The importance of digital presence: How small businesses can be successful
For the longest time, digital presence was an afterthought andmerely a measure to be taken because access to real-time experience vs the internet was seen as a more valuable tactic to engage with your audience. Touch and feel was king, and the internet was just a kid looking for undue attention. With ethnicity, culture, and rituals differing across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, diversity continues to shape the global conversation about image. As a result of entering the job market, Millennials and Gen Z have become the biggest drivers of new business. Of the leading beauty and skincare purchase criteria, the importance of quality, value, and the brand remained relatively similar across all age-groups. Among Millennials, in particular, were significant differences.
A survey from Statista found that one third of online shoppers said 26-50% of their beauty purchases included new product lines. This means that while the competition is fierce within the cosmetics space, there’s plenty of room to increase market share. Millennials more than doubled their baby boomer counterparts in regard to preference for organic or eco-friendliness and even more striking, 29% of them make purchasing decisions based on media or online reviews — 3x greater than that of Gen X’ersand a whopping 6x more than Baby Boomers. The impact of the global pandemic has led to more time being spent online for various activities from entertainment to the purchase of luxury goods, and much as we’ve gone back to business as usual, the trend for online purchases, has been a mainstay.
Tebogo Moraka, Founder at Home of Nula highlights how beauty is a timeless concept and caring for skin is still a massive part of the ever-evolving beauty standards that are upheld.Skincare brands have amongst many things, seeded the idea of bundling products into ritualised concepts online and consumers make up a critical part of this recommendation engine, says Moraka. This system, in essence, makes recommendations to users for goods, services, and information based on data analysis. Conveniently so, the recommendations come from a variety of sources, including the user’s past behavior and that of similar users.
Moraka further elaborates how the digital landscape is a goldmine for small businesses as they can tap into their consumers behaviors and customize their paid-for spend to the people they want to reach with much precision. This type of reach is unprecedented, and plays into the framework of bundling products. The ‘Step 1+2+3’ method for presenting products, is the same as the e-commerce approach – except here we are using more than one platform as a means of communication and targeting.
For example the use of influencers to demonstrate products through short tutorials, linking the ecommerce store and then rewarding loyal customers with points and other incentives is a sure way to channel product engagement all the way to securing the purchase. Another example is the use of online loyalty programmes that range from free products with a number of purchases, which can further culminate into a curated event that lead to more online engagement with posting and #Hashtags. Plenty of opportunities are available digitally for small businesses to establish their own customer base in a way that is visible and more importantly, valuable to both parties.