How do companies create consistently powerful shopper communication and in-store activations? Too often shopper marketers and trade marketers default to price promotions, or follow their plan from the previous year, or allow their retail partners to dictate what happens. But none of these approaches are likely to yield better results. Better shopper activation requires a consistent, replicable approach. And that is exactly what we have developed at engage (and what we will be sharing at our Disruptive Shopper Activation Masterclass, among many other things!)
The entire process is called the Shopper Activation Wheel™. Each step of the process is simple yet powerful: but there are three steps that, time after time, really help marketing teams focus on doing the right things in the right locations in te right stores:
Identifying the target shopper: Setting a Shopper Behavioral Objective: Identifying and overcoming shopper barriers.
These three steps help us avoid generic activity. They help us go deep on who our target shopper is, what we want them to do, and why they aren’t doing it currently. These steps help us get really clear on what activity, or combination of activities, is most likely to help us get the results that we want.
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The second of these power steps is setting what we call Shopper Behavioral Objectives. Most of you will be familiar with the concepts of objectives, and (hopefully) set objectives for each of your activities. But as argued before, the quality of outcome of any plan is related to the quality of the objective (or objectives!) set. Most marketers set sales objectives, or market share objectives. Those are a great start, and we would suggest that we aim to set at least three objectives for your activity. But of all the objectives, I believe that shopper behavior objectives are by far the most powerful.
The power of shopper behavior objectives
A sales objective might help us measure predict and measure the return on investment, but it doesn’t really help us focus on the best tactics. Lots of things can increase sales. If we want a more focused, powerful, shopper engaging activity, we need a SHOPPER objective. Specifically, we need a Shopper Behavior Objective (SBO).
Shopper Behavior Objectives
Shopper behavior objectives are straight forward. They describe the change in behavior of the target shopper that we desire. It is built from the following components:
The Target Shopper: Who are we targeting? The more specific we can be about this, the more focused and powerful our shopper marketing program will be.
What is the current behavior of the target shopper? What do they do right now? Where do they shop? Where do they research, what do they buy? Why? The more detail we can apply here, the better. The more we know about what the target shopper does now, the more likely we are to be able to ‘get into their heads’ and engage them on that purchase journey.
What will the future behavior be? What do we want these shoppers to do now? Buy our brand instead of the competitor? Buy fresh instead of frozen? Buy two packs instead of one?
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Clarity on each of these areas leads to a clear, focused objective which sits alongside any commercial objectives. But the SBO helps us think through our marketing mix much more effectively. Now we can brainstorm all the potential tactics we could use, and evaluate each tactic, or combination of tactics against its ability to change the behavior of these specific shoppers.
The power of a Shopper Behavior Objective
There are lots of benefits of creating a clear statement of the desired change in shopping behavior. It is a key part of aligning with our consumer marketing team, and it helps us explain to a retailer exactly what the impact of the activity will be. But the context of this article is about identifying the best activity: and shopper behavior objectives are really powerful here.
Embedded in the shopper behavior objective is a definition of the target shopper: and we’ve already explained the benefits of clarity on who our target shopper is. But now we’re adding two more components to the target shopper definition. A description of what the target shopper does now, and a description of what we want them to do as a result of our activation.
Understanding what the target shopper does now
This might seem low value, but you’d be surprised. Knowing where the shopper goes in a store, what they pay attention to, what they ignore, what they buy – all of these things are critical to help us understand how to connect with them.
Most shoppers don’t shop the whole store, so knowing where they go, and where they don’t, is essential when it comes to choosing the right locations and touchpoints to engage the shopper. If a shopper doesn’t buy your category, then they may not even visit that aisle, so any activation there is likely to be missed.
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And shoppers don’t notice everything in a store either. Knowing what they engage with, what they notice, and what they don’t notice, is going to improve our chances of developing a plan that cuts through and creates engagement. Understanding the shoppers’ mission is key to this.
Different mechanics will drive different behavior
At its most basic, we know that different promotion mechanics are likely to drive different behavior. Let’s say we have two promotions that we ran last year: maybe a buy 2 get one free, and a simple price cut on a single pack. Let’s assume that both delivered exactly the same sales, and the same return on investment. Which should we use this time?
Without a shopper behavior objective this is a tough question to answer – they both appear to be of equal value. But what I tell you that our goal is to increase trial? Now things become a little clearer. The discount off a single pack is much more likely to drive trial (all other things being equal). Likewise if the objective was to increase basket size, then a buy two get a discount activity is much more likely to achieve that.
No excuse to settle for generic shopper activation – join us for the masterclass!
Setting shopper behavior objectives as part of the process of developing any shopper activity – whether it is point of sale material, a promotion, a sampling campaign or a new shelf layout. If you’d like to learn more about the creating better shopper activation come and join our unique Disruptive Shopper Activation Masterclass in London this September, or check out our training programs and we’ll happily come to you, wherever you are in the world