Key Insights: The two missing pieces of your holiday season digital strategy that influence consumer buying decisions

30-second summary:

• 2020 has given consumers and brands the most digital-first holiday shopping season.
• Consumers are making buying decisions in the “messy middle” stages – namely, exploration and evaluation.
• “Cheapest” vs “best”, what’s winning consumers’ search worldwide?
• If you’re still looking for ways to finetune your holiday season digital strategy, we’re sharing insights about just the missing pieces.

This week we’re going for a strategy-heavy look at the crucial phases that influence your consumers’ buying decisions and how you can slam dunk sales by bumping up your digital marketing strategy to resonate through sales.

2020 consumers and brands have seen the most digital-first holiday shopping season and consumers are making buying decisions in the “messy middle” stages – namely, exploration and evaluation. 

According to Google’s behavioral science analysis, despite the global economic pressure, people aren’t interested in the “cheapest” products/services. The graph below pits the “cheapest” vs “best” search trend worldwide to establish this observation. This once again emphasizes consumer needs for quality products, services, and communications. Brands, are you listening?

‘Authority bias’ (being swayed by an expert or trusted sources) is one of the top cognitive biases that influence purchase decision-making. If you’re still looking for ways to finetune your holiday season digital strategy, we’re sharing insights about just the missing piece – influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing: The $15 billion global industry

Trust has been a significant factor that influences consumers shopping online in 2020 which has added more fuel to the influencer marketing industry which is poised to be a $15 billion global industry by 2022.

Three crucial facts on influencer marketing 2020

Gartner’s latest report looked into the scope of influencer marketing and the waves it has made in 2020. Here are three key facts:

• 79% of consumers followed influencer content 
• 43% of these consumers want to see more influencer content in at least one product category
• Nearly two-thirds of CMOs claimed to increase their marketing budgets in 2020

While the report also identified that 50% of marketers struggled to spot fake followers and content, it also highlighted these recommendations:

• Adopting initial low-risk strategies of targeting micro-influencers providing lower costs and high reward prospective through their sphere of influence
• Determining stages where influencer marketing can add value in the purchase cycle 

The website experience and online shopping

Nearly 70% of consumers felt that their purchase was most influenced by the brand’s website. This stat in itself has made brands focus more on their digital strategies to:

• Minimize fiction in the online shopping experience
• Provide improve product knowledge to consumers
• Increasing CTR by identifying and fixing silos in the CX

Some key findings from Gartner were:

• Of the 91% of retailers that use sort/filter options on their website, only 37% of B2B websites and 13% of banking sites capitalized on them
• 84% of retail websites offer autosuggest search, however, just 41% of B2B sites use this feature
• Essential elements to have in a website were – social media, store locators, and customer service tools

Top action-points that websites need to drive conversions:

• Optimizing the search algorithm for improved product discovery
• Minimizing the number of clicks needed to land on a product conversion page
• Keeping loyalty program pages and high-traffic pages in a one-click reach

ClickZ readers’ choice for the week

This week, our readers have been busy amping up their strategies with our weekly insights, COVID-19 related digital behaviors in 2021, and advanced digital marketing.

1. Key Insights: Exclusive market intelligence and ecommerce highlights
2. COVID-related digital behaviors that won’t be going away in 2021
3. Global Topology International Digital Marketing

source https://www.clickz.com/key-insights-the-two-missing-pieces-of-your-holiday-season-digital-strategy-that-influence-consumer-buying-decisions/264320/