Why Connecting a Digital Element to Your Product is Vital to Your Business
by Michelle Lawrence | Last Updated: Nov 11, 2022
There’s a new phenomenon happening among consumers.
According to McKinsey, the “Loyalty Shake-up” is occurring at a higher rate than ever before. Consumers are no longer remaining loyal to a particular brand or retailer, with factors such as price and availability of products being top considerations.
The same report stated that 90 percent of consumers have noticed rising inflation costs affect their regularly purchased products. This means for products to stay in the consumers’ shopping carts, proving the brand’s value is paramount.
For some marketers, it threatens to cause consumers to switch to competitors if the buying experience doesn’t exceed expectations. For others, it presents an opportunity to win over new customers more easily than before - especially when the consumers’ products are connected to a digital element.
What is Digital Element?
Landing pages. Mobile apps. Microsites. These are just a few types of digital elements brands can connect to their products to drive revenue and stand out in the aisle.
Using traditional methods, digital elements such as a mobile app can take up to a year to build. Let’s say your team was on board waiting a year to roll out a digital element - a native mobile app can cost around $300,000 to build (not including any recurring fees or changes your team will likely make during its lifetime).
Digital experience platforms (DXPs) fundamentally change how marketers think about their product packaging, marketing campaigns, and product launches. On average, marketers can create and launch a landing page, mobile app, or microsite in 20 minutes or less using a DXP like Lumavate (and even faster when starting from a Template).
Connecting Digital Elements to Products In-store
Depending on your brand’s business goals, adding a digital element to your product might take on various appearances.
Let’s say driving revenue is a primary focus of yours. According to Zippia, 60 percent of consumers still prefer to shop in-store to see or try on the products they intend to purchase. Of these consumers, 59 percent use their mobile devices in-store to compare costs or research deals and coupons. Based on this example, it makes sense for your brand to harness in on creating a digital element that highlights features of your product and incentives consumers with a promotional offer.
Take a look at other ways you can connect your product to a digital element to drive revenue and disrupt the aisle for your brand:
- Product Packaging - Bring your products to life by incorporating QR codes or NFC tags on product packaging that provides customers with access to product information, videos, manuals, and more.
- Product Comparison - Create a product comparison experience that can be activated in-store that highlights features of your product and competitors, so consumers know exactly how your brand stacks up against the competition.
- Product Recommendation - Combat the frustrations of analysis paralysis for consumers by creating an interactive quiz that recommends one or more products.
- Product Launch - Create a shelf or floor talker connected to a digital experience to help your brand convey the features of your new product and provide exclusive content and promotional offers.
Including a Digital Element in the Post-purchase Experience
Getting customers to purchase from your brand is only half the battle. More than a third of consumers report that they are willing to leave a brand if they have a single bad experience.
A disappointing post-purchase experience can be a result of many things. But the most common frustration customers have with their post-purchase experience is not being onboarded properly.
Registria reported that 47 percent of consumers want to connect with brands immediately after purchase to receive information such as instructions, video tutorials, warranty information, and more sent directly to their mobile devices. Consumers want immediate answers and don’t want to search past the first page of Google to get answers. Adding a digital element to your product is the piece to the puzzle to ensure your customers have an exceptional experience as their journey with your brand develops.
Here are a few ways to ensure customers have an exceptional post-purchase experience by connecting a digital element to your product:
- Product Onboarding - Ensure your customers have an exceptional first-time experience with your product by providing them step-by-step instructions for using their new product with installation instructions, how-to videos, FAQs, customer support contact information, and more.
- Product Information - Provide your customers easy access to product information with a quick scan of a QR code directly on your product that displays product manuals, how-to videos, troubleshooting guides, FAQs, and customer support contact information.
- Product Guide - Provide your customers with a digital product guide that is always up-to-date and also includes detailed product information, product descriptions, related accessories, and more.
- Warranty Registration - Enable your customers to submit warranty registration information directly into your system of record and collect additional zero-party data to allow customers to opt-in to receive emails or texts.
80 percent of consumers report that their experience with the products is just as important as the product itself. Brands that win are those who go above and beyond in all aspects of the customer journey.
The list of ways of including a digital element in your product is endless. Discover the many Templates Lumavate offers to help you achieve your brand’s business goals.