"The engagement we're seeing on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook is diminishing. Email, SMS — the channels that allow us to establish a genuine connection with customers — are where we're witnessing the most success currently," explains Andrew Costaris, the Director of Customer Experience at Partners Coffee
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GLOIn the midst of rapid transformations within the realm of social media, Partners Coffee has observed that for smaller direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands, marketing on these platforms is progressively becoming less effective compared to more direct forms of communication. Andrew Costaris, the Director of Customer Experience at Partners Coffee, discussed in an interview with PYMNTS how these shifts have impacted the company’s eCommerce marketing strategy.
“The engagement we’re seeing on platforms like Twitter, Instagram, Facebook is diminishing. Email, SMS — the channels that allow us to establish a genuine connection with customers — are where we’re witnessing the most success currently,” Costaris explained.
Indeed, PYMNTS’ collaborative study with Amazon Web Services, titled “Tracking the Digital Payments Takeover: Monetizing Social Media Edition,” drew from a survey of nearly 3,000 consumers in the United States. It revealed that a mere 14% of shoppers had bought a product via social media platforms. Within this group, only 29% had used Instagram, and merely 23% had employed Facebook to purchase food and beverage items. YouTube and TikTok showed higher engagement rates at 40% and 33% respectively.
Costaris attributed the decline he’s witnessed to the recent instability in social media. While major brands may have the resources to adapt swiftly to rapid changes and produce high-quality content across platforms, it’s becoming increasingly challenging for smaller brands to locate and engage their target audiences.
“There’s a lot of noise on all these social media platforms. If one isn’t rebranding one week, another is introducing a competing platform the next,” he remarked.
Furthermore, Partners Coffee offers products for both individual purchase and subscriptions. Costaris highlighted that while consumer subscriptions are continuing, growth in this segment is decelerating due to what he termed as “subscription fatigue.” PYMNTS’ Subscription Commerce Readiness study from June, conducted in collaboration with sticky.io and based on a survey of over 2,000 U.S. consumers, indicated a decrease in the average number of subscriptions per subscriber.
Costaris mentioned that the brand’s experiments with subscriber discounts haven’t significantly increased engagement with subscriptions. Instead, the brand’s customers appear to be more motivated by consistent order accuracy and punctuality, alongside transparent communication about estimated delivery times.
“My focus will always be evenly divided between subscriptions and encouraging repeat purchasers, regardless of the incentives we can offer. There will always be a notable segment of people who simply prefer not to subscribe,” Costaris emphasized.
Source: PYMNTS
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