Exeter Web Design and Digital Marketing Agency - we've built over 900 websites for businesses, charities and public bodies. We specialise in Web development, eCommerce, Digital marketing, Branding, Positioning, Design and Print. Based in Exeter, in Devon, we have clients across the UK. Contact us for help making your marketing more effective.
The rise of Instagram and its enhancement of eCommerce is great to see. Personally I absolutely love it. Why? Because it puts all the control in the hands of the user and those businesses who are smart enough to embrace this, are now seeing the uplift in their bottom line.
We have created quite a few online shops which include an immersive experience with Instagram, such a simple ‘wall’ that dynamically pulls in the latest images from Instagram and displays them neatly – see our DirtyWorks site below:
You can also be more creative, as we did recently with a small online shop for Quick Fix Facials beauty products, where we actively promoted the hashtag #quickfixfacials on the home page and pulled them into a polaroid-style display.
By showing your product out there in the ‘real world’ you are not only setting up a feel good vibe on the site, you are reinforcing trust in the popularity of your product. Also it networks on your behalf for free, as sharing on Instagram is what it’s all about. Online etiquette dictates that you use a hashtag and acknowledge the original creator where you can…it’s just polite.
There was one specific key sales moment recently that really won me over to the power of Instagram. I was browsing on the Boden website and saw that they had introduced a #bodenbyme feature, where they encouraged their customers to post up photos of them wearing Boden clothes. I was umming and ahing about their new Posy Shirt Dress and I clicked through to see the Instagram feed specific to that product, and then saw the everyday women there looking fantastic in the dress and I bought it. I liked the fact too that is wasn’t all skinny young size 10 models either. The dress looked real, that it would stand up to everyday living and that’s what convinced me in the end.
I wonder if online retailers stop and think about the time we spend on a product and the ‘buying journey’ of their customers before they hit the ‘Buy’ button. My journey is down the Instagram path now, every time.