Influencing customers’ preferences and ultimate shopping behavior for a Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) brand across multiple retail profiles has always been, and will forever be, a marketer’s Holy Grail. In spite of detailed, hundred-page brand playbooks and style guides, brand messaging can shine in one retailer and flop in the next. Narratives change from store to store, often due to factors such as varying store guidelines, anticipated promotional practices and differing consumer behavior. So what’s the solution?
Marketing is one size fits all one.
This is why it is vital for brand managers to select a marketing partner that specializes in the retail channel or industry in which your brand is selling. Understanding retailer expectations, key demographics and shopper behavior patterns is imperative to long-term sales growth.
For example, what works for Target – a multiple purchase, high dollar offer with a free item incentive – doesn’t really translate in a more price-sensitive Walmart.
The same model should be applied to military resale; The Defense Commissary Agency (DeCA) and multiple branch Exchanges have firm expectations of a promotion. It is crucial to align with their unique promotional calendars and find a creative way to motivate the rapid and value-driven lifestyle of military patrons.
Become more than just a product on a shelf.
Both a savvy brand manager and their marketing counterpart know that a blanket approach, such as piggybacking on a national campaign, doesn’t always produce a desired return on investment. Drill down to core features and benefits, and then rebuild a personalized a campaign for each specific merchant.
Retailer-specific shopper marketing increases sales only when a knowledgeable, experienced team produces a customized promotion that satisfies the needs of the retailer and drives value directly to the consumer. The shopper state-of-mind and the needs that influence purchasing behavior are factors that brands, retailers and marketers together, cannot afford to ignore.
A well-built shopper marketing promotion will deliver.
Keep your retailer’s success at the center. Build a campaign that promotes loyalty to your brand in a specific retailer. When a CPG brand or big box retailer promotes to a specific shopper rather than consumers at large, customers notice.
Stephanie Medlin
President, Branch 5 Marketing