The Power of Inspiration in Shopper Marketing

If you’ve ever planned a holiday, you can probably relate to this scene: You’ve chosen the dates you want to take off and are on the hunt for the perfect destination. After spending hours scrolling through images, flight destinations and reading up on travel blogs, you are at a loss for how to move forward.

Google calls this the, “I-need-some-ideas” moment. In these moments, shoppers are at the early stages of thinking about what it is they want or need; they’re looking for ideas and inspiration. And because most people aren’t brand-committed in these top-of-funnel moments (90% of smartphone users aren’t absolutely sure of the brand they want to buy when they begin shopping), there is an opportunity for brands and retailers to show-up in this space. A recent feature release from Airbnb is doing just that.

Airbnb has started testing a new Stories feature. The format (which became popular through Snapchat and later picked up by Instagram and Facebook) allows Airbnb users to create small travelogs of their trips, linking them to destinations and, of course, the apartments stayed in. This authentic glimpse into travel experiences inspires others to book similar trips through the platform.

While Airbnb is a unique platform, brands and retailers should take note. With online commerce growing across all product categories, inspiring shoppers at the start of their journey can be the deciding factor to pull them toward your brand. Providing inspiration and ideas through branded content is a great hook, as 37% of internet users are tapping into their social networks to find inspiration for purchases.

To unlock the influential power of inspirational content, brand content must be relatable and authentic for shoppers, embedding products as part of the solution to a specific problem shoppers are facing. This allows brands to become a natural part of a shopper’s discovery journey, while also helping shoppers overcome typical aversions to traditional advertising. Amy Vener, Retail Vertical Strategy Lead at Pinterest says: “[Visual discovery] allows the consumer to generate a more emotional connection, which translates into less price sensitivity, less bottom-of-the-funnel activity and, therefore, bigger basket sizes.”

So let’s get started with inspiring our shoppers!

Image Source: Unsplash.com

Contributed By:Lukas Quittan, Integer London