To convert shoppers and consumers to your brand or service you need to know where to focus, where to win and how to win.
In this article strategy expert Helen Blackholly examines the consumer – shopper - consumer journey conversion challenge and demonstrates how effective Shopper Marketing drives growth.
It is widely accepted that Shopper Marketing is a vital way to unlock brand or service growth. There are many different ways to approach Shopper Marketing; however, no matter what strategy or tactic you employ, all are aimed at converting shoppers and consumers to your brand or service at each step of the Consumer-Shopper-Consumer journey. Easier said than done!
Silo thinking: the bane of most companies
All too often businesses look at the consumer to shopper journey as a series of discrete and separate steps. ‘Marketing’ control the consumer and ‘Sales’ looks after the shopper. They operate in silos. Different teams present different perspectives and the business often doesn’t have “one view” of where the biggest growth opportunities are. To unlock growth it is vital to have one unified view of consumer through to shopper through to consumer. At InDeed one of the strategic approaches we use; to help businesses take a joined up approach, is the use the “Consumer-Shopper-Consumer” triangle:
Figure 1: The Consumer-Shopper-ConsumerConversion Triangle
© InDeed Strategy into Action Consultancy.
Point of Awareness vs Point of Buying
Where is your biggest challenge? Is it....
.... converting your brand to have higher awareness or trial? In other words; the purchase trigger itself needs fixing.
....or is the challenge at the Point of Buying? If it is at the Point of Buying....at which part of the shopper journey through the store?
Is it is increasing the number of shoppers to actually
STOP at the fixture or is it is an actual
SHOP &
SELECT problem? Do your shoppers stop, pick up products and yet walk-away?
By unpacking the problem and defining where it is; it becomes an easier task to solve.
Are your teams on top of their Shopper Marketing game?
Every Brand Manager and Trade Marketing Manager should be able to talk through and explain their Consumer-Shopper-Consumer triangle for their category and brand and tell you where the conversion challenge is and what they are doing about it. If they cannot then how can they actually do their job – which is to unlock growth. Ask for this and you will see whether they are on top of their game…..
Conversion = $£€
Diagnosing the problem and turning the conversion challenge into sales value for both the retailer and manufacturer is a simple and powerful way of unlocking growth. Importantly, it also enables your teams to focus on the right priorities rather than getting bogged down into the detail.
Identify the conversion numbers
Let’s get back to Figure 1. If the
STOP number is compared with the channel or other retailers; or even other similar categories, this will tell you if there is a challenge in physically getting shoppers down the aisle and getting them to stop.
It’s not easy to identify if you have a
SELECT problem as you will have shoppers stopping yet not buying. Based upon averages across categories and our industry experience, a useful rule of thumb to work with is: 70% select. If it’s less than this then check whether your packaging is working hard enough to “pop” from the shelf or whether the ranging and merchandising is confused or missing key SKU’s.
The question then is “how” to do it? Do you know this for the top customers for your categories? Ask your teams, they ought to!
Stand in the shoes of the shopper
Simply stand in the shoes of the shopper. Take off the marketing or sales “hat” and see what they see. There are many ways to do the shopper research but the very best start point has to be a store walk with your team.
Consumer-Shopper-Consumer journey KPIs: just pick a few!
There is often endless debate about KPI’s. Define the most important for your brand and for the category. Don’t overcomplicate or over-engineer. Too much time is spent debating what to measure rather than using the insight to change business plans to generate growth.
Brand and Category Dashboards create the focus for change
We’re often asked about the best frequency of measurement. Only measure as frequently as you can physically use the data to drive change. There is no use measuring share of shelf every week if you cannot analyse, respond and impact weekly!
Typical KPI measurements include:
Category KPI’s @ Point of Buying
How many people buying (penetration)
How often (frequency)
How many do they buy (weight of purchase)
How much do they spend
Conversion: stop, shop, select
Brand KPI’s @ Point of Buying
Share of Assortment
Share of shelf (space & quality)
Share of promotions
Price vs key competitors
Shopper Marketing into Action Toolkit
We have proven tools to unlock growth through Shopper Marketing. Knowing where to focus, where to win and how to win by understanding and using conversion to drive growth is one of the ways in which your teams can meet your Shopper Marketing challenges with effective Shopper Marketing strategies!
For more information contact
helenblackholly@in-deed.com +44 (0) 7720 549183
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Understanding and Using Conversion to Drive Growth
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