 93% of customers will read reviews of local businesses to determine their quality. But if you think you can only rely on positive reviews, then you are wrong. Because 95% of customers get suspicious of a rating if there are no negative reviews. 

The importance of customer reviews cannot be overstated. Both positive and negative customer reviews influence the way we sell. Here’s why:

Improve the customer experience to skyrocket your reviews

In order to skyrocket the number of relevant reviews and testimonials, you first should understand what a good customer experience looks like to your target customers and how to create it. 

Customer experience is how your (potential) customers interact with your brand at every touchpoint of the buyer’s journey. Here are two customer experience examples:

  • You are mesmerized by the performance of the product?
  • The customer service helped solve the problem with ease and comfort.

The better the customer experience, the more your brand advocacy will grow, as customers tend to share their experiences more often after experiencing a service or product. These are your free testimonials shared on their social media.

Customer reviews VS. Testimonials

Testimonial example
A testimonial displayed on a website

Did you know that customer reviews and testimonials are not the same? While they both give us details about customers’ experiences with a brand or company, testimonials are most likely to be positive. On the other hand, customer reviews can be good or bad because the company has no direct involvement in them.

What is Brand Advocacy?

Brand advocacy example
A Starbuck's brand advocate

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. The people who carry these actions are so-called brand advocates. They promote your product or service to people both inside and outside the business. Here’s the power of brand advocates:

Boost content creation and online visibility

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.

Gives you access to new markets and audiences

Did you know that not knowing your market is 1 of the 5 top reasons why most businesses fail? To overcome this issue, your brand advocates help you find new audiences who may not be in the target category yet.

Who are your brand advocates?

Did you know that brand advocates are 50% more likely to influence a purchase? An unforgettable customer experience results in more sharing from the customer by word of mouth or digital media. That’s why building your brand advocacy is extremely important. 

Your brand advocate is someone who praises your brand through word-of-mouth marketing. Employees, customers, or influencers are examples of brand advocates you can use.

Customer Brand Advocacy

Influencer marketing example
Influencer marketing engagement

Social media is a powerful platform on which customer advocacy can be carried out and spread. As of 2022, there are approximately 3.96B social media users around the world. That’s more than half of the world population! In the coming years, this number is projected to increase even more. 

Customers and influencers are able to engage and share their experiences with your brand on social media. In fact, influencer marketing is likely to play a larger role in 2023. 61% of consumers trust influencers’ recommendations–more than the 38% who trust branded (and often biased) social media content. Winning the heart of customers and influencers within your target niche is crucial to building powerful brand advocacy and brand value. 

Employee brand advocacy

Starbucks employee partners

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.

So, what can you do to improve your employee brand advocacy and company culture? 

It is important to keep your employees motivated. Modern-day professionals want to know why they come to work every day. They are not just there for the paycheck, as hefty as it may be. Employees are driven by values. Validation, and of course, a variety of other factors that shape your company culture. Therefore, keeping your employees motivated require a mindful approach and effort from the top down to create an inspirational and comfortable environment. 

Adding a company intranet is one way to grow brand advocacy, because your intranet can contain brand advocacy apps to encourage employees to like and share content from inside and outside the company.

How to transform negative reviews into brand advocates

Have you ever received a negative review? Congratulations, that’s amazing! It might seem unbelievable, but having too many positive reviews can be a red flag to customers. Because most customers think that that’s too good to be true.

So in order to benefit from negative reviews, you must handle them well. The key is to respond fast and honestly. 45% of customers say they’re more likely to visit a business if they honestly and professionally handle negative reviews. 

It is crucial to timely respond and fix the things customers complain about. This simple but effective solution will contribute to more sales and greater customer satisfaction.

Handling negative customer review example
An example of how a negative customer review is handled

Use engagement marketing as your leverage

Engagement marketing is your secret sauce to skyrocket your customer interactions and build brand loyalty. Here are 3 channels you can use today:

  • Email marketing
  • Content marketing
  • Social media marketing

To leverage the power of your engagement marketing, your aim should be to create interactions with people. These channels will help you reach your goals because they build a personal rapport between your brand and your customers. 

For example, if you make a well-curated and targeted social marketing strategy, you can create content to establish yourself as an authority, build trust, and educate your audience. 

Get a jump start on your next engagement marketing campaign by following this step-by-step process:

  1. Define your marketing engagement objectives. Without a goal, you can’t make a successful strategy. That’s why you must describe what you want to achieve with it before you start your research.
  2. Identify your target audience and get inside their mind. Define what problems they currently face, what their dreams are, and what channels they use.
  3. Create engaging and compelling content, based on the needs of your audience and future social media trends. Try to differentiate between educational, promotional, and branding content to get the best results.
  4. Start conversations with your (potential) customers. Respond to their comments and create content that sparks their interest and conversation. Be real and authentic in the conversations to get the best results.
  5. Optimize your landing pages to transform viewers into paying customers. The more accessible and user-friendly your platform ares, the more traffic you’ll get. That’s why your landing pages must be optimized to get the highest conversion rate out of your traffic.
  6. To maximize your results, you must review your strategy regularly. Use marketing automation and CRM tools to save time and scale your campaign.

This is why your customer reviews perfect your brand strategy

Customer reviews are not just your number one salesperson. It’s an irreplaceable part of your brand strategy, because it allows you to show off your product effortlessly and get potential customers interested in your brand. 

Leverage this power in your engagement marketing strategy, so you’ll be able to develop a constant flow of high-valuable customer reviews.

If you want to take this a step further and create a seamless digital experience your audience will remember and love, check out this proven and tested method to learn how to transform your brand image together with a team of brand and design experts.

Share: