The shopping-verse in our pocket
Shopping can be a sacred therapy, aspirational, inspirational, social and functional. These experiences are often translated with curated sensory experiences to market the product and service offerings to their targeted customers. Hence, many shoppers preferred shopping in offline retail until the disruption caused by the pandemic.
The short sensory experience on the internet results in brands facing the challenge of engaging their customer’s subconscious and creating an emotional connection with their targeted customers to guide sales conversion. Brands were left to engage the sight and the option of sound through the screens of their customers to bring as much experience as they could, online.
Being in the right place
“The internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow” — Bill Gates
The internet is huge, but starting online may not be as difficult as it was offline. The place with the best traffic brings shopping to our social media giants such as Instagram, Tiktok, and Facebook where 58.4% of the world spent more than a daily average of 2 hours. Which performed better statistically when compared to the frequency of retail store visits and is also more accurately quantifiable. Targeting the right group of the audience may pose a certain difficulty but it is something that can be worked out with the low-cost implementation of these free social media to analyse which platform would be the best for the brand’s investment.
Enticing Customers
A silent thanks to the world of data for the brands ‘see’ the customers to deliver their messages but now the attention span is the challenge. There are many attention-grabbing contents out there snatching just mere seconds of contact with your customers. Brands would be going through ways how to stand out in the world of social media where content plays a big role in creating the shopping-verse. Such include the use of social influencers, social media campaigns and challenges that entice and engage customers digitally. The content can range from zero to a large sum budget that is up to the social media strategy created.
Translating the other sensory through words
A good copy that describes or hints at the texture, taste and smell would be a bonus to stimulate the other senses. Such as a clever copy by Saintly pointed out by Jonah Malin, had used the AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) allowing the customers to imagine the experience and encourage conversion.
Let the visualisation do their best
Words with visuals make the best recipe for success in online conversion. Sight is the MVP here so providing infographics, attractive imageries and ASMR (Autonomic sensory meridian response) videos would be preferred over texts.
Customer service will not stop online
Social media at its core is connecting and socialising. Even if there is no physical retail staff in-store, there is still human connectivity behind messages sent on social media platforms.
More integrated experience coming soon
There are still many ways lacking in terms of online experience compared to brick-and-mortar stores. Though it will never be replaced, there it is proven that it can be exciting for shoppers as the social media giants work on transcending better experiences tobring more personalisation and engagements such as the metaverse that is uniquely online.
Shoppers can expect more surprises as our technology continues to evolve.
