As eCommerce sales gain ground over their retail counterparts, social media platforms have become one of the leading channels for discovering new products. Today, popular social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp introduce consumers to products that fit their preferences.
For consumers, it is quite convenient to open a social media app, go to their feed, and come across countless product suggestions. But, for businesses, creating and showing consumers products that match their preferences almost to the tee is highly challenging.
Using technology and data-led strategies, it is possible to power product discovery and make it easier for customers to shop on the go.
In this guide, we will help you to streamline product discovery by laying bare its specifics and describing the process in detail. And as a bonus, we have also stated how you can effectively use WhatsApp for product discovery. So, let's get down to discovering what your consumers want.
What is Product Discovery?
Product discovery is a relatively new concept in commerce (and eCommerce), with Marty Cagan making its first documented usage around 2007.
Product discovery is the process of displaying the right product to the right consumer on the right occasion. It does so by offering development teams a solid foundation to work on — an understanding of the consumers' demands and pain points.
According to Marty, product discovery is companies wholly acknowledging the demands of consumers and creating "product solutions" — products that solve the problem behind the consumers' demand. It enables customers to come across and explore a company’s offerings. In the process, it exposes them to new products that might fit their current or future needs.
For instance, imagine you have a clothing brand, and a customer prospect comes across your dress collection, which they quite liked. More often than not, they would like to explore more of your product collection. Now, they can leverage your WhatsApp chatbot service and connect directly to ask for more. Your chatbot can easily provide details about the collection, and you can even show them other available options.
How can Brands boost their Product Discovery?
Even though product discovery is a new method for businesses to showcase their products to customers, it’s by far one of the most effective ways to boost sales when done right.
Here are three remarkable ways businesses can allow their customers to explore more products.
#1. Exhibit bundle offers to your customers
It’s always better for brands to give customers all the bundle offers they can leverage, as it will increase customer interest.
Whenever a potential customer approaches your WhatsApp chatbot regarding details for a specific product, you can tell them about all the relevant bundle offers.
For instance, if you own a brand that sells stationery accessories and a customer approaches your sales funnel to buy a notebook. You can tell them about the various discounts available if they buy a set of 5 or 10 notebooks.
This way, there will be a significant increase in the customer’s interest in the product and sales.
#2. Let your customers know of the frequently bought combos
One great way of selling more to your customer is by showing them more. When a person buys something, they also have a different product in mind that they would combine or match with the purchased product.
Whenever a customer messages your WhatsApp chatbot regarding a product, you can show them all the other products that are frequently bought together with that specific product.
For example, if a customer approaches a clothing brand regarding a shirt they liked in their advertisement, you can give them suggestions of the product (probably a pant or jeans) that is bought together with the shirt.
#3. Allow them to explore your product collection
What’s better than customers exploring a whole product collection and choosing the perfect one for them? Therefore, showcasing your product collection to your clients is always ideal.
Whenever a customer messages you enquiring about a certain product, let them know about the whole collection. It is a good way to boost sales and makes it easy for customers to select the product of their choice.
Let’s take a women's clothing brand, for example. They can show their entire collection of new prints or fabric to their customers through WhatsApp and upscale their product discovery.
How to Execute Product Discovery Effectively?
The product discovery process may sound easy and seamless to perform at once. But, if not done right, it won't be useful. To let your customers discover more of your products, it’s crucial to deliver perfectly captivating messages.
The right CTA
Call-to-Action buttons are important to make your potential customers move forward with their decision to buy your product.
Without a clear and effective CTA, clients might find it confusing where to head next, which can also lead to a change in thought about buying the product. Therefore, an ideal product discovery strategy also includes the perfect CTA as product discovery makes the buying procedure quick.
Here are some quick CTA examples you can consider:
✅Click up
✅Sign up
✅Add to wishlist
✅Find in store
✅Explore more
Leverage the sales funnel
Social media sales funnels can be deemed a more intimate iteration of traditional sales funnels. But they still are touchy. Thus, guiding consumers through the sales process while holding their entire attention can be difficult, even with WhatsApp's familiar layout playing in your favor.
It is a given that quite a few leads will leave your WhatsApp sales funnel at one of its stages. But, instead of feeling down about it, you can use it to your advantage.
All you need to do is observe at which stage(s) the leads leave and figure out why. And even among these stages, the leads who leave at the lower stages of the funnel should be your concern as they have moved away even after becoming aware of your product.
Run polls on WhatsApp
Another highly practical way to identify your consumers' pain points and then execute the perfect product discovery method is through polls and surveys via WhatsApp.
You can create customized polls on the fly and send them to your existing clients, prospects, and potential leads.
Polls and surveys help you collect candid feedback from your target customers, which can be immensely helpful when designing new products or suggesting combos and collections to explore more.
Analyze the response to product recommendations
When a consumer enters your sales funnel, you can program your chatbot to offer product recommendations during a conversation. The recommendations can be pictures, gifs, simple text, or a combination of all three.
Then, you need to analyze how the consumer reacts to each recommendation and use the data to create more personalized suggestions or make changes to your existing product portfolio to suit their tastes.
The Bottom Line
With the internet now reaching the remotest corners of the world, it is a fact that eCommerce is the future of retail. And when it comes to eCommerce, it is clear that selling products to consumers is all about determining what they want and personalizing customer experience accordingly.
Thus, product discovery is set to play an even greater role in the upcoming years for virtually every business out there. And mastering it while you still have time and taking note of all the channels you can use for it is something you must implement immediately. Ready to power product discovery on WhatsApp? Book a demo with Vizury today.
