How live engagement can boost your retail brand in 2021

We live in a world that’s dominated by social media and a need to have everything available to us instantly.

Whether we browse the web via a mobile phone, tablet device or desktop, many individuals around the world have a digital footprint. In fact, more than half of the world now uses social media.

So in a way, it could be expected that a lot of businesses would eventually make the transition to the online world, or partially depending on the industry. The retail industry in particular is one that has had to constantly evolve with social media and the internet in general.

Having live engagement on your platforms can benefit a company quite significantly, but what about your retail brand?

How the retail landscape has changed

Over 75% of people are shopping online at least once a month and this is a figure that will likely increase as physical stores become few and far between. What has been noticeable in many areas of the retail industry is the closing down of physical stores.

As found by Office for National Statistics, the UK alone has seen clothing and department stores increase their online sales by nearly 20%. There’s also the recent pandemic and the many retail brands that have had to close their doors globally during Covid-19.

But it’s not all doom and gloom because the online world for retail is thriving. Many retail brands are able to do a lot more because of the social media aspect of the world we live in now.

Customers want to interact with the brands they shop with and so live engagement can do a lot to boost your brand in 2021.

The benefits of live engagement for your retail brand

Developing a trustworthy and loyal relationship with your customers is a recipe for success when it comes to retail. If you cater for their needs and provide quality customer service then they’ll become regular customers, which is what you want.

With that being said, here are some of the benefits that come from live engagement.

Improves your marketing

Marketing is part and parcel for your business to not only tap into your target audience but to provide them with the incentives to purchase your products.

Online shopping and social media in general has become a great opportunity for marketers to have real-time engagement with customers.

Whether it’s a direct message through Twitter or responding to a customer’s Instagram stories of the clothing they brought from your brand, it’s a lot more personable than ever before.

In order to make your customer’s experience the best, using technology has become the norm for many marketers.

One of the major improvements within marketing and live engagement is through live-streaming videos. These can be anything from product launches through Tik Tok live to a Youtube premiere of a new campaign.

Livestreaming is a powerful way of communicating with your brand and having the chance to engage back with your audience in the moment.

Video is also one of the more influential types of media when it comes to making sales. Online shoppers who view demo videos of products are more likely to purchase than non-viewers.

Increases customer satisfaction

Seeing your customers as more than one transaction is going to help maintain the success of your retail brand. However, if your customers aren’t satisfied when it comes to their customer experience, then there are plenty of retailers that will happily steal them away.

Superoffice found more than 86% of buyers would be willing to pay more for great customer experience, so it benefits to satisfy your audience where you can. Live engagement can help influence the success of a customer’s journey. From the moment they discover your brand online to checking out with their basket of goodies.

Investing in customer service technology like web chats that are directly implemented on your website can be useful. Your customers are likely to have questions about the products before they buy and having engagement platforms like Instagram for example, can help deliver those answers.

Live video shopping is one that’s becoming more popular because it helps advise and guide customers in buying the products for sale. It works by live streaming to those who hop on to watch and when they like something that’s being showcased, they can click a button to buy it.

There are lots of different live engagement methods that can be used and all of them can help contribute to better customer experiences and satisfaction with your brand.

Creates trust with customers

Even though online shopping has proven to be quite popular, many will still be cautious of shopping with those they’ve never heard of before. This is made more challenging when the items are more costly to buy.

In order to create and build that trust, the same in-store customer experience that they get in the physical world needs to be done online too.

By engaging with the customers even before they’ve thought about purchasing, it can have somewhat of an influence over how they view the brand and how easily they move through that sales funnel.

Real-time engagement can create that real store experience that the customer is after. However, it’s all about using the right tools and effort to make it successful.

Separates your brand from the competition

Not all brands are utilising live engagement in the same way that others are doing. Many fashion brands like Pretty Little Thing, are doing everything possible to interact with their audience.

Whether it’s asking for opinions on future campaigns to live-streaming, these interactions are helping build a community and are becoming known for their active and personal engagement with their customers.

In a saturated industry, it can be difficult to tell two brands apart, so it’s important to do more to stand out with engagement platforms and new marketing techniques. So do more to impress your customer.

Be the brand that listens to their customer’s feedback and does more than just sell products. At the end of the day, every retail business is selling products. Interaction and live engagement can really set you apart from the rest of the competition.

Tips for live engagement to boost your brand

There are many ways in which you could utilise live engagement as a brand, so we’ve put together a few of our favourites to get started.

Take advantage of contests on social media

Many retail brands are giving back to their customers with contests but these are something that can be just as rewarding for the brand.

Running a ‘tag a friend’ contest where those who enter need to tag one or more friends as part of the entry, can be great for boosting your following. It will not only bring more traffic to your post but it offers more opportunity for interaction when it comes to commenting back.

Use Hootsuite for engaging across all platforms

Regardless of how many social media platforms your retail business is on, trying to manage them all at once is difficult.

Part of the live engagement is that you try to interact with as many customers as possible. Being on multiple social media platforms makes that challenging but with the right communications tool, it’s a lot easier.

Hootsuite is a prime example of managing live engagement across your social media platforms all at once.

With Hootsuite, you simply integrate your social media profiles and then you can see exactly who is interacting and on what platform. That way, you can then easily respond and interact back in real-time, or whenever it’s possible to do so.

Reward those that mention you

Occasionally, you may want to give your loyal customers a reward in return for all the interactions and mentions that they may be giving to your brand.

Rewarding your customers can be great for marketing and so it’s worth sending them some freebies every now and then. If your marketing team has targeted it right, then hopefully those customers will post about it on their own platforms.

You might also want to take your testimonials or reviews to screenshot and post onto your platforms. This is a great way of making the individual who wrote it feel special, but to also promote how popular and well-liked you are as a business.

Keep sharing what generates interest

When it comes to content, you’ll only get the best live engagement by providing what your audience wants.

For live engagement, you may want to consider doing more real-time events via your social media platforms. Whether that’s a solo event or partnering with other businesses and individuals.

The beauty of these social media platforms is that it opens the opportunity to collaborate for anyone across the globe.

Live engagement is essential for many retail brands to focus on in 2021. It can do a lot for your customer relationships and maintaining loyalty. Investing in engagement can do wonders for your retail brand this year.

Author bio: Natalie Redman

Email - natalieannredman92@gmail.com

A freelance writer for many clients including Skale, Natalie has two years of copywriting experience.

She has a wide range of experience copywriting for web pages for businesses across many industries. She’s also an owner of two blog websites and a Youtube content creator.

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