You can create the most beautiful and spectacular live stream (optimized for conversions), but what’s the point if there’s no audience to watch it?
A successful live stream is not only the result of strategy and technology; promotion also plays a fundamental role in the success of your live event, helping you acquire and grow your audience. But to effectively promote your live streams, you need to reach your customers across all the physical and digital touchpoints they regularly engage with: in other words, you need to implement an omnichannel strategy.
Omnichannel is a strategic approach aimed at creating a seamless experience across all contact channels, both online and offline. Embracing an omnichannel approach is more essential than ever today. More than 85% of consumers prefer to interact with brands using both physical and digital channels (source: CMO Council). Moreover, it has been estimated that retailers who do not adopt omnichannel solutions lose between 10% and 30% of sales (source: IMD).
Today, we will explore how to adopt an omnichannel strategy for effectively promoting your Live Shopping events in all phases: before, during, and after your live streams.
Indice
Before the live stream
It’s important to promote the event across different channels before the live stream to maximize its reach and drive traffic to the live page. After all, Live Shopping is an inbound marketing channel that can attract users and increase visitors to your site. Here are some channels and tools to help you increase viewers for your live streams.
Social media content
Create social content that sparks your followers’ curiosity: teaser videos, previews featuring the hosts who will lead the live stream, sneak peeks of the products presented live… in short, engage your users with content that captures their attention and builds hype around the event.
Paid ads
Additionally, you can create content to sponsor: this will give you greater visibility, reaching target audiences that haven’t yet been engaged.
Email Marketing
Create email marketing campaigns and newsletters dedicated to your event. You can use these campaigns as reminders for your customers or to invite them to participate in your event.
Messaging apps and SMS
You can also implement this strategy on messaging platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram.
Don’t underestimate offline communication channels like SMS, which allow you to reach your users effectively.
In-store
The omnichannel strategy continues in the offline world with in-store promotion. You can display trailers of the live stream on monitors placed at the entrance or in the windows of your store to spark the curiosity of those consumers who are less engaged online. You can also place QR codes in strategic locations, such as near the checkout areas, to encourage customers to visit the Live Shopping section of your website.
For example, this is what Doppelgänger did by placing monitors in their retail locations with QR codes linking to the live stream page.
During the live stream
Promoting a live event while it’s airing, or shortly before it begins, is crucial for ensuring a higher number of viewers. How can you do this?
On your website
You can encourage visitors to your brand to participate in your live stream through a floating launcher. A floating launcher is a thumbnail that displays the live stream in real-time on the homepage and other preferred pages of your site. This way, you can pique the curiosity of and attract users visiting your eCommerce site during or shortly before the live event, turning them into viewers.
Multistreaming
Why broadcast on just one channel? With the multistreaming feature, you can stream your live event on multiple platforms simultaneously. This allows you to gain greater visibility, reach your target audience comprehensively, and engage with your audience across various platforms.
In addition to streaming the live event on your site, you can also go live on social media, inviting your followers to watch the stream—either on social media itself or on your website for a more immersive experience directly integrated with your eCommerce.
(Read the article on the differences between live streams on your site and social media).
You can also go live on other platforms, such as your app, or on third-party sites by forming strategic partnerships with relevant brands and media companies.
After the live stream
Who says the live event ends when the stream is over? After the event, you can promote a rewatch of the live stream to maintain high engagement levels. In fact, it is often in the post-live phase that you see the highest number of views and conversions. How can you promote post-live content?
Shoppable videos
Extract short clips from the live stream to use as shoppable videos. Shoppable videos are short, TikTok-style videos hosted on your site and integrated with your shop, which can be uploaded to the homepage as well as other pages like product sheets.
What moments should you extract from the live stream? Product demos, tutorials, and even Q&A moments and expert advice: this way, you can help customers better understand the products, reducing impulsive purchases and, consequently, returns.
Social media short-form videos
You can extract key highlight videos from your event for your social channels: this will benefit your content strategy and also your viewers, keeping the memory of your live stream alive.
With these shorts, you can also stimulate a sense of FOMO among social followers who missed your live event, creating the urge to catch up on the content on your site and participate in future live events.
Conclusions
The combination of an omnichannel strategy with Live Shopping brings numerous benefits that can significantly enhance the customer experience and sales effectiveness.
Here’s a summary of the main advantages:
- Increased engagement: Live Shopping offers an interactive and engaging experience that, combined with omnichannel strategies, allows customers to interact with the brand across multiple platforms, thereby increasing engagement;
- Higher conversions: The omnichannel approach leverages the strengths of each channel to guide customers toward making a purchase during the live event;
- Improved data collection: Direct interaction in Live Shopping across multiple channels enables the collection of valuable data on customer behaviors and preferences, which is useful for optimizing future sales strategies.
In short, adopting an omnichannel strategy in Live Shopping can lead to an enriched customer experience, increased loyalty from your audience, and a boost in views and conversions.
LET’S TAKE IT LIVE TOGETHER!
