Product Marketing for SaaS: A Strategic Toolkit for Success

The retail landscape has undergone a transformative shift, and direct-to-consumer brands are at the forefront of this revolution. These brands have revolutionized the traditional business model by embracing social commerce, a powerful tool that offers consumers unparalleled control over their shopping journey. By bypassing intermediaries, streamlining the buying process, and leveraging the vast potential of social media, DTC apparel brands are redefining how consumers discover, engage with, and purchase products. As a result, social commerce has become a crucial aspect of DTC strategies, enabling brands to establish direct interactions with their target audience at any time and leverage valuable insights to create stronger, more tailored channels. In an age where 74% of consumers turn to social networks for purchase guidance, owning the sales channel has become imperative. Social media platforms have recognized this paradigm shift, vying to become the go-to destination for consumers looking to make informed buying decisions. Recent data reveals that a staggering 98% of customers intend to utilize social purchasing for at least one purchase this year, indicating a significant increase from previous years. It is evident that social media channels are positioning themselves to capture a larger share of the market, and this upward trend shows no signs of slowing down. In this article, we will delve deeper into the realm of social commerce and explore its critical significance for DTC apparel brands. We will unravel the transformative potential of this burgeoning trend, highlighting its ability to empower consumers, streamline the buying process, and propel brands to new heights. Social Commerce, Social Shopping, and DTC Social shopping, a hybrid of eCommerce and social media, has emerged as a result of the changing landscape of retail. By seamlessly integrating retail channels with social media profiles and followers' feeds, social shopping provides a unique opportunity for consumers to discover new products, explore emerging brands, and make purchases without ever leaving their social feeds. This convergence of online shopping and social interaction is proving to be wildly profitable, with social commerce generating a remarkable $475 billion in sales in 2020. According to industry experts, this figure is projected to skyrocket to a staggering $3.37 trillion by 2028, exhibiting an annual growth rate of 28.4%. For DTC apparel brands, social commerce is an instrumental element in their quest for success. These brands understand the importance of fostering direct connections with their audience, and social media platforms serve as a pivotal factor in achieving that objective. By embracing shoppable posts, on-site storefronts, and innovative features, DTC brands are harnessing the power of social commerce to enhance customer engagement, drive sales, and forge long-lasting relationships. Social Commerce and Customer Behavior Emerging as the predominant buyer segment, millennials exert an increasingly influential impact on the market. A key aspect characterizing these evolving consumers is their desire for personalized shopping experiences and tailored product recommendations. Their curiosity extends beyond product utility, as they actively seek insights into how others employ various products and services. Real-life encounters and the opinions of genuine individuals hold greater sway over their decision-making processes than brand-generated content. Crucially, 77% of shoppers exhibit a higher inclination to make purchases from brands that effectively personalize their shopping experiences. It is evident that change permeates the landscape for brands and retailers, necessitating a profound understanding of and adaptation to the evolving preferences and behaviors of this connected and discerning consumer base. Why Does Social Commerce Work For Fashion Brands? According to Statista, the number of social buyers in the United States alone reached a staggering 80 million in 2020, marking a notable 30% increase compared to the previous year. Experts suggest that the social commerce trend would have continued its growth trajectory even without the pandemic; however, COVID-19 acted as a catalyst, accelerating its expansion. In terms of monetary value, these consumers collectively spent around $27 billion throughout 2020. Retail experts predict that social commerce sales will witness a further surge of over 35% in 2021, surpassing $36 billion in consumer expenditure. Projections for the future paint an even more remarkable picture, with social commerce sales in the United States, expected to reach nearly $80 billion by 2025. The pandemic-induced spike in these numbers can be attributed to a significant shift in consumer behavior. Notably, consumers have become increasingly reliant on digital platforms, as highlighted by PWC's research, which revealed that over 50% of surveyed consumers reported a heightened digital engagement. Furthermore, the popularity of smartphone shopping has been steadily rising, outpacing in-store shopping since March 2021 by a two-percentage-point margin. Establishing a robust presence on social media platforms has proven to be a key driver of sales. Stores that maintain at least one social media account experience an average increase of 32% in sales compared to those that do not leverage social media channels. Social media platforms have also emerged as the go-to destination for product reviews, with a remarkable 84% of online buyers in the United States consulting these platforms before making a purchase decision. When it comes to discovering new brands and products, the younger demographic, specifically Generation Z, heavily relies on Instagram. Being a mobile-first generation, Gen Z utilizes Instagram as their primary channel for exploration, with a recent report from digital and creative agency Composed indicating that 60% of U.S. Gen Z shoppers utilize the platform for this purpose. While it is evident that capitalizing on the social media trend is crucial for the growth of e-commerce fashion brands, it is essential to know where to begin in order to navigate this landscape successfully and that is what we will break down for you! What Works in DTC and Social Commerce? Your Audience and Social Media: Your Audience and Social Media Consumers utilize social media platforms in a manner akin to their use of search engines, employing channels such as Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit as integral components of their purchasing journey. These platforms serve as valuable sources of information, allowing individuals to delve deeper into companies and products as part of their decision-making process. Moreover, social networks enable users to explore recommendations from their own networks, guiding them towards relevant offerings. In