Four Proven Channels to Drive Traffic to Your Livestream Shopping Event Almost Overnight

A more direct approach is required. You’ll need to engage with your target audience on the channels that they use every day – their phone, social media, and email – in the build-up to the event.

While the channels are not new, the tactic of how to best use them to make your event a success is a bit different and there are some points to take into consideration when planning your live shopping event promotion strategy.

Let’s dive into each of the four channels to discuss the pros, the cons, and the best practices in order to drive traffic almost overnight to your live shopping event.

From announcing your next livestream shopping event to post-event thank yous and recaps, email marketing can be used at various stages. As it provides a direct communication line to your customer, you can create even better results by segmenting your email list and tailoring your messages to different segments based on past purchases, browsing behavior, and engagement history, for example.

Considering that shoppers who sign up via email have a higher intent to buy, it can be especially useful to encourage registrations. The timing, though, is a challenge.

It’s important to send it well in advance so that they can register for the event and plan ahead. That said, if it’s sent too far in advance, those who’ve registered might end up forgetting about it by the time the event comes. Hence, why email works best when you create a series of messages.

You can, for example, include an email message or two that reminds them specifically about the event closer to the date. Here, segmentation can help you again.

People who’ve already registered can get reminders about the upcoming date, while those who haven’t yet can receive another email closer to the date encouraging them that they can still register. Alternatively, if you’re worried that you’ll annoy subscribers who aren’t interested in the event, you can instead only email them again after the event with highlights showing what they’ve missed out on.

Here are some ideas of how to make your emails more interesting:

• Add a link to a question form where they can add a question about a product which will be answered during the livestream shopping event to encourage engagement
• Include a discount or offer like the first 100 to register will receive a surprise gift or free shipping
• Incorporate dynamic images or GIFs
• Create a series of countdown emails to build anticipation and keep your upcoming livestream shopping event top of mind

Whichever type of email you send, your subject heading and calls to action are always key elements. Call-to-action buttons should be clear. Subject lines, on the other hand, can be a bit more creative.

While the highly visual nature of social media content makes it more engaging than receiving a text-heavy WhatsApp message, SMS marketing can still add. It offers a direct communication line to your customers and one of the highest click-through rates (CTRs).

SimpleTexting, a leading texting services for businesses, surveyed hundreds of US-based business owners at the end of 2023 and found that the average SMS click-through rate is between 19 and 32%. What’s more, for the eCommerce/retail industry, it tends to be in the upper range and could even be as high as 35%.

On the other hand, social media ads generate a CTR of barely 1%, according to the Statista Research Department.

However, there’s a problem… Compared to email marketing, it’s very expensive.

As it’s expensive and intrusive, you want to choose your audience carefully. Only send it to those who you know would be interested, like attendees of past events or those who’ve shown interest in the type of products that will be featured at the event.

Considering that your contacts are more likely to click on a link shared via a text message than social media ad, you can use this platform to direct them to the actual livestream shopping event. As opposed to email marketing, here, our experience shows it’s most effective to send the SMS as close as possible to when the event starts, even five to 10 minutes before it will start, as people tend to click straight away.

Influencer Marketing Hub’s The State of Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2024 reveals influencer marketing campaigns can help you to attract better customers. More than 80% of the 3,000 participants surveyed believe that the quality of customers that influencer marketing campaigns attract is better than other marketing types.

One of the reasons for this is because of the deeper connection between the influencer and shopper. Younger consumers want brands to be authentic and innovative. Influencer marketing can tick both these boxes.

Plus, as your goal is to attract traffic, you’ll be able to reach not only your own followers but also tap into the influencer’s network. A double win.

One of the biggest challenges, though, will be finding the right influencer. The same benchmark report found that only about a third would describe the influencer search process as easy.

That said, most brands that struggle are the ones that don’t use the relevant tools or platforms like buywith. For example, buywith has its own creator marketplace. Here, brands can source curated influencers and creators to promote their brand and event as well as host the actual event.

To help you find the best influencers to host and promote your next event, download our “Top 100 Influencers Guidebook”.

Last but not least, brands can leverage the power of social media to create a buzz leading up to the live event and maintain the excitement after the event. By continuing your marketing efforts after the event, you can show those who were interested (but didn’t attend) what they missed out on while at the same time creating interest among those who were unaware of the previous event. 

Here are some ideas for how that will look in practice:

• Leading up to the event, you can tease your target audience with sneak peeks like exclusive previews of what they can expect. You don’t want to share too much beforehand — just enough to get them interested.
• You can share regular countdowns to create a sense of urgency. Ephemeral content like Instagram Stories are ideal for this. As a countdown is time-sensitive, you don’t necessarily want to create a static post that will remain in your brand’s feed long after the event. 
• Depending on your budget, you can create paid promotions. Creating targeted ads on Instagram and Facebook will allow you to reach potential customers outside of your current follower base too.

The key to truly making your social media efforts succeed in driving traffic to your live shopping event, is to create a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out). Let your followers know that this is a must event to attend, and they wouldn’t want to be the only ones missing it since everyone else is already there.