Welcome back to another week of What's Working in Marketing, a weekly newsletter where we share what's working outside your own four walls across the digital marketing landscape so you can be more effective.
Welcome back to another week of What's Working in Marketing, a weekly newsletter where we share what's working outside your own four walls across the digital marketing landscape so you can be more effective. If you enjoy reading this,follow me on LinkedInor create aFREE Insight Library account, our team is publishing tons of free research that you won't want to miss.
This week we're breaking down:
The Highlights:
Uncovering the ways that social media design is creeping into the e-commerce storefront
The Watercooler:
Digging into six questions to ask yourself before building your marketing strategy
#MarketingTwitter
Diving into three Tweets about 10 tips to get your brand started on TikTok, using feature launches as marketing tools and the shift from influencers to true ugc content
THE INTERSECTION OF SOCIAL MEDIA UI IN E-COMM CRO
Finding ways to improve the customer journey on-site has lead to an increase of people building solutions that ultimately positively impact CRO. The resurging theme here? Building social media native design elements into a storefront.
Meet Gander, an application building UGC content directly into e-commerce storefronts so that buyers can engage and see a product in action before buying. Gander works to link content with specific products to the corresponding PDP on the site. This form of content has traditionally been native and explosive on social media such as TikTok or Instagram Reels and is now being re-purposed as a customer-facing CRO tactic. Gander claims to help its clients see 5x conversion lifts, 115% average increase in revenue and 11x time spent on page.
In addition to feed → store transitions as seen with Gander, Shopify plugins such as Circle Menu aim to build the familiarity of Instagram stories to websites. This means that website designers can build product collections into a series of scannable "Story Highlights" as found on an Instagram profile, where buyers can flip through different offerings with a mixture of imagery and videos of products in use.
The question becomes: is it worth the hype to build these social media strong design elements into the e-comm space? Yes and no. That decision comes with knowing where your audience spends time and what is or isn't natural to them. If you often get requests for more visibility around your product in use, Gander could be the solution for you, whereas if you notice high engagement and traction on Instagram, building an even more familiar storefront for those users may be the best decision. It can even be a mix of both, the challenge is to find the perfect mix of opportunities without overwhelming your customers and still providing an enjoyable online shopping experience.
SIX QUESTIONS TO ASK BEFORE BUILDING A STRATEGY
Effective marketing strategy is hard but understanding these 3 areas make it easier...
Most marketers don't know where to focus their efforts as there is no shortage of shiny objects when it comes to strategy and tactics.
Before creating (or refining) any marketing strategy, start by DEEPLY understanding the following:
1. Existing Customers – people who already buy your product or service 2. Target Audience – potential buyers of your product or service 3. Competitors – both direct (similar product/service) and indirect (different product/service)
When I say DEEPLY understand, I mean you should be able to answer the following:
- Where does your existing customers/target audience spend time online? - What channels are your competitors focusing on? Are they seeing success? - What type of content does your existing customers/target audience love to consume? - What type of content are your competitors creating on an ongoing basis? - Which brands, creators, and media outlets have influence over your existing customers/target audience? - Which brands, creators, and media outlets are your competitors partnering with?
Why?
Without a deep understanding of these areas, you're guessing – and if you're guessing, you're either lucky or wrong. And eventually, everyone's luck runs out.
You need good inputs to create good outputs and it all starts with research.🚀
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