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How to give “add to cart” vibes on every product

Never underestimate the power of copywriting and design for brand loyalty to DTC brands. With the right brand copy and stunning photos, you can tempt shoppers to click that “add to cart” button and boost your own online sales.

Without further ado, let’s dive into the how-to!

1. Eye-catching photos

The first step to brand loyalty is to catch a shopper’s eye. Product photos can be set up with pretty paper backgrounds and good lighting. 

  • Crop or edit out any distracting elements that don’t compliment your product.
  • Ensure the background is attractive, but does not overpower the product.
  • When possible, shoot in natural light. The golden hour (sunset) is extremely flattering for photos of people, for example for accessory or make-up products.

This photographer does a stellar walkthrough of the DIY photography for DTC brands:

While carousels on homepages and inserted videos can slow loading speed, if you add a second image of the same photo when the cursor hovers over the photo, you can pique shoppers’ interest enough to look through more photos. 

A store that does this well is Zona E Home. When hovering your mouse over their images, an alternate perspective or product placement displays:

To achieve this polished look, without sacrificing loading speed, upload lower quality images on menu pages (800 x 800 pixels for example) and then add high-definition images on the individual product page, once the shopper has been attracted by your hover image.

2. Homogenous branding

A store owner recently asked us, “how can I improve my store and increase online sales?” Each person at Aument specializes in a different aspect of marketing so together, we have a gamut of advice. But the top-of-funnel people, myself included, think about branding first, naturally!

We told them: To keep shoppers on page, make it aesthetic and communicate one vibe across your pages. A simple color theme and minimal font variations are easiest on the eyes.

Experts recommend no more than two brand fonts. It is fashionable to combine one cursive and one sans serif font. The latter are block lettering, without the small strokes or extensions at the end of a letter’s leg and are easier to read, so keep cursive for decorative uses. 

There is psychological reasoning behind the consistency of branding, and even the colors you use should resonate with your audience. One DTC brand that has exemplary branding is Fit and Sweet: their webpage, Instagram, and even their Linktree all make use of the same muted pinks and warm salmon.

Fit and Sweet’s tones are within the red to yellow pallets known for “evoking the taste buds and stimulating the appetite.” They are also close to the millennial pink that appeal to a certain age group, nostalgic for childhood comforts according to Business Insider. What does your color-scheme communicate?

Spacings should also be homogenous when possible. Having the same sized spacing between product images and between texts gives the elegant touch that professional designers would implement. Shopify’s section blocks make this easy for new store owners — no programming or web design required!

3. Show-stopping descriptions

Brand loyalty can be broken by bad copywriting, and many shoppers are more critical of words than design, so these are the golden rules that non-copywriters should observe to build website content that will tempt shoppers to click “add to cart” and also come back for more:

  • Home page product descriptions need to be short and to the point.

  • Product page descriptions can be longer but should not repeat points.
    This is your opportunity to cite how and when to use your product, as the Shopify store Elgin USA does expertly.

Your top keyword should be included subtly in descriptions.
Yes, optimize your content for search engines, but don’t shoe horn SEO onto the page to the detriment of your brief and catching product descriptions.

Copywriting is hard to master, and writing with SEO artfully is even more complex. I recommend hiring a copywriter to review — not to write — your descriptions, giving a fresh point of view on your copy. The reason I suggest this over hiring a writer and editing their work, is that you know your product’s features best. The owners of DTC brands always write a great baseline copy for a professional to work from.

4. Social media as a store extension 

Wondering how you can improve your store and increase online sales? Think beyond brand loyalty to your Shopify store. Today, selling happens in many different locations, and awareness might start further from your website than you think.

Now that Instagram Shops, Amazon, and many other platforms integrate with online stores, as well as offering alternatives to buying on your site, it’s worth revisiting all other pages to make sure your social media is aesthetic and functional.

The best way to get ideas about the latest social media presentations is to browse other DTC brands. The reFOREST Collection’s page is an excellent place to start:

A full cart is not a guarantee of checkout

They loved your wares! But you still need to get shoppers to buy your products. To ensure this, checking out ought to be easy as possible:

  1. Make the cart icon clear and accessible on all your pages.

  2. Allow shoppers to auto populate shipping and invoicing options.

  3. Offer as many payment options as you can within your Shopify store.

Even if you do everything right and the ”add to cart” vibes are spot on, you still need a Plan B. Worst comes to worst, the buyer can get distracted and close the tab where they’re shopping. 

Bring them back, effortlessly, with Aument.

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