Why Visual Search Matters
Is your company ready for one of the biggest marketing trends in 2019?
Search query has expanded enormously over the years, thanks to continuous innovation and development of new technologies. From the rise of mobile devices, machine learning, voice search technology, searching has never been more sophisticated than today.
Now, technologies have paved the way for another transformative digital tool: visual search.
What is Visual Search?
I’m sure sure you’ve encountered this exact situation before. You find a picture of someone wearing sleek looking shoes and wondering the brand name and where they were sold. What do you do? If you’re like me, you go to “Search Google for Image” and a second later, you’re presented with the visual results, along with a possible related search in text.
That situation perfectly describes what visual search is.
Visual search is a substituent to text search where the input method is image. With visual search, the searcher sends a photo to a search platform such as Google, that will interpret and recognize the said-image, which involves identifying what the picture is, figuring out what the user is looking for, and delivering relevant and accurate results.
Why Brands Need Visual Search?
Visual search’s ability to process vast volume of images presents huge opportunities, particularly for e-commerce brands.
For one, users can integrate images with endless amounts of product information available online, hence making it easier for brands to answer questions that are hard to put into words, such as “where can I buy this?”. This is especially good for your SEO strategy.
Secondly, visual search connects the digital and physical worlds to provide a fully interactive shopping experience for customers. From the previous example, you see that visual search easily closes the gap by allowing users to match up products they see in the real world with product information found online. As such, visual search enhances the user’s experience and indirectly encourages them to make a purchase.
How Brands can Use This Technology?
Did you know that 19% of Google search queries are images? Even though visual search hasn’t yet become mainstream, but forward-thinking marketers already begin optimizing the technology.
Here are some examples of what brands can utilize visual search for.
Personalized experience
E-commerce and retail brands can use visual search beyond the ‘click to buy’ strategy. Brands can implement AI-integrated visual search as an effective advertising strategy to create a personalized and unique shopping experience during the initial browsing phase.
So, instead of recommending products based on the user’s purchase history, brands can recommend items based on the detailed visual attributes of the products being searched. You can analyze details such as patterns or colors, and use the information to deliver more relevant and tailored content.
Forever 21 offers such shopping experience through their “Discover Your Style” feature on their website and app. It allows customers to do their clothing searches based on their personal styles. Shoppers can adjust features like color, neckline, or length to narrow their options, giving them a personalized experience.
Influencer marketing
Finding influencers for collaboration is not easy and often brands chose those with higher reach or follower base after extensive research. Still, most of the time, this doesn’t guarantee successful campaigns.
Visual search can be used to analyze influencers’ general persona such as their interests or styles, as well as their real-time engagement to guarantee a better fit to your brand’s overall image. Beyond that, it can also help you uncover influencers that you haven’t heard of at all.
Market insights
Visual search can be applied in social listening process to access the moments of consumption that refers to a situation where products are being used, including the sentiments of the users. With this data, brands can gain valuable insights into customers, trends, and marketing opportunities.
Starbucks used visual search strategy to search social feeds related to its brand logo. The company discovered a number of dogs enjoying puppuccinos, basically whipped cream put on Starbucks cup. This strategy led the company to notice pet owners, particularly dog owners, as valuable target customers.
Educational content
Visual search can save the day when a person doesn’t possess the necessary vocabulary to enter a keyword search for what they need. You can tap into this element to establish your brand authority by providing customers with information that relates to what they want, rather than simply selling a product or service.
eBay Motors, for example, launched a feature to let shoppers find car parts via a diagram of their vehicle. If a shopper doesn’t know the name of the part they need to fix their car, they can open an interactive schematic diagram of the vehicle and tap the image of the part. Then they’ll be redirected to eBay’s stock page of the original equipment and aftermarket parts.
The Future of Visual Search
Visual search might still be at its infancy, but as more companies adopt this technology, it will definitely continue to evolve.
Some of the visual search trends that are expected to rise this 2019 include:
With visual search’s ability to co-create and empower product discovery, I believe brands will face a brighter and more exciting future for audience engagement.
What other strategies do you think brands can implement visual search technology?
