The intersection of influencer marketing and livestream shopping has opened up a new world of opportunities for brands. The power of real-time engagement combined with the persuasive influence of popular personalities can be a game-changer for your sales strategy. In this blog post, we’ll explore how to effectively leverage influencer marketing to make your livestream shopping events a resounding success.
Livestream shopping is an interactive, real-time event where brands use engaging video content to showcase their products, offering viewers the opportunity to make purchases directly from the livestream. This vibrant format encourages instant interaction, enabling viewers to provide real-time feedback and ask questions on the spot. Much like a virtual shopping party, it brings the thrill of retail therapy right to your viewers’ screens, making shopping more personal, immediate, and interactive. If you partner with an influencer, these experiences can create lasting impressions about your brand.
Why try live shopping?
After gaining immense popularity in Asia, livestream events have emerged as a strong opportunity for brands to engage with audiences through creative content and real-time sales tactics.
In China, live e-commerce reached a market value of 4.92 million Yuan and it’s projected to grow in bounds each year, according to Statista. While it remains to be seen whether this trend can make the jump from Asia to North America, livestream shopping events could present the right opportunity for many brands’ social plans. Already live shopping has become more prevalent on platforms like TikTok.
Among many American brands to dip into livestream shopping, Nordstrom debuted its own livestream shopping event series in 2021, offering up key people from brands such as Tom Ford, Burberry, and Giorgio Armani, among many others. These events allowed viewers opportunities to purchase seamlessly, along with advice on styling and inside information about products.
Which influencers should you work with on livestreams?
A wide array of influencers can be right for a livestream experience. High-profile influencers will attract viewers, bringing your brand increased exposure and association with a big name. However, micro- or nano-influencers bring their dedicated audiences to the table, offering your brand increased engagement and possibly more rich opportunities to boost sales.
Leveraging influencers in livestream shopping
Your brand could consider a livestream shopping event for many reasons. You may want to build your brand’s voice in your industry, showing off your knowledge and expertise through the mouthpiece of a trendy influencer. A live experience could also seek to ramp up sales or simply grow your brand’s social following.
Identify the purpose of the livestream. You can gear a livestream toward increasing sales, creating a better reputation, engaging a particular customer segment, or any other goal. Once you know what your brand is after, you can choose an influencer who fits that objective and let your influencer partner engage their audience.
Offer access to your brand. Influencers want to participate in something intriguing. Your brand can offer them the chance to speak with an influential person, try an exclusive product, or visit your brand’s headquarters. This makes for excellent content, and you can make a lasting impression to start or continue your partnership with an influencer.
Create urgency and exclusivity. Viewers of a livestream shopping experience are primed to become buyers. You can find the tipping point between interest in your brand and willingness to become a customer. Livestreams not only offer more information and a live experience with your brand, but they also can facilitate seamless purchases, often within the same platform on which you are streaming.
Interact with fans. A live event is your brand’s opportunity to add context and answer questions. By answering their questions, you can make an impression on viewers.
Learn from collected data. Any livestream presents an opportunity to learn a lot about your fanbase. Make a note of how many followers you gained, how many users who tuned in were already following you, or how the live stream affected sales. Livestreams provide many data points that your brand can learn from.
Ready to add livestream shopping experiences to your marketing plan? At IZEA, we offer full-service and self-service options to help you launch a successful livestream event.
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