5 Reasons Retailers Can Win with Live Shopping, Content Creators, & Influence Marketing

The Effectiveness of Content Creators in Live Selling to Drive Sales Success

Innovative retailers know that live selling is a powerful way to turn traditional product listings into meaningful customer interactions that drive revenue. A similar retail strategy that also builds trust online, creates community, and drives conversions? Influence marketing—where content creators collect diehard followers and use this influence to promote sales.

The power of influence marketing is undeniable. For every single dollar spent on influence marketing, brands have reported earning nearly 600% that amount in return. Like live sellers, many content creators have also tapped into the latest retail technologies to successfully turned their online personalities into global, multi-billion dollar businesses—from $9.7 billion in 2020 to nearly $14 billion in 2021—with no signs of slowing down.

So why should retailers tap into these two powerful sales strategies to turn heads and revenue? Because live selling and influence marketing are two powerful tools that work even better together.

5 Reasons Why Content Creators and Brands = Live Selling Success

The key pillars to successful live sales are also embedded in the core qualities of a successful content creator: foster connections, build community, talk shop, have fun, and deliver an engaging experience.

An intelligent creator role can help brands better target specific demographics, reignite loyalty from existing customers, lower marketing costs, and shorten the customer journey. When paired with the real-time connection and seamless checkout experience offered through live selling, it’s a match made in retail heaven.

That being said, here are our top five reasons pairing live sales with content creators is a win-win strategy that shouldn’t be missed.

1. Trust Already Exists

A huge barrier for retailers to tackle is building authentic connections with their shoppers, a feat worth attempting as it leads to higher customer lifetime value (CLV) and repeat purchase rates—not to mention it is much more expensive to replace existing customers with new ones than to maintain healthy relationships with existing shoppers.

The good news for brands looking to secure customer loyalty is that content creators already have it. A whopping 92% of consumers claim to trust content creators more than standard advertisements, brand messaging, or full-blown celebrity endorsements. This means that creator followers are much more likely to take advice and/or purchase recommendations over a longer period of time from a content creator than from a traditional ad campaign or a company’s social media posts.

How to Tap Into Creator Trust

The beautiful thing about live selling is that it gives brands and retailers the opportunity to let someone’s personality shine—whoever is in front of the camera as the live sale host or model. This could be one person or a handful of people.

Many smaller brands when starting off with live selling use staff members as live sale hosts and have found incredible success doing so. But businesses don’t also have to be the face of their live sales strategy. Instead, they can use a content creator with a built-in fan base and let that community and the trust they have garnered over time work in their favor.

2. Content Creators Can Convert…Quickly

The traditional customer journey takes an interested party through four “sales funnel” stages: awareness, interest, desire, and action. At the top of this funnel, during the awareness and interest stages, potential customers are learning about a product or service and gauging their need for it or interest in it.

Content creators, because they are influential, can drastically shorten the amount of time a potential shopper spends considering a product or service. Content creators use their sway, charisma, likeability, and openness to talk honestly about their opinions and the products they are promoting. Their fans appreciate the candor and therefore trust the creator. This being the case, shoppers often jump from the top of the funnel to the bottom: shifting quickly from awareness and interest to desire and action—in other words, straight to conversion.

How to Convert Shoppers Fast

Chinese consumers are well acquainted with live shopping—and retailers are reaping the benefits.

One live sale streamed to the Chinese marketplace Alibaba brought in $7.5 billion in its first 30 minutes. Kim Kardashian also went live on the platform, selling KKW perfume to more than 13 million viewers. The U.S. is catching up to these numbers and isn’t far behind. Especially when influencer marketing is involved.

A U.S. live seller using Videeo’s live selling technology earned an average $6.5 thousand in total sales per live shopping event. When the same U.S. retailer started using influence marketing with a content creator, their sales skyrocketed by 800%, earning an average of nearly $60 thousand per live sale event.

The same live seller saw a 240% increase in viewership and a 450% increase in total orders simply by employing a content creator to host their live shopping events. Their revenue by the minute shot up from $140 to a whopping $1,200 dollars proving that the value and influence of content creators is all too real.

Another benefit? Influence marketing continues to sell even after traditional “campaigns” end. The influence of the content creator doesn’t disappear as a traditional ad campaign does once it stops running; content creators exist in the public spear, so too does brand recognition associated with that creator.

