Inspiring your potential customers with outside trends is almost as important to the success your business as promoting your products. Not only does sharing inspiration boost your customer engagement, but it also can provoke your customers to buy into the trends via your merchandise. By sharing new ideas with your audience, you can inform your followers while providing additional content to consumers. This trend
sharing can be carried out in different ways and through various platforms, such as Instagram, email marketing, and your website.
Instagram Stories
One way to boost your customer engagement with trend sharing is through the use of Instagram Stories. With an average of 800 million monthly active users, Instagram is becoming one of the top places people go to find their inspiration, especially for online shopping. This makes it a key player in the promotion of your brand and its overall message.
Why use Stories? With Instagram’s latest algorithm, many say that utilizing the Stories feature is the number one way to get noticed on the platform. In fact, around 70% of traditional posts on Instagram aren’t even seen by your followers and potential customers. Getting increased engagement through your Stories is also a good way to beat the algorithm and get your content seen. The more they connect with your brand, the more they will see your posts pop up in their feeds on a regular basis
Additionally, the format allows for more freedom than the traditional posts. It is also important to create a separate Highlight to categorize your trend sharing Stories so that new followers can see them. Be sure to link your store so that your customers can easily shop the items you are promoting!
Here are a few examples of trend sharing via Instagram Stories from some of our favorite accounts:
- Mejuri Jewelry (@mejuri): They utilize their Stories to showcase “Style Edits”. This features popular trends and “How To’s” that include links to their own pieces. This both highlights the trends while also showing their customers exactly how to achieve the featured looks.
- Everlane (@everlane): This company goes above and beyond trend sharing by asking customers to share their locations and then providing suggested products for their unique climates. This not only promotes their clothing, but it also increases overall engagement.
Email Newsletters
Utilizing your company’s email marketing as an additional trend sharing platform is a great way to spark customers’ interest in your new products and upcoming collections. By adding in a section to discuss trending items or styles, you bring more quality content to your subscribers’ inboxes. Place some inspirational pictures and add product links so that your customers can shop the looks straight from the email.
Urban Outfitters does a great job of using their entire emails to promote trending looks. They create inspiring mood boards that feature in-picture links for the products that are being featured.
Trend sharing doesn’t have to be exclusive to fashion brands! The Sill, a plant delivery company, uses seasonal changes to share the latest plant trends through their email newsletters.
Blogs or Lookbooks
A simpler way to give your customer engagement levels a boost is to share trends with your customers through your website. You can add a separate page dedicated to the latest trends. You can also incorporate trend sharing into an existing blog or lookbook feature on your site. Another option includes categorizing your own products into different trends or collections so that your customers can shop various styles. For example, you could create different sections in your shop such as “Holiday Looks” or “Animal Print” and add the products that match each collection.
These trend sharing options are demonstrated in these online stores’ websites:
- This online boutique, Are You Am I, uses mood boards to promote new collections and product releases. Each of these collages feature inspirational images and have unique themes to promote the product’s corresponding trend
- Reformation shares trends by categorizing their products into different shoppable collections. For example, they currently feature a “Prairie Collection” in which they placed their top picks for the trend.
- Madewell has their own “Inspo” section on their website. It has blog posts about style, home trends, and current events in the surrounding community.
Adding supplemental content to your online store is beneficial to your business, whether it’s sharing trends or not! Check out our latest blog post on the importance of adding creative content to your ecommerce site.
