Retailers should understand the shifting shopping habits of their consumers to improve the customer experience. As it is, findings from a Verint survey on digital-first shopping reveal that over 75% of consumers use social media to help inform their purchasing decisions. By leveraging social media platforms in retail marketing strategy, retailers can distinguish themselves from competitors and raise brand awareness.
In addition, having an online voice is imperative in retail marketing as it allows you to understand customers' positive and negative interactions with your products. By identifying areas of improvement and addressing different kinds of feedback, you can mitigate consumers’ dissatisfaction and improve the customer experience.
So on that note, this article has listed down a few important ways to leverage social media marketing to generate better customer experiences:
Utilizing creator communities can enable retailers to create more genuine buying and service experiences. As it is, more and more consumers are turning to social media influencers for advice and product recommendations. In a report by CRM Essentials, it is revealed that 37% of consumers trust creators over brands.
As such, it’s essential to partner with creators to develop authentic and meaningful content that your customers will find empowering or useful. To start, do your research before reaching out to specific influencers about a brand partnership. According to a 2022 Deloitte survey on content creation, 70% of influencers cite a brand’s relevance to their audience as an important factor when considering an offer. This is why you should ensure that your business’ message and goals align with a creator’s values. In doing so, you’ll be able to form great partnerships that existing and potential customers will find value in.
According to a 2022 CMO survey on digital marketing spending, 28% of retailers have invested in artificial intelligence and machine learning (ML) to optimize interactions with customers. Specifically, these businesses focused on upskilling their teams to integrate social media data with ML-driven marketing analytics. As a feature on promoting a continuous learning mindset explains, companies should fully leverage their talent and reskill them in data analytics. When you encourage your workers’ potential and teach them to utilize data from social media platforms, you can track campaign performance and identify the behavior of your target audience. As a result, you can craft better retail marketing strategies in the future.
Currently, various social media analytics tools are available on the market. You only need to choose one that best suits your business needs. For instance, Sprout Social can track Facebook Page impressions, measure Instagram follower growth, and assess content performance on Pinterest. They also have customizable report options if you want to tailor reports according to your business KPIs.
Having an omnichannel marketing strategy—which entails showing up on multiple platforms—can increase your business’ reach. This also ensures that you can accommodate your customers’ preferences and provide relevant content through their desired avenues. Apart from Instagram and Twitter, the referenced CRM Essentials report shows that 93% of consumers turn to YouTube and TikTok to get the most out of a product or service.
For this reason, social media strategist Kar Brulhart explains that retailers should repurpose content across different channels. For example, an Instagram Reel can be lengthened as a comprehensive product review on platforms with a longer shelf life, such as YouTube. If you’re doing a store demo, consider utilizing Demo Wizard, which ties in your in-store sampling experience with social media. As you promote your event to online consumers, the software can automate demo scheduling, coordination, and field marketing management. This frees you up to deliver meaningful content across multiple social media platforms to your consumers.
With social media marketing, retailers can understand what consumers want and efficiently address customer concerns. As such, we hope the strategies listed above can help you leverage social media marketing to improve your customer experience.
Does your organization combine in-store marketing with social media support? Please provide some examples or thoughts in the comments section below. We'd love to hear about your experiences.