this manner, social media plays a pivotal role in connecting shoppers with their desired products and services. Over time, social media has transformed into a virtual marketplace, where users can engage with friends, brands, and creators, resembling the experience of perusing merchandise in a conventional store. Just as the likelihood of making a purchase increases with more time spent browsing in a physical setting, extended periods of interaction on social media platforms similarly enhance the chances of conversion. Customers tend to gravitate towards platforms they are already familiar with and comfortable using. Millennials and Generation Z, for instance, exhibit a preference for visually-oriented networks like Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat. In contrast, Baby Boomers are anticipated to favor Facebook as their platform of choice. Women seek inspiration and ideas on TikTok and Pinterest, while men turn to Twitter and Twitch for their next potential acquisitions. Apart from the prominent platforms, there exist other social buying sites such as Kaboodle and ShopStyle, which provide users with the ability to curate personal style boards, compile product lists, and engage in blogging. Much like the experience of shopping together in a physical store, these platforms facilitate product reviews and direct recommendations among friends and social connections. Your platform of choice should depend on the target audience of your product/service. It is important that you invest your energy and resources in a directive manner. The Recent (and Relevant)Trends: Present-day consumers display a keen interest in exploring novel features offered by social media platforms. Their diverse connections and interactions provide valuable insights to businesses regarding brand discovery and purchasing patterns. Among various tools for social media targeting, livestreams have gained exceptional popularity. A notable 71% of viewers engaging with livestreams have made purchases through social media, with 48% expressing a desire to utilize in-platform commerce tools for future transactions. Looking ahead to 2023, a significant portion of customers, approximately 45%, will prefer to make purchases directly through their favorite social media platforms. However, these customers also expect a more streamlined and efficient experience. While Gen Z emerges as the demographic most likely to embrace this functionality, with 52% expressing eagerness to engage in social media commerce, overall expectations encompass faster browsing and seamless purchasing processes. Moreover, as the metaverse continues to gain prominence, consumers can anticipate the integration of virtual or augmented reality-powered shopping carts in the near future. However, the extent to which customers embrace this trend largely depends on their generational affiliation. Older customers are generally less inclined to adopt these advancements, while early adopters exhibit a willingness to pay a premium for such immersive experiences. Notably, over 80% of consumers who regularly engage with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) technologies have already embraced social shopping, indicating their receptiveness to innovative approaches. Understand Influence: When making purchases on social media, 49% of buyers are influenced by targeted ads, while 4 out of 10 users are swayed by a brand's organic content. Some individuals (34%) seek recommendations from friends' posts or browse multiple social sites (34%) before making a decision. Throughout the purchasing process on social media, customers continue to rely on various influences: Friends Product comments, remarks, and reviews Brand familiarity Recommendations from significant others Among those aged 18 to 40, friends play the most crucial role in their purchasing decisions, followed by social media influencers. Millennials, Gen Z, and Gen X have developed increased trust in influencers, comparable to their trust in friends, particularly during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Baby Boomers, who are less influenced by Millennials, place greater trust in their significant others and friends. Trust plays a vital role in convincing individuals to purchase a specific product or service. Therefore, crowdsourced feedback or product reviews from strangers have the least influence on someone's buying decisions. Consumer’s Psychology The Recent (and Relevant)Trends One aspect of social shopping is the utilization of social proof and heuristic thinking. Consumers often observe what others are buying or have bought and take their lead from them. This is because people tend to view popular or dominant choices as the best and most valid options. It is a classic example of the power of peer influence. Social shopping features employ social evidence to encourage heuristic thinking in purchasing decisions. These features include Pick Lists, which provide insights into what people want and value, and Popularity Lists that showcase the most popular or remarkable products. Additionally, the Share Your Story tool allows consumers to offer human-interest testimonials or reviews, further influencing others' decisions. Follow the Leader Another psychological aspect of social shopping is the reliance on expert opinions and authority figures. Consumers have a natural tendency to trust the judgments of experts, regardless of what they say. This trust in expertise saves time and energy for users by relying on the knowledge and experience shared by authoritative individuals. Social shopping features take advantage of this tendency by incorporating Expert Reviews, which provide insights from niche leaders and industry experts. Referral-Generating Programs also play a role, as recommendations from trusted individuals within the community carry significant weight in the decision-making process. Follow Those You Like People often feel inclined to emulate and agree with individuals they like, admire, or find attractive. This tendency contributes to building social bonds and trust, as it is part of managing our image and identity through association. Social shopping features leverage this aspect by offering Influencer's Lists, showcasing the favorite brands, products, or services of influential individuals. Referral Programs create private shopping events or exclusive live-stream portals that are trusted by the social community. Additionally, Group Shopping features enable users to co-browse online stores together, allowing them to become influenced by the preferences of people they like and trust. In Conclusion Having a social commerce strategy in place is the current of doing business. To optimize yours, partner with Saffron Edge, a leading digital marketing agency with expertise in social media marketing and e-commerce. Contact us today to take your social shopping initiatives to new heights. ...

