It’s time to start a conversation about the future of marketing and where eCommerce is going. When eCommerce started, the main focus was building an online presence, and a good one.
The next step was recognizing the importance of responding to users and building strong customer support methods. With the rise of social media, social channels became the standard for engagement.
But brands quickly learned that simply being present on social was not enough:
Brands needed to be content machines and automate engagement to rise above the noise.
Now, we’re entering a new stage of marketing. In this stage, smart eCommerce stores know the importance of content, social, SEO, and customer service.
Their marketing is a fine-tuned machine, and they’re checking off all the boxes to have customer success.
Yet they’re not satisfied with their results. Their customers aren’t engaged enough, their retention rates are low, their customer base has no brand loyalty.
Whatever the issue may be, these eCommerce stores are looking for an answer.
The answer lies in the future of marketing.
When content and commerce collide…
As Get Elastic so aptly explains, many eCommerce stores are experimenting with methods to combine content and commerce, through storytelling and instructive video, editorial content, merchandised photographs, and “lo-fi” content created for social networks.
Content and commerce is more than a trend, it’s representative of the future of eCommerce marketing.
The future of content advertising is about connecting with your customers by joining the conversations they’re already having.
It’s about learning to use the content that your consumers are generating — on social media and in dedicated campaigns — in your own marketing.
It’s about marketing with consumer-generated content.
What the data has to say about the future of marketing
We took a look into data from over 100,000 stores to see what upwards trends we saw in marketing.
The data says it all:
Customer content marketing is going to be a game-changer over the next few years.
If you are able to engage customers and generate authentic content that is transparent, socially-integrated, personalized, data-driven and insightful you will be leading your businesses into success.
Our users’ revenue from user-generated content has continually increased year-on-year. UGC is already having a big impact on generating revenue for customers, but more importantly, it’s value is rising over time.
What’s causing this increase?
Customers are becoming increasingly wary of branded content and respond better to the authenticity of customer-created content, like Instagram photos showing customers wearing products or reviews rating a recent restaurant visit.
Customer content of all types is quickly changing the shape of marketing, and as it does, increasing the profits of those who have begun implementing it in their marketing.
Customer content also increases social marketing efforts. Over the course of one year, simply by sharing customer content on social media, our customers’ Facebook followers have increased by 270% and their Twitter followers increased by 150%.
Clearly, UGC is bringing the wave of the future. Are you ready for the ride?
