How mobile platform technology is improving sales performance and streamlining the digital experience.
Finding new ways to connect with customers has been the key to success for companies in the midst of an isolating pandemic. The lack of foot traffic in stores and in-person gatherings has been crushing for many industry categories. Still, those who have survived and even thrived are the ones who have learned how to tap into existing mobile and online connection points.
Within this virtual landscape, mobile platform technology has become an increasingly attractive solution to the challenge of social selling in a socially distant world. Most direct selling companies offer a mobile app to accompany their product brochure. Still, some are taking this mobile approach even further, offering training content, interactive communication, behavior-based reminders, enrollment and sampling through the app.
Prior to the pandemic, Avon, part of the Natura &Co Group, turned to a learning platform called Fuse to help address the learning-related issues they felt were impeding business goals. In January, after onboarding 45 of their 50 markets, and 18 months of the partnership, Avon announced the data-backed benefits of their new mobile platform approach to education and training: Representatives who used the platform with medium (three to four times per month) or high frequency performed up to three times better than those who did not.
“We analyzed different metrics such as completion rates, consumption of content and levels of interaction, but the data very clearly showed that it was the frequency with which our beauty entrepreneurs were coming back to the Fuse platform that made the biggest difference,” said Avon’s Digital Experience Manager Andy Stamps. “This is where we saw the really dramatic uplifts in business performance. It was definitely a jaw-on-the-floor moment.”
The options for platform technology are growing. Total Life Changes and It Works! turn to NOW Technologies to deliver shareable content, distribute interactive call-to-action sales converters and amplify distributor engagement.
Senior Vice President of Business Development for NOW Technologies Noah Westerlund says implementing a social selling platform can serve as a growth driver for companies. “It’s essential for companies to provide a simple and accessible tool to their distributors,” he says. “We have a robust communication engine and an engaging customer acquisition platform that every direct sales company could benefit from.”
Companies outside the direct selling space are also leaning into the value that these social selling platforms offer. L’Oreal has purchased a minority stake in Replika Software, a platform that empowers brands to “activate at scale social sellers to inspire their networks and generate e-commerce sales.” While e-commerce already represents a quarter of L’Oreal’s sales revenues, this new focus on social selling through platform technology is the next step in leveraging what the company’s Chief Digital Officer Lubomira Rochet describes as an “ecosystem of social sellers for the beauty category.”
Keeping distributors engaged while fueling interest and sales has never been more difficult, but social selling platforms are proving to be one of the most powerful resources the industry can wield.
“It has changed the way our client’s companies are staying connected and strong, and continuing to drive their revenue,” Westerlund says. “We have seen incredible customer acquisition rates and major increases in distributor activity.”