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Web design, what comes in your mind when you hear this word? Attractive, eye-catching, captivating or coming straight on point something that can hold your audience. There’s a lot to talk about the aspects of web designing. You will hear different things from different individuals. A ton of things to talk, but still not enough. Time to ask yourself, do you find your website attractive? If the answer is a ‘no’ then it’s time to face the truth and do something. “There are three responses to a piece of design – yes, no, and WOW! Wow is the one to aim for.”  –Milton Glaser What gives a web design the ‘wow’ effect? Every year new trends come up, generating the need for new design. Well, here are 8 different design aspect you should be looking for: Large, responsive images A lot of text can be boring, a lot images can do the same. But a significant ratio of both can grab the attention you need. Use of large and responsive images can add to the beauty of the website, in addition a bit of text can do wonders. Giant Product Images It's important to have images of your product. No matter how much descriptive your text is, but the job of an image is done by an image.Use large product images that give all the detailing. if need be, highlight all the necessary details within the image. Card Design With the rise of new picture based platforms like Pinterest, designers and marketers equally fascinated with cards. Individual cards help distribute information in a visual way so the visitors can easily consume bite-sized pieces of content without being overwhelmed. Short Product or Feature Videos Use autoplay videos in the background which can tell a story. Short videos of your product rather than writing tons of words to describe it. Using videos can make user experience achieve a new heights. Keep in mind videos should be descriptive, detailed and good. About us and Contact Info A short, precise and purely detailed page describing your company. Answering all the question like, where are you located, what are your services and how they can find you, Answer all these and your website is running ahead of its competitors. A page dedicated at contact info of all the important contact person in the company can be a good thing to look for. Search An additional search button to help the users who are facing difficulties. When you know your needs, it gets annoying to go through all the unnecessary stuff again and again. ‘Better we skip the page and look somewhere else’ this might be your user’s words. SO consider adding a search option. Informational Footer Instead of using the header for the important details, use the footer. This is a trending new way, used by most of the websites these days. Make the footer useful and simple. Couple of buttons or link style design, the footer should connect with the website design. ...

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To meet up with the demand of the global market and your business’s set aside goals, there is always a need for inventiveness. The year 2015 came with almost a quite challenging deal, there were a good number of innovations and ideas, even so, the industry boomed beyond imagination. However, in order to make 2016 a more favorable marketable year, every business must recognize the hidden talisman within it. Business revolution is forevernot expected to be the same, this why it is called a “revolutionary trend” which must change with regard to timing. If your business must continue in its steady growth or, in any case needs a new touch, mapping out your checklist in such a way that it incorporates new ideas with regard to latest happening in the industry is relevant. Email Strategy A/B Test Your winnings through email marketing is obvious, but don’t you think that improvement in this area can assist? Let’s get down to the deal; Performing A/B testing can help produce actionable result within a very short period of time and hence improve your marketing endeavors. Try Re-Engagement Not every person on your mailing list is an interested engaged subscriber, and continuously blasting email to this set of people automatically hurts your sender reputation. This is one sure reason why you need a re-engagement campaign setup. By the end of the month, you may be surprised to realize a fresh stupendous engagement. Longtail is better than Short tail The ability to recognize long tail keywords in every inbound marketing content is a recipe that should not be neglected at any point in time. Long tail keywords may be around three words or more, should you have fuss recognizing them. The benefit is it does not only help you content to get found (because of the specificity of the words), but is also less competitive to the short tail keywords. Incorporate Newsjacking formula If you’re not familiar with newsjacking, you may find it difficult to cope in it. Nevertheless, one or two lessons can help you. Newsjacking is a unique way to tell carry news around in your traditional system. Staying updated with news perhaps in your own dialect, local community and around the world. this strategy works like “surefire”, and pretty darn immediate. Regurgitate your social Media Campaign Remember that there are also social media algorithmic changes, and these changes update as often as possible. Buckle up your shoes and get going, invest some good money in your social media campaign for all platforms and see how best you can take your competitors by the horn. Free tools are Gold Mines With the heavy frustrating competition in inbound marketing nowadays, do you hope to get something out of nothing? Free tools are gold mines, building one or two of it will surprisingly alter your marketing success. Help you to draw customers and potential prospects closer, once they’re sure that something great lays in for them. Incorporate the use of Tracking tokens If you are a professional marketer (be you an inbound or outbound marketer), I certainly believe you now use tracking tokens to monitor your contents and campaigns. If not, you definitely might be missing out on the goodies others are enjoying. Tracking tokens is a piece of hocus pocus you may slap at the end of any URL to engage analytics into that page. This aids easy tracking and monitorization of such content and the activities of the users on it and propels you into making optimum changes. ...

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