eCommerce has been growing at an explosive pace for the last several years, spurred by improvements in technology and expansions to online shopping. From social storefronts to shoppable ads, the relationship between social media and eCommerce has also been changing and expanding. Brands can get their products in front of more customers online and customers...
eCommerce has been growing at an explosive pace for the last several years, spurred by improvements in technology and expansions to online shopping. From social storefronts to shoppable ads, the relationship between social media and eCommerce has also been changing and expanding. Brands can get their products in front of more customers online and customers can learn more about the brands and products they want with a few keystrokes.
Over the last few years, when it comes to online marketing tactics for eCommerce, influencer marketing naturally becomes part of the conversation. As more people are shopping online and are inundated with more branded advertising content, shoppers turn to advice from people they see as peers. Influencers are valuable for marketers to help boost brand awareness and provide social proof, but how can eCommerce teams benefit from influencer marketing?
How influencers help drive sales
Influencers help drive sales and conversions because their opinions are trusted and help provide social proof for brands and products. What is social proof? It’s the idea that people will believe and follow what they see the majority of people do. Influencers are seen as peers, even if their followers don’t actually know them. Because they’re real people with loyal and engaged followers, their content and recommendations are highly trusted. 49% of consumers depend on recommendations from influencers and are more likely to make a purchase after seeing a product shared by an influencer on social media.
Partnering with influencers makes sense from a marketing perspective that carries over for eCommerce teams. Social proof from influencers can come in several different forms, but the one we think of most often is posts from influencers on their social channels. This is highly effective for social media teams, but what about eCommerce teams?
Ways eCommerce teams can use influencers
For teams, one of the tactical ways to use social proof is through product reviews and testimonials. While we’re used to seeing reviews from influencers in the form of unboxing videos and product features on social media, they’re not limited to social channels. Reviews are a form of user-generated content (UGC), which is one of the more versatile forms of media in a marketer’s arsenal right now. User-generated content is great because it can be almost endlessly reused and repurposed, and reviews are no exception.
Instead of leaving an eCommerce site to search for reviews, brands can keep products and reviews all in one place. There’s a direct impact on ROI, too: adding testimonials to sales pages can boost conversions by up to 34%. Featuring reviews for specific products along with all the product information makes for a smoother user experience for your customers. It also highlights the authenticity and transparency of a brand when there’s a good balance of reviews.
How Octoly can help
Whether you currently have eCommerce reviews and want more or you’re starting from scratch, platforms like Octoly can help. The number of reviews you need varies between brands and retailers, but ideally, all of your products will have reviews. If you’re just starting out, it makes sense to focus on getting a good amount of balanced reviews for your hero products.
With Octoly, you can create campaigns that focus on specific sites or products and match with vetted influencers and a community of consumers in your industry. Generate authentic reviews at scale with streamlined influencer matching and gifting, all managed from your Octoly account. In your dashboard, you can see the number of reviews, the text, average product rating, and what percentage of reviewers recommends your products.
Not only do eCommerce reviews drive conversions and provide social proof, the feedback can help guide bigger business decisions. Export all of the text reviews from your Octoly dashboard to find commonalities that may inform changes to the product or ideas for other products. Share eCommerce reviews with product and R&D teams to decide if there are ways to improve existing products or ideas for new ones.
Influencers have become a powerful tool for marketers, but their effectiveness goes far beyond social media posts. Text reviews help provide social proof, drive conversions, and showcase the benefits of all your products. Working with influencers is a great way to generate more reviews that can be featured on eCommerce sites and sales pages.
With Octoly, eCommerce teams can run targeted campaigns to get genuine reviews from influencers and consumers for specific products and individual sites or create broader campaigns to scale reviews across their brand. Get the necessary analytics to track growth in reviews and export review content to share with teams across the business.
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