How to Sell More: Listen to Social Consumers

Social Consumers Are Sharing Your Growth Plan

Every day, social consumers share – for free! – the kinds of data that companies pay market researchers a lot of money to help them gather.

By monitoring and analyzing the information visitors and customers share via social media, brands can learn how to improve their products, sell more of them and create better customer experiences.

Bazaarvoice has recently done a macro-level analysis of customer input by listening in on 11+ million consumer conversations worldwide. Their new report yields some interesting trend information and gives solid recommendations for retailers looking to leverage social insights. Report excerpts plus an accompanying infographic are provided below.

What Can You Learn from 11 Million Data Points?

Insights from Bazaarvoice‘s Conversation Index, Volume 3 report analyzes data from 11+ million pieces of content generated by users on its clients’ sites during the past six months. 5 key insights and related recommendations include:

1 | Sharing is Caring

12% of consumer product reviews include suggestions.
Nearly 80% of the suggestions focus on product attributes like color, size or style + product experience improvements.
Only 14.5% of suggestions point out real flaws

Recommendations

Escalate product issues for rapid response.
Develop scalable systems to notify contributors when their feedback has been implemented.
Mine onsite search terms shoppers use to prioritize site architecture and navigation improvements.
Identify pivot language – words or phrases that marks a transition in tone or sentiment – in feature or product discussions that tell you a suggestion is coming. The most common pivot words in the Bazaarvoice study were: “however,” “wish,” and “although.”

2 | In-store Shoppers Are Less Happy

In-store shoppers of all ages are less satisfied with their purchases than online shoppers. (see infographic below)
Half of consumers who give online feedback bought the product in a store versus online. Yet, only 45% of the in-store buyers received an email asking them to review their purchases, versus 80% of online shoppers.

Recommendations

Assume that in-store shoppers want to engage with other shoppers and your brand about the things they buy.
Bring the best of online shopping (easy research, consumer opinions, and product comparisons) into the store. Simply offering free WiFi can help.
Go further by allowing shoppers to see an augmented reality display when holding their smart phones up to products on your shelves, including related social content or the highest-rated products in each aisle.

3 | Mobile Shoppers are Night Owls

Half of all mobile browsing and buying takes place after normal business hours. (see infographic below)

Recommendations

Optimize for iPad and mobile to engage and convert nighttime shoppers
Be there when your customers want to interact with your brand. Just like physical stores require a staff of knowledgeable people to help customers, online presences must also be staffed 24/7.

4 | Social Shoppers Spend More

Visits to a brand’s site directly from Facebook make up less than 1% of its total site traffic.
Visitors from social sites are up to 60% less likely to buy, which may mean they are at earlier stages in the decision process.
But visitors from social networks who make a purchase, spend more money than shoppers who come via Google.
Shoppers from Twitter have the highest average order value – $121.33 – of all shoppers who visit directly from Facebook, Twitter, and Google.
Twitter users spend 18% more than Facebook users, on average.

Recommendations

Know your platform: Facebook visitors choose engagement over shopping, so don’t focus all your energy on making your Facebook page purely transactional.
Design social features into your site that make it easy for visitors to log in to site features with their social credentials and post and share content without leaving the site.

5 | Users Can Help You Help Other Users

If one person has a question about a product, others probably do too. (see infographic below)
Visitors misspell brand and product names and terms, sometimes finding what they’re looking for within the (also misspelled) contributions of other users.

Recommendations

Update product descriptions to answer recurring questions.
Add videos and step-by-step instructions to fill in gaps early in the shopping process, turning shoppers into buyers.
Resist the urge to correct spelling and other errors in user generated content. The lack of perfection will ring truer to other consumers.

Social Data Is Great For Building Loyalty

Consumers are telling you – right now – what to change. Listen to and act on their feedback to create customers for life. As Bazaarvoice reminds us, “It’s hard to imagine a better way to earn loyalty than to bake [customer] suggestions into the products you create and sell.” And, don’t forget to measure your social media efforts so you really understand how social consumers are driving sales and other business objectives.