Boost Your eCommerce Marketing Funnel with Live Shopping | Shop Studio Live
Do you struggle with converting your online store visitors into buyers? You’re not alone.
On average, Shopify online stores have a conversion rate below 2%. That means, out of 100 visitors to your online store, 2 or fewer people, make a purchase. Even if you’re putting all your energy into driving traffic to your store, sometimes that’s simply not enough.
If your conversion rates are consistently below 3%, chances are, you don’t have a marketing funnel or it’s time for a tune-up.
eCommerce Marketing Funnel
A marketing funnel is a representation of the customer journey as they navigate through your business buying process. Usually, it’s divided into 3 stages: Awareness, Consideration, Conversion. By having and executing your marketing strategy using a funnel, you can refocus your marketing efforts and tailor your strategies towards customers in each stage.
Although the basic funnel is applicable for all businesses, tailoring your marketing funnel to your specific industry and ideal customer base will help you increase your conversion rates.
Understanding the Funnel
Awareness
Also known as Top of Funnel (TOFU)
In this stage, people recognize they have a problem and are exploring solutions. They may or may not be familiar with your brand but aren’t necessarily interested in purchasing yet.
eCommerce TOFU Tactics
Engaging Content: Having engaging content is a great way to establish your brand and attract people based on your content and their interests. Once you’ve created this content, consider where you can share it for maximum visibility to your target customers. That could be through organic or paid social media marketing, blogs, podcasts, or more.
SEO: Now that you’ve created engaging content for your target customers, having high visibility on search engines will help drive customers to your store. Having strong SEO AND SEM strategies will bring more quality leads in and create authority for your brand and the products you have to offer. This should go hand-in-hand with your content creation strategy.
Community Engagement: Establish trust by building awareness and developing a relationship with customers. This can be done by engaging with people on social media and being a part of online communities on Reddit and Facebook. You can also turn to influencer marketing, where you are establishing trust and expanding your reach through paid exposure.
Social Media Ads: Go beyond content, use social media advertising to target your audience specifically and attract people who will find your product most relevant. With tools like Facebook Ads, you can get very specific with the audience that you target, including demographics, interests, and behavior.
Consideration
Also known as Middle of Funnel (MOFU)
In the consideration stage, people are aware of your brand but are still learning more about your products while possibly also searching for products and solutions from other brands. Now is the time to keep visitors engaged and convince them that your product provides the solution they need for their problem. During the consideration stage, you need to provide people with the necessary information and support for them to choose your brand and products over your competitors.
eCommerce MOFU Tactics
Live Chat: Allow customers to ask questions as they explore your online store. Adding a live chat feature will help resolve any uncertainties customers may have and help convert visitors into buyers. Worried about having to be available all the time? Most live chat software enables you to set a time period for when you are available or away to help manage people’s expectations.
Showcase Product Benefits and Features: Narrow down the focus of your content to showcase the benefits of your products and the features you have to offer. This could include things like better product images and videos as well as clear information and specifications on variants (colors, sizes, shapes, dimensions, etc.). The goal is to help customers better understand what your product offers and why it’s right for them.
Share Product Reviews to Create Social Proof: Individuals rely on social proof now more than ever before. By sharing product reviews and testimonials submitted by past customers, you are building trust with new customers and demonstrating that others recommend your product and stand by it.
Conversion
Also known as Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)
You’re almost there! Your audience understands the value of your products and now all they need is a nudge in the right direction to convert.
eCommerce BOFU Tactics
Optimize Checkout: Avoid last-minute churn by optimizing your website and making the checkout process as smooth as possible. Avoid asking for unnecessary information at checkout or surprising customers with shipping charges. If you’re a new store, it’s always best to test the checkout process yourself first and carefully consider if it could be simplified.
Special Promotions: People love a good deal. Offer percentage discounts, 2-for-1 deals, free shipping, and anything else that will encourage customers to take a leap in the right direction.
Upselling and Cross-selling: Similar to promotions, upselling and cross-selling are great ways to offer a personalized recommendation for customers, directly on the product page. There are a number of applications that offer these functionalities.
Abandoned cart emails: If you have your customer’s contact information — this happens if they started the checkout process but have not yet completed it — give customers that final nudge and remind them of what is left in their cart. A reminder never hurts, especially if it comes with a discount code.
How does live shopping fit into the marketing funnel?
We’ve seen how live shopping is revolutionizing ecommerce around the world, but where does it fit in your ecommerce marketing funnel? Depending on how you want to target your audience, there are live shopping tactics at each stage!
Top of Funnel: IG Live and Facebook Live
During the Awareness stage, there are tools like IG Live / FB Live where a customer is tuning in to watch a live stream for awareness or engagement. A customer might not know much about your brand or product, they are simply coming across your live event as viewers.
Middle of Funnel: Live Shopping Apps
In the Consideration stage, live shopping applications that allow shoppers to engage with the store owner or subject matter expert seamlessly within their buying process. This increases shopper engagement and knowledge of products before they buy, all in real-time.
During these live streams, it’s good to plan a theme (i.e. Spring Product Launch Event) but also leave room to answer questions about your products that are coming from Shoppers in the live chat. By increasing engagement, answering questions, and building trust, MOFU live shopping solutions help shoppers feel confident making their purchases. This is why we built Shop Studio Live!
Bottom of Funnel: Checkout Features
Finally, at the Purchase stage, you can also implement live streaming solutions. There are some live shopping solutions with checkout features embedded directly into their platform or mobile app flow. Often these are standalone applications outside your online store — so it’s good to weigh the pros and cons of that customer experience. If executed properly, this could allow customers to buy directly as they watch a live stream, all in a few clicks.
Takeaways
You may sometimes feel helpless if your marketing efforts are not performing as expected. Many merchants we’ve talked to feel like they aren’t in control of their online stores — especially with recent changes to default cookie settings on macOS and iOS.
That’s why we chose to develop Shop Studio Live and embed live shopping directly on ecommerce storefronts. This allows shoppers to engage with merchants and subject-matter experts directly in an online store, seamlessly within their shopping experience. Our goal is to help merchants humanize the online shopping experience, built trust, and sell more!
Now, it’s time for you to review your marketing funnel. Consider what you are currently doing, what you want to improve, and what new tactics you want to implement to built trust and sell more in your online store.
Interested in live shopping and want to learn more? Download the Shop Studio Live app on the Shopify App Store and start your 14-day FREE trial now.
Originally published at https://www.shopstudio.live.
