Today’s holiday shopper is more likely to shop online or, at least, research products online before ever stepping foot into a brick and mortar store or mall, especially if they are shopping for gifts to den out of town or hard to find gifts. Shopping and product research, however, are no longer limited to the store’s or manufacturer’s website. Shoppers are now looking to social media to help research products and find the best deals. Many savvy shoppers no longer trust online reviews on sites like Amazon, consumer reports, or even store websites and are therefore turning to people they know and trust to help increase their consumer confidence. Being aware of these trends is the first step in using social media to boost your online sales.
Organic Marketing
One way to reach your target audience is through organic marketing. This type of marketing is utilizing unpaid avenues, like social media, frequently to comment and post relevant and interesting information relating to your products and target audience. When done properly, these posts will direct your target audience back to your website for additional information by a simple click of the mouse.
Some wonderful examples of this type of marketing strategy is a blog post about holiday trends relating to your types of products and then a tweet of the link to that post or a Pinterest board with great holiday gift ideas or a simple Facebook post about the latest “it” item and where to purchase it. When using sites like Facebook or Twitter, hashtags will also help potential customers find your posts and lead to your website. You can often have employees repost and retweet the original posts to help reach a broader audience and give the feeling of a true
Sponsored Marketing
Along with organic marketing, platforms such as Facebook offer sponsored marketing as well. A user can pay Facebook to have their posts and ads through posts appear on the timelines of their target audience. For instance, if your company is located in the Minneapolis and sells children’s apparel and shoes up to age 10, you may want to target individuals that are in mom groups on Facebook between the ages of 22 and 40 and living or working within a fifteen-mile radius of Minneapolis. You then may choose to have the sponsored links post every three days between 10 and 11 am, while children are in school, and moms may have a slight moment to check Facebook. The benefit of these types of posts are that you are reaching an audience you may not otherwise reach by organic marketing. However, the posts are labeled sponsored and many people may simply scroll past the post without giving it a second glance.
No matter the type of social media campaign you choose to utilize to help boost your ecommerce sales this season, using such platforms will increase traffic to your website and ultimately boost your sales and build customer loyalty.
To learn more about creating the right social media presence and campaign for your business, contact SKOL Marketing at 682-787-SKOL and one of our marketing geniuses will be happy to answer all of your questions.
