Applying shopper marketing

Shopper marketing is the critical link between the brands that consumers’ need and desire and the retail customers and environments where that consumer equity is converted into commercial value. Organizations which recognize the importance of marketing to shoppers also recognize that it has implications for activities across marketing and sales.

The engage five-step Integrated Shopper Marketing™ model recognizes this and forms the DNA of all of our solutions. From examining brand opportunities to defining trade investment, an understanding of shoppers can be rigorously applied to create competitive advantage.
We build better brand returns and give companies the extra advantage every day in many different ways:

Opportunity Assessment:
Organizations typically have stacks of data, but it is rarely integrated. We get to the heart of a brands potential, and help identify the key reasons why that potential is not being realized. Be it a gap in the consumer offer, a problem for shoppers in-store, or a customer proposition that just doesn’t engender retail support, we use existing data to drill to the heart of the opportunity and identify the way forward. Working across marketing, shopper marketing and sales – these projects bring a shared focus to future team activities. Focusing the whole team on the right things starts here.

engageInsight™
We do shopper research because most agencies don’t seem to understand it, and don’t understand what companies can do with it. Unique methodologies create shopper research which is really practical – quantified opportunities, clarity on which shoppers, in which stores are most important, and real understanding of the value of different in-store activities in terms of their impact on shopper behavior. If you want to see real return from shopper research – contact us.

Purchase Activation™
Purchase Activation™ puts category management in its place – it is a means to achieving brand growth rather than an end in and of itself. Purchase Activation™ is an integrated strategy framework which helps clarify the consumer opportunities for a brand; defines which shoppers, in which stores are key, and creates in-store marketing mixes which both drive brand off-take and create real, demonstrable value for retailers. If you want to create an integrated strategy that connects consumer priorities to the in-store world and maximizes profitable brand growth, click here.

Channel prioritization
Which stores are most important? Which stores will deliver the best return on investment? How should outlets be clustered into manageable clusters or channels? It’s the big strategic call before making decisions on sales team deployment and in-store investment, and the decision is dependant in a large part on shoppers. Which shopper segments exist, which are most important and where they shop are all huge inputs into the opportunity that any channel or outlet cluster represents. Insight into shoppers sometimes helps redefine channels – it always helps prioritize them – and that means better returns from the sales team. Want to focus activities on the right store? Want to ensure your sales team is spending time on the right stores (and is trying to sell the right things?) Contact us now.

Key customers prioritization/strategy
Key customers are getting more complex – with diversifying needs and multiple store types. Prioritizing customers is nothing new, but what connects customer strategy to brands is – yes, shoppers. Knowing which shoppers are important to you, and where they shop is critical to making any decisions about how you will interface with important customers. If you’d like to know more about how shopper marketing can help focus your key customer efforts and save you money, contact engage.

Promotion evaluation
It’s the thing that takes up most time and most money for most shopper marketing, trade marketing, and sales teams, and yet almost everyone acknowledges that it rarely supports strategy, often destroys brand equity, and loses money in the short term. Even more scary, most of this is “we think” because many companies do not even evaluate their promotional activities. Whether it is a lack of time, a lack of tools or a lack of capability, we can help you get better returns out of promotions. We can’t guarantee they will all suddenly become profitable, but by either outsourcing your evaluations or using our approaches your team can understand the impact of promotions in multiple dimensions – the key foundation to making better promotion planning decisions.

Customer presentation development
Arguable, in the last mile more deals are dropped and more money wasted than anywhere else. Whoever the customer, whatever the proposal, you will get a better deal with a great presentation. And great presentations to retailers recognize that the most important thing to a retailer is their customer – the shopper. engage has written hundreds of presentations for our clients so we’re pretty good at it – we create tight selling stories that blend consumer, shopper and customer data to demonstrate a clear argument for the customer to buy. Better results, faster. As simple as that!

Trade investment
As trade consolidates and media fragments two things are clear. The investment funneled via retailers into stores is large, and growing. To get the best returns from it, to manage it more effectively, we believe manufacturers need a clear understanding of the value of what happens in-store, and the value of the store itself, to their brands. This requires an understanding of shoppers, and a methodology to quantify the opportunities that each shopper segment, in each store, represents. Understanding the value of each display, each listing, each facing, each sign to the brand is fundamental to entering into a meaningful negotiation with any retailer. To get better value from trade investment, or to learn how to use shopper data to negotiate more effectively, contact engage today

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