Turning Shoppers into Buyers: Marketing’s last Link Shouldn’t be its Weakest
Jaime Kepner and Naomi Galvez
Exclusive content featured in the March 2008 issue of CMO Council's Marketing Magnified
In traditional marketing, calls to action most often drive shoppers to physical or on-line stores. However, marketers leave themselves vulnerable to last-minute preference changes if they don’t continue guiding potential purchasers throughout the shopping experience.
Shopper marketing expenditures represent a growing slice of marketing budgets, which have remained flat or increased marginally overall in recent years. According to the "2007 Shopper Marketing Study" by Deloitte Consulting LLP, shopper marketing expenditures are growing an average of 21 percent annually among manufacturers and 26 percent among retailers. A successful shopper marketing strategy hinges on three important concepts: consistency, research, and innovation.
1. Clicks-to-bricks consistency
The line between in-store and on-line shopping gets blurrier every day. Sixty-four percent of today's shoppers will make at least one multichannel purchase over the next year, as noted in Deloitte's "Annual Holiday Survey 2007." Examples of such transactions include purchasing items on-line and picking them up or returning them in-store, and ordering products for shoppers on-line when they are out of stock in-store. Since multichannel purchases are expected to increase dramatically in coming years, marketing strategies should take both shopping experiences into consideration. Fortunately, what marketers have learned on-line can be applied to in-store marketing and vice versa to create consistency in both venues. Balancing and integrating the best of both worlds sets and meets shoppers' expectations no matter when, where, or how they shop. The more assistance you provide across platforms, the more shoppers will recognize you as a go-to source. For example, by linking on-line tutorials to in-store seminars, retailers enable customers to gather relevant information when they need it, where they need it.
2. Meaningful research
Although measurement and tracking can be expensive, such research is essential to understanding and predicting shopper behavior.
Consumer surveys can provide reliable information on likes, dislikes, and consumption patterns, but the people who use products aren't always the ones who buy them. Shopper insights can be vastly different from consumer insights. Simple surveys just won’t get inside shoppers' minds. More sophisticated tools like store tracking, anthropological observation, and store-intercept interviews can determine where, why, how, and how often customers shop. But few companies conduct such studies because of their complexity and cost. In fact, Deloitte's "2007 Shopper Marketing Study" found that while 75 percent of manufacturers collect general consumer trend data regularly, only 36 percent do so for shopper data. Yet knowing the intricacies of shopper behavior is essential when developing programs aimed at cross-selling, up-selling, and creating unique shopping experiences.
3. Trying new things
With all the clutter in the retail space today, catching shoppers’ attention isn’t easy. The best shopper marketing campaigns succeed by creating unique, innovative programs.
However, most companies continue to rely on traditional tactics. According to Deloitte's "2007 Shopper Marketing Report," those most frequently used by manufacturers include demonstrations, displays, loyalty programs, and shelf signs. Newer, more eye-catching techniques such as in-store visuals/audio, floor ads, interactive kiosks, and smart carts are less common.
Instead of delivering product advertising or brand messaging, many new technologies facilitate shopper assistance and information sharing. Shoppers are more likely to accept softer sell tactics that help solve their problems or that make the shopping experience easier or more convenient.
Mobile phone coupons offered by CellFire are one promising example. Shoppers load their shopping lists into mobile phones and receive coupons for the products they plan to buy from grocers, clothing stores, service providers, restaurants, and more. Also in the gee-whiz category are digital signs like those available from Scala that play relevant messages when shoppers approach, and electronic floor displays and holograms that attract attention and differentiate products.
Even the reliable old shopping cart is getting a digital-age tune up. New carts can come equipped with high-resolution video screens on which ads appear as the cart approaches a brand’s aisle or display. This cart can also import shopping lists, organize them by aisle, suggest recipes for ingredients listed, help locate products throughout the store, and more. This technology brings on-line interactivity to bricks-and-mortar stores and helps unify Internet and in-person shopping experiences.
These examples represent only the tip of the iceberg. Enhancing the shopping experience not only improves relationships with on-line and in-store customers, it can also produce stronger return on investment (ROI). More than 65 percent of companies that responded to a survey published in November 2006 by Reveries Magazine reported that shopper marketing initiatives produced at least 50 percent greater ROI than traditional trade advertising.
These statistics illustrate the importance of making shopper outreach part of integrated marketing strategies. Companies that will thrive in increasingly blended retail environments will call on in-depth research and the latest technology to create consistent experiences wherever, however, and whenever customers shop.