Even more, certain live commerce platforms make live sales shoppable even after the fact. Brands can use recordings of their live sale, or snippets of it, to boost sales well into the future.

The key to quicker conversions? Tap into the power of a live selling content creator.

3. Content Creators Can Tap into Niche Markets

There is a spectrum of influence. These social tiers are based on the number of loyal followers an influencer/content creator has and can help brands tap into larger (or smaller) markets specific to their goals.

Mega-Influencers have more than 1 million followers and are a great—albeit expensive—option for enterprise businesses looking to build major awareness more than user engagement. The bigger the content creator, the more eyes per post, which leads to stronger brand recognition and product visibility; however, meaningful customer relationships can be somewhat lost in the sea of mega-influencer followers.

Macro-Influencers have 100,000 to 1 million followers. Similar to the mega-influencer, this group has a large follower base, so is a good option for businesses looking to build awareness. These types of content creators typically specialize in a niche industry—perhaps sports, wellness, or thought leadership—so their content is typically more refined and thematic than some of the smaller content creators, making macro-influencers a good choice for brands with a cohesive vision they want to adhere to.

Mid-tier Influencers have 10,000 to 200,000 followers, and like their larger counterparts, they are well-known online figures. Successful content creators in their own right, mid-tier influencers are good at playing the long game and building a steady stream of engagement from their followers, who are likely to stick with them on their journey.

Micro-Influencers have 10,000 to 100,000 followers. While their follower count might be smaller, something micro-influencers can definitively claim as their specialty is authenticity. Micro-content creators are often more sedentary within a niche industry and have a fan base of like-minded followers. This is an incredibly powerful pocket of consumers for brands to gain access to. According to Forbes, micro-influncers have a 60% engagement rate and a 20% conversion rate, much higher than that of their larger counterparts. For brands that also exist within a niche industry—home goods, hair care, weightlifting, yoga, etc.—finding a mico-influencer in the same category is a sure way to build loyal, repeat customers.

Nano-Influencers have 10,000 followers or fewer and are great for smaller businesses looking to showcase their personality, take a stance, and deeply connect with their followers. Nano-influencers are typically very open and share frequent, two-way communication with their supporters, which leads to high engagement rates and trust-building over longer periods of time…an incredible asset for brands and retailers who are in it for the long run.

How to Lean Into Niche Markets

One might think the bigger, the better, but this isn’t always the case, especially when it comes to customer acquisition. When choosing a live shopping content creator, think about your goals: if you’re trying to build brand recognition and awareness, go with a larger mega or macro influencer who offers guaranteed eyes on your products. If you’re hoping to see engagement and conversions within your pocket of the market, use a smaller-scale creator to speak to your audience.

4. Customer Engagement Comes Naturally

A huge benefit to live commerce is the ability to communicate with shoppers in real time. This can be an incredible opportunity for content creators and brands to form authentic or even intimate relationships with their followers—something content creators have already perfected.

Successful content creators specialize in building meaningful connections—which for a brand, can significantly increase sales. Content creators use their candor and transparency to seamlessly acquire new followers, who in turn, become customers. This process is a great way to boost conversion rates and revenue gained for the brands and products they endorse.

Another perk? Content creators are less hesitant to address touchy subjects, like product cost increases, making them a smart and powerful mouthpiece for brands who have yet to develop a public “voice” or are unsure of how to tackle a sensitive topic. Content creators offer an intimate look into their personal lives that brands often don’t, making them a great choice as a live selling host.

How to Engage with Customers

Live commerce works because it lets the video host do what it does best: share their stories and personality with viewers who enjoy their company. The best way to utilize influence marketing in this case is to find a brand influencer who already presents in a way that would resonate with your audience. Then, let them do their magic.

5. Supportive Influence Marketing Platforms Exist

The qualities that make a good content creator are what make a good live sale—an engaging on-screen personality that entertains, builds authentic rapport with followers, and carries significant buying influence.

When adopting this two-pronged approach, it’s important to partner with a powerful live selling platform like Videeo, one that delivers relevant, on-screen information to live sale hosts, and also keeps user experience at top of mind with seamless, in-stream checkout and push notifications.

Shops using influence marketing with Videeo’s technology in 2022 saw an 800% increase in sales by adopting a live selling content creator to host their live sales. Thankfully, getting started with live sales and influence marketing has never been easier.

Ready to blend content creation, influencer marketing, and live commerce?

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