One of the biggest shifts in consumer purchasing behaviour recently has been the growth of e-commerce sales. This has only been accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, with the online share of retail sales in Australia having grown from 5.6% in 2018 to 9.4% in 2020. Let’s look at 5 ways to leverage social media in order to grow online sales.
Source UNCTAD, based on national statistics offices.
Content is King
Ensure that your website is not only e-commerce enabled with products for sale, but also offering consumers relevant content. A dedicated blog section of your site is a great idea, ensuring that you are posting on social media regularly. Not only will great content help bring users to your website but it will also do wonders for your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).
Offer Discounts & Loyalty Programs
Consumers turn to brands on social media for not only the latest product news and customer service, but also for discount codes and giveaways. Encourage them to sign up to your newsletter through social media and offer promotions regularly, consumers expect brands to offer discounts at certain times of year, think of the Black Friday sale. Black Friday can be a great time to also clear out obsolete or slow moving stock.
Target your customers
It’s important to know who your customers are and how to reach them. If your products cater to older generations then there’s little to no point for your brand being on social media platform TikTok that has a largely Gen-Z audience. If your key target market is Gen-Z then TikTok might be the best platform for your brand to be on. If you’re placing ads on social media take advantage of the Insights available to brands and target your ads accordingly to your target audience. This blog has some more great tips!
Engage Influencers
Influencer marketing is set to grow to approx. $13.8 billion in 2021. Ensure you have a strategy when engaging influencers to help promote your brand. Generally influencers with larger followers will cost you more, weigh up whether you’re better off working with micro-influencers who may not have as large a following but will probably have a more engaged audience.
Mobile first
This may be obvious in 2021, but with 99% of 4.48 billion social media users accessing social media on mobile devices, it’s imperative that you design your content with mobile screen sizes in mind, and also ensure your e-commerce store is mobile responsive.
Have you seen e-commerce sales growth as the result of a social media marketing strategy? Let me know in the comments below!
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