Your ultimate guide to product discovery: Where are shoppers discovering your products in 2024?
Brand discovery can occur at any time, whether consumers are scrolling through social media, browsing the web, walking through a supermarket or even talking to friends and family.?
Today, shoppers are increasingly heading online to explore new products, find out more information about products they’ve seen, and keep up with evolving trends. In fact,? Salesforce research shows that more than three-quarters of shoppers use multiple channels to start and complete a transaction. This shift has introduced numerous pathways in the customer buying journey, requiring brands to stay ahead of the various ways customers can discover them.?
This article will explore the key places brands need to connect with shoppers, how each channel integrates into the modern buying journey, and how brands can transform product description pages for success at the point of purchase.??
So, how are shoppers discovering your products in 2024??
Social Media?
Social Media trends have the power to make or break a product. Products go viral for a number of reasons and many social media apps and websites even have built in shopping features to shorten the path to purchase. However, when it comes to FMCG products, in particular fresh and perishable products, creating a social media shop-front doesn’t always work, meaning work needs to be done to ensure that the links between social media and?product pages are consistent and simple for a shopper to interact with.?
Take UK Retailer M&S, whose new range of layered dips has recently gone viral in the UK, with many Content Creators publishing videos trying the new products and reviewing for other shoppers.?With a now viral product, it is important that M&S optimise discovery and enable shoppers to quickly find these viral products online and instore quickly. A quick Google Search of ‘viral M&S dips’ will bring you right to the Ocado website and online product listings via the top results, simplifying the shoppers’ path to purchase and demonstrating the ease that optimised?SEO?can bring for brands, retailers and shoppers. ??
Social media allows brands to communicate their brand identity more creatively to connect with more shoppers. Enriching the product page at the point of purchase is an easy way to further communicate brand identity and ensure a consistent omnichannel experience. This is easily done via rich media assets like images, videos, infographics and GIFs that enhance the shopper experience by bringing qualities of your product and branding to life.?
In-store discovery??
Shoppers may discover your product at the shelf edge, and for many this may be enough to add-to-basket, but for more cautious shoppers, they may continue the journey of discovery online. We know that a high number of shoppers utilise online pages via their mobile devices while shopping in store to find out more information about products.?
In fact, 70% of shoppers use their mobile devices to research product information, even when shopping in-store (Google). Brands are increasingly utilising the shelf space to connect with online product pages to enable shoppers to go beyond the pack in their product discovery with QR codes and shelf-edge retail media displays. ?
Making your brand seamlessly identifiable both on and offline is essential to tying discovery experiences together.?
High quality product imagery that matches the in-store packaging is a great place to start. The online shopping experience needs to account for the fact a shopper cannot physically hold and inspect an item. Including high-quality product imagery of all key angles of a product on a product page, alongside scale-imagery and lifestyle imagery to help visualise the size and feel of the product.?
Infographic imagery takes this a step further to truly excel and connect with short shopper attention-spans. If a brand has paid for an instore activation, whether that be a simple shelf edge banner or a fully-fledged in-store marketing activation, why not carry that marketing through to the product page? This can be executed via infographic imagery above or below the fold depending on the site. See the perfect example below.??
With seamless integration, one update to a product page reaches all potential online customers instantly, whilst in-store activations may come with high-cost and only reaches the foot-traffic of specific stores.?It is something brands should highly consider when developing their product strategies. ?
Advertising/Brand Partnerships?
Advertising, whether through traditional media like TV and print, or digital platforms such as social media and search engines, strategically places products in front of potential customers, sparking interest and driving engagement. Brand partnerships, on the other hand, leverage the credibility and audience of partner brands to reach new demographics and enhance brand visibility. Collaborations with influencers, complementary businesses, or sponsorships in popular events can create a buzz and provide a trusted recommendation that resonates with consumers, effectively broadening the reach and impact of product discovery efforts.?
Tying these advertising campaigns and brand partnerships to the product page can be as simple as updating marketing copy to match seasonal campaigns, adding new video advertisements to the product page or keeping product imaging consistent with seasonal designs.??
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We’ve recently published a whole article that explores the power of brand-partnerships at events like the Euros 2024, check that out here. ?
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Word of mouth?
People speak to each other, and the power of word of mouth for product discovery shouldn’t be discounted.?Shoppers often turn to friends, family, and online communities for advice, leveraging the perceived authenticity and reliability that traditional advertising and promotion sometimes lacks.
Word of mouth also presents a different perspective for brands looking for reasons to optimise product imagery and information across the omnichannel. A shopper might not remember the name of the brand, but could describe core colours of the packaging, elements of the brand logo, or simply remember certain words, ingredients or product claims.
This makes it all the more important to optimise content to make sure it is returning in different combinations of search efforts.?Whether action is taken by optimising SEO key phrases and considering any misspellings, or incorporating all attributes and product claims onto the product page and publishing high-quality product imagery that matches the physical shelf experience.
Proactive needs-based searching?
Shoppers with specific need states might not be searching for your brand specifically. A new dietary requirement like a shopper becoming gluten-free or needing to seek out low-sugar alternatives to their usual products, is likely to search those key terms and attributes over specific brands. Similarly, a new parent may search for specific products like ‘nappies/diapers’ or ‘baby bath wash,’ but might not be aware of your brand or your product range yet.??
These searches could take place in multiple places online: straight into Search Engines like Google, specific retailer engines if they have a preference or need to shop at a specific store, or they could use faceted search by finding existing categories listed on a retail website and will start by applying specific filters. NIQ data indicates that 81% of Amazon searches are unbranded, demonstrating the shopper tendency to search for key features over specific brands.
Brands that optimize their product content to include all the information a shopper would ever need to learn want they need to about a brand will be those that appear higher in search results. It’s no good if a product meets all the criteria but doesn’t include the right information to qualify in search or categorization.??
Other areas of discovery:?
As we’ve uncovered, product discovery can originate from many different sources.??
Each different channel should be considered a puzzle piece in the complete end-to-end shopper journey to purchase. It’s highly likely that today’s shopper will encounter more than one channel before purchasing a product.??
Brands need to consider the totality of product content, from core data and imagery to additional information and supplementary images that enhance the user experience and ease access to the key purchase decision drivers across the omnichannel. ?
Find out more about building winning product description pages in our free guide here ?? ???
Find out more about NIQ Brandbank’s range of services and solutions by clicking here ??
Sources: ?
Google/Purchased, U.S., “How Brand Experiences Inspire Consumer Action,” U.S. smartphone owners 18+=2,010, brand experiences=17,726, April 2017.?