Snapchat Marketing Strategies for your Online Store

In early 2018, Snapchat released an in-app store, or the Snap Store, for branded products, effectively making use of its over 180-million strong user base, and turning a social media application into a marketplace, powered by, yes, Shopify.

In the year and a half since this launch, the range of products in the store is targeted towards millennials. These include funky apparel, sneakers, customized merchandise and more.

Additionally, a feature launched late last year allowed users to ‘Snap’ a pic and search for it on Amazon.

These are few of the steps that the social media giant has taken in the last couple of years, to make use of, just like Facebook, Google and Amazon, an existing user base, not just to bring profits from selling, but to make use of for ads and marketing by other companies.

This is Snapchat walking out of the shadows, and telling marketers, ‘We are here. We have a  young audience, and a massive, interactive platform. Make use of it!”

Here’s why and how you could use Snapchat marketing strategies for your online store:

Snapchat Stats

First, let’s look at what Snapchat users look like:

1. 13-34 year-old’s form over 45% of its 300-million-strong user base, as of March 2019
2. It reached 190 million users in the first quarter of this year
3. 55% of users follow one or more brands on the platform
4. The average user opens the app 19 times a day, increasing chances of visibility, and spends around half an hour on the app each day
5. 25% of the users, as far back as 2016, would use a snapcode to find a product they were looking for
6. 60% of the ads are watched with the sounds turned on
7. More than 50% open a brand story, and nearly 85% watch it till the end
8. Over 70% of the audience is female

These are just a few of the several, several statistics available. What does this tell us? Snapchat users are more online more often, are likely to see your brand’s story and want to find you through some product of yours. They are young, with limited attention spans, a total bias towards audio-visual and more.

The key is to take these statistics and turn them into easy, doable marketing tips for your online store, to compete with the thousands and thousands of brands that are trying to catch the attention of your customer.

Snapchat Marketing Strategies for Your Online Business

It goes without saying that your product needs to appeal to this young audience (look at statistic 1 above) that Snapchat has amassed. So if your business sells pipes and fittings, you should not even think of putting efforts in the direction. Or if you are into real estate, home electronics and appliances, or even high-end gadgets and tech and flowers, you may not see sales from Snap promotions.

However, cool phone covers? Cultural merchandise? Even funky school and college supplies, cakes and coffees, food and more are likely to catch that young user’ attention.

Second, look at the nature of the platform. Photos, and even more than that, fun videos and stories. Snapchat’s video-friendly interface beats even that of Instagram, the app it is currently competing with. If you are a coffee brand, how about shoot a short film about a love story over coffee, or a teen romance?

If you have the budget for it, you could use the influencing power of the generation to get the word going – a cool video about what the gadgets can do, or promoting a cutting-edge technology, these are not things that require immediate purchase from the app, but they do help to bring massive attention to it.

To understand more about brand story, look at the Chubbies Shorts snapchat campaign. It’s awesome!

Videos help create your brand story. If you sell art supplies, fun DIY videos would help you drive sales and create high user-engagement. Such as this one:

If you sell cosmetics, quick make-up tutorials for everyday life. If you sell computers, you can even make educational videos with subtitles on computer hacks. Put some music, a little animation and keep them short – anything can become a marketing campaign if the users find value. Which is why products that require demos and explanations tend to catch the eyes of the customers.

Making a video of hacks using a hair straightener, you could target the female user base. Giving product sneak-peaks and building it up is also a sure-shot way to grab attention.

To summarize, keep in mind:

1. Engage the audience
2. Offer Snapchat-only promotional offers an codes
3. Focus on creating the story around your product and brand
4. Invest in video content
5. Fill an informational gap in the market
6. Appeal to the young, in either content or presentation
7. Build equations with influencers for authentic publicity
8. Have fun with filters, emojis and drawings. The quirkier the better
9. Get personal with the audience. Bring the creators to the front, show behind the scenes, strike a conversation
10. Perhaps, the last one is – hire a teen to do this for you! (Okay, maybe this one is not entirely true, but it could help!)

WooCommerce Integration

And now, of course, we have to tell you how you can easily integrate your WooCommerce store with Snapchat.

1. Using ExportFeed, you can create a catalogue of your products from WooCommerce on Snapchat: While this serves as an easy tool to have updated information on your Snapchat (and other channels), it cannot be the be all end all of your Snapchat strategy. It is a great compliment to your overall marketing efforts and to ensure that your product listing is visible to the interested user, and that there is a point of sale (virtual) to convert your marketing efforts.
2. Second, you should install Snap Pixel on your WordPress to track the effectiveness of your campaigns on the social media platform.

Conclusion

Snapchat is young, fun, largely urban and upwardly mobile. They are on the move, always snapping, being themselves and consuming more culture than a lot of other platforms. Tap into the market with as much dedication as they put in maintain snap streaks with their friends, and see how the young can make something viral and popular.