Ecommerce can be rather cut and dry. You don’t get to have the experience of walking into a store and meeting someone face to face. Our job when it comes to social selling is to add that connection back into the experience.

What is Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing is literally any step on the purchasing journey that a customer takes before they complete the order. It’s anything the customer is going to look at with regards to your store online. That includes your website, email list, product images, your add to cart button (and the color of it), your about page, your social media pages, etc.

What is the Difference Between Retail Product-Based Businesses, Service-Based Businesses, and eCommerce Businesses?

Retail product-based businesses are experiential. You can talk to the employees or store owners face to face. You can touch products, try clothing on, and see what it looks like in the mirror. There’s an extra layer of trust when you shop in person as well because you can see the shop and know it’s not a scam.

Service-based businesses are all about the transformation. For example, a weight loss coach could show before and after pictures of a client. There is also an ongoing relationship such as with a tax preparer. They’re someone you meet with consistently year after year. Service-based businesses also rely heavily on referrals.

In eCommerce, you don’t really get any of that. It’s cut and dry. Customers see something they like, buy it, and are gone. Our job is to infuse a connection with the customer by using digital marketing on social media. On social media, you can tell your story and create connections with your followers. Then when they’re in a position to buy what you’re selling they’ll come to you first.

How Do We Connect with Customers on Social Media?

On Instagram or Facebook, you can share your backstory, show behind the scenes, and the creation process. It’s a way to demonstrate your personality and give a face to the brand. You can also connect with a cause and donate a percentage of your profits to charity or something along those lines.

Another way to create that connection is to sell products that already have emotion attached to them. That would be things that are centered around happy life moments, weddings, the birth of a baby, etc.

Why is Social Selling Key in 2022?

Many retail stores are going out of business. Online businesses like Amazon are too hard to compete with and of course, COVID-19 made it impossible for many to survive. Retail shopping is going down and eCommerce is going up. A lot of online business owners don’t believe Amazon and Walmart to be competitors but they are. The way that we can compete with them is by creating a connection with the consumers long before they need to buy.

This is where social media comes into play. You can create a brand and show your personality and then when the time comes that someone wants to purchase your product, they will think of you before going on Amazon.

Get started selling on social media by focusing on just one or two platforms. Create connections and show off your personality so when people are ready to buy, they visit your Etsy shop instead of Amazon or Walmart.