How live selling can help your brand build a strong D2C business
For a brand to scale in today’s eCommerce landscape, the strategy has to include the right mix of scale, scope, and efficiency. It also means that you will need to become more agile and work towards modernizing your approach to nurturing existing customers and acquiring new customers, and let go of old, inefficient methods in the process.
As a strategy, brands need to deploy new tech platforms to provide them with better access to larger and more diverse markets. Hosting live selling events can facilitate new virtual proximity between the brand and potential customers.
Livestreaming videos have become a powerful tool in the marketing arsenal of the large enterprise community. Today we’ll be looking at how your brand can benefit and expand its reach with one-to-many live streaming.
Build a strong D2C business with live shopping
More and more brands are increasingly adopting D2C (Direct-to-consumer) models as their go-to marketing strategy. An eMarketer study revealed that in 2020, US direct-to-consumer revenue reached $111.5 billion and is expected to grow to $174.98 billion by 2023.
However, when it comes to building and launching a D2C business, the biggest concern is that an independent brand cannot match the scale of marketplaces and will therefore lose customers to them.
For large brands looking to build a D2C business, the primary focal points should be on product-market fit and then ease of use, discovery, engagement, and analytics. By integrating live commerce into their selling channels, brands can make a significant impact on revenue and improve customer engagement.
With a live commerce platform like SWIRL, brands can:
- Create live shopping events to increase engagement and boost awareness
- Create short shoppable videos and use to enhance product pages
- Offer private virtual shopping appointments to customers
- Access first-party data and analytics on customer preferences
These features enable regular sales and growth, help with more targeted sales and marketing strategies, and improve outreach activities.
Read how to growth-hack your business with live commerce here.
Control customer experience
The direct-to-consumer model helps businesses improve profitability by controlling the entire discovery and purchase experience of the customer. This is critically important because a good buying experience ensures that your customers trust you and keep coming back.
One of the most effective ways to create a great buying experience is to actually know the customer. The only way to do this – apart from talking to real customers – is to get real-time information and first-party data.
With SWIRL, brands can sell directly to their audience through a branded environment that is completely controlled. Live video selling with curated recommendations makes it easy for customers to discover products and moves them along in their buying journey. In addition, the brand receives access to verified customer data, sales-qualified leads, and real-time engagement analytics. An enterprise can use such enhanced analytics to formulate better marketing strategies and optimize success.
How to create an effective live shopping strategy for your brand.
Own your own data
When you use a marketplace, you have limited access to data on consumer behaviour, returns on marketing spends, and usually no way of reaching out directly to a customer. This can considerably reduce your visibility and restrict your ability to make effective marketing strategies.
With live shopping, you interact directly with your customers. Brands get access to customer data points, with verified contact details that can be used in the next communication. It allows your brand associates to make each follow-up personal and share special offers and new collections, thereby deepening the customer-brand relationship.
Apart from this, SWIRL provides a dashboard with first-party data and customer behavior analytics. When it comes to making marketing or sales plans, this data is an invaluable source of help in creating more targeted plans and getting better ROI.
Read our Definitive Guide to Live Shopping for D2C Brands.
Wrap up
Live shopping is a new avatar of eCommerce and it has already begun to sweep the world. In countries like China, live shopping is the most popular way to shop online, but in most other regions, it is still nascent. However, brands who adopt it early are likely to see great success and earn a layer of differentiation. In addition, live shopping can increase business, build brand awareness, and deepen customer relationships with a cost-efficient technology for mass reach. If you’d like to see how live shopping can help your business, book a free demo now or check out our case studies section.
SWIRL is a full funnel live commerce solution that helps marketers attract, engage and convert more customers. Enable your website or app with the power of shoppable content to increase AOV, boost conversions and retain customers. If you’re looking for a live commerce solution and want to discuss options, get in touch.