Just over the last year alone, there’s been a noticeable mind shift when it comes to consumers and the patterns on how they choose to purchase goods online.
They’re quickly absorbing the new choices in technology which are now available, making the entire buying experience a lot more interactive, and they’re adapting faster and more often as well.
So if you’re involved in anything that’s e-commerce related, these rapid improvements in technology offers you the vendor a lot more opportunities for you to create, connect, and then engage in better selling experiences for the consumer.
This also means that there are more moving parts which you need to take into account, just for you to keep up. The consumers of today are a quick adapting bunch where they’re now expecting to connect with consistent brand familiarity through every channel, and at all times.
They are now demanding and expecting that they’re able to shop online using their desktop computers, laptops, tablet PCs, or smartphones, as well as while they’re inside the store. They also expect an universal experience across all of the various platforms.
Creating Content That’s Creative
With all of these different variables surfacing, you’re wondering how you can keep your particular brand visible and consistent across these various platforms, while still keeping up and engaging with the ever evolving consumer. What you need to do is capture and retain their interest regardless of what channel they may be utilizing.
Different ways on how you can achieve interaction with the consumer is by using rich media, such as images offering 360-degree view technology of the product, or using self explanatory detailed videos displaying and explaining the product.
It’s estimated that on average, if you use just text on your web page, and nothing else, consumers will generally spend approximately a minute to read your information, regardless of the content, before they move on.
But if you include video, the consumer increases their average time on your product page to close to 6 minutes, which in essence makes video six times more effective than using text.
Having consumers spend more time on your website is obviously the key, but the ultimate goal is improving conversion rates which leads to increased sales.
When attempting to sell products online, it becomes vitally important that the consumer feels completely comfortable on your site and that the product is exactly what they’re looking for.
So once you provide crystal clear detailed images offering every imaginable view of your products, along with demonstration videos, and color on the site itself which best suits the buyer, all will increase the consumer’s trustability factor while decreasing click away rates and the number of product returns.
Becoming As Consistent As Possible
It’s pretty obvious that consumers are no longer sitting at home making online purchases from their desktop computers. So it becomes important that your product content is compatible across all the mobile device options such as laptops, tablets and smartphones.
Over the past couple of years alone, video views on mobile devices has increased by over 5,000% percent. So to attract and and then retain more customers to your site, what you need to do is offer more media related visuals.
By doing so gives you an excellent opportunity to remain in the chase while being as competitive as possible by offering this compelling content, which includes video, audio and images.
Professional Images Are Important
It’s recommended that online retailers should consider using professional creative agencies which have the capability and the know how to produce high-quality professional content, while being able to re-purpose it for the various formats including still images, various angles on images, producing interactive catalogs, and developing online videos.
What this creates is a consistent brand message while reducing the cost of production. Using this approach will also provide for a one-stop, one step solution for online retailers to use the same images and content for all their email blasts, direct mailing campaigns, social media campaigns, and online marketing.
Another issue is device compatibility for your site. There are some mobile devices which are not yet completely compatible with certain types of software, such as Adobe Flash for instance.
So it’s important to know or outsource experts so that all of the technical concerns are ironed out when your offering rich media content on your site.
Perhaps the best solution, although it’s still in the near future, is using HTML5, which can adequately solve all of these cross platform and device compatibility issues.
Testing Your Strategies For Success
Once you get your digital content as consistent and professional as possible, and the images and the videos are cross platform compatible, the final step of a successful e-commerce strategy is improving consumer conversion rates.
Conversion testing becomes a science which is measured by comparing how many visits you get to your site, or product page, before you get a sale.
Instances include:
• You’ll need to first test the conversion rates before you add any visuals, and then test again once you add the visuals
• Once you decide to offer different image angles of your products, test to see if there are fewer product returns as a result. Does offering different angles allow the consumer to better decide if that particular product is exactly what they’re looking for
• Track to see if providing detailed demo videos which explains how to use the product properly, leads towards an increase in sales
All of these factors will help you, the online retailer, to bond an emotional connection between the consumer and your products, which increases their trust and confidence.
So regardless if you market tangible luxury items, consumer electronics, food products, ebooks or software, offering concise and descriptive interactive visual content is now a requirement for getting better conversion.
By creating compatible cross platforms as well as consistent multimedia content, online retailers will then be able to garner interest of their target market, along with increasing the familiarity in the product or brand across the Web and Social Media.