With the rise of social as a commerce discovery platform, brands have to step up their visual marketing game to stand out from the crowd and create an on-site journey that’s as visually engaging as Instagram.
The visual marketing revolution
Visual marketing has proven to be a powerful tool in social commerce, with social media posts that contain photos getting 53% more likes, 104% more comments, and 84% higher click-through rates.
As social networks becoming a prime place for product discovery, online brands now face the challenge of competing not only with other brands in their industry, but online stores at large in terms of who delivers the best visual on-site experience for their shoppers.
But knowing which visuals to use and at what stage of the customer journey is key to driving conversion on site and across your marketing channels.
Why visual UGC?
As powerful as visuals are for your shoppers on site experience, not all images are created equal. In fact, 54% of consumers have decided against purchasing a product due to unhelpful photos.
A major challenge for brands today is to produce enough fresh and engaging visuals to showcase across every channel.
This is where your visual UGC truly shines. User-generated photos are authentic and relatable to shoppers, and drive better results than branded content when it comes to influencing purchase decisions and increasing conversion. Not only that, but customers constantly create new UGC, ensuring you always have enough new, varied content to use on and off-site.
Maximizing your buyer journey with visual UGC
So how do you infuse high-performing visual UGC across the buyer journey? These are our top tips for ensuring you maximize every customer touchpoint with authentic and engaging customer photos:
1) Homepage
Most shoppers make their way to your site without any specific purchase intent.
By showcasing exciting product galleries on your homepage featuring your user-generated photos, you can inspire shoppers with ideas, show them what your brand is about, and help them discover products they didn’t know they wanted.
2) Category Pages
Make your buyer journey more engaging and exciting by getting creative with your galleries based on your brand identity.
Showcase your products in exciting visual displays that feature your best UGC and inspire visual discovery through latest collection galleries, Shop the Look pages, and competition pop-ups.
3) Product Pages
Any customer that has made their way to your product pages is expressing intent, and is likely looking to find more information about the product they’re thinking of purchasing.
This is the perfect opportunity for you to showcase your best visual UGC of customers using and and enjoying that product to give shoppers the social proof they need to feel confident about it and drive purchase decisions forward.
4) Checkout Page
Every page is an opportunity for further product discovery or brand engagement, even your checkout page.
Decrease cart abandonment at checkout and even encourage upsells by showcasing your happy customers in exciting user-generated photos at the point of purchase.
Happy UGC-ing!