Marketing and selling in tough economic conditions:

Turning shoppers into buyers

Prasanna Perera Marketing and Management Consultant, Chartered Marketer CIM U.K.

Q: What is Shopper Marketing?

Shopper Marketing is becoming an increasing focus for many of the world’s major brands. Reaching shoppers through traditional mediums has become more difficult. More and more fragmentation of media and audiences can be observed.

More often than not, “shopper marketing” is directed towards exactly the same person whom brands target outside of stores with mass mediums and other activity.

Shopper marketing can be thought of as a discipline to generate insights and understanding of shoppers and as an approach of intuitive understanding of shoppers that allows marketers to act.

2. Shopper Marketing: Strategy One (Identification)

For brands that are the preferred choice of many consumers, the key point-of-purchase task is to make them as easy as possible for shoppers to find. In a bricks-and-mortar store (physical store), the location scale and visibility of the fixture, as well as the location and prominence of the brand within the fixture, are essential factors.

3. Shopper Marketing: Strategy Two (Disruption)

Disruption often takes the form of a variety of financial incentives such as free offers, price reductions etc., Disruption can also be accomplished through other in-store activities, that attract attention and highlight a brand’s unique benefits.

4. Shopper Marketing: Strategy Three (Enticement)

Enticement can be carried out via store layout, presentation, design and lighting. Shoppers are encouraged to spend more time browsing categories, they may not have been thinking about when they entered the store. Taken to an extreme, enticement can become a form of “retail-tainment.”

5. The Shopper

There are two keys to unlocking the power of shopper marketing. The first is to develop communications within the point of purchase that acknowledge that the mindset and motivation of a person shopping is very different from the mindset and motivation of a person who is watching, reading or listening to adverts at home. The second is to build presence in the store, with an excellent understanding of the brand associations that already exists in the minds of consumers, as a result of communication outside of the store.

6. Types of Shoppers

6.1 “Keeper” - The person who takes responsibility of providing for the household through shopping. These people enjoy shopping and their responsibility.

6.2 “Banker” - A budget minded shopper who knows the limits. Loves bargains and loyalty can be won with great pricing.

6.3 “Seeker” - A shopper with a very different agenda. Is looking for new products, new ideas and tastes. For this type of shopper,shopping is a journey of discovery.

6.4 “Desperate” - Needs a specific item immediately.

6.5 “Courier” - Doing small grab-and-go trips. The courier has a limited shopping list and is looking for a combination of speed and price to help.

6.6 “Bargain Hunter” - This shopper is on a price mission and will do everything to cut costs, including moving between stores.

6.7 “Hungry Shopper” - Whose goal is a specific item for an immediate need. This is a very focused shopping trip.

7. Connecting, Engaging and Exciting Shoppers

Today’s shoppers are expecting a different shopping experience. Experiential shopper marketing signals a shift from simply selling products to selling experiences. To do this, the power of the five senses should be harnessed to connect, engage and excite the shopper. “SIGHT” is humankind’s most dominant sense and this supremacy is underpinned in part by a profound connection to colour. “SOUND” is a crucial component of atmosphere, and its most powerful manifestation can be found in music. One of the most powerful yet often overlooked senses “SMELL” taps directly into the emotions, memory and subconscious mind.

A growing number of retailers are capitalizing on the impact of aroma, by using in-store fragrancing to enhance brand image and influence shopper behaviour. Walk into any Apple store around the world and you will observe that they are designed to encourage shoppers to “TOUCH” and feel the merchandise. Touch is another powerful human sensory dimension. “TASTE” is a key element particularly in food and beverage retailing establishments.

8. Barriers to Shopper Marketing

There are several obstacles in shopper marketing. The primary obstacle is the lack of real shopper insights and shopper research. Further, there is no current standards of measurement for in-store activity. Another major obstacle is that not many leading marketing executives are also qualified shopper marketers. Organization structures and budget allocations are also based on old school priorities. They do not reflect modern shopping experiences and expectations.

9. Putting the Shopper into your Marketing Strategy

Effective shopper marketing programs are informed by an intimate, household level understanding of shopper behaviour and its influences. Companies involved in shopper marketing need to know the answers to the following questions :

9.1 Which shoppers matter most?

9.2 What do they buy?

9.3 How do they buy?

9.4 Why do they buy?

9.5 Now that I know the answers to 9.1 - 9.4, how can I use shopper marketing to grow loyalty, sales and profit?

Further, effective shopper marketing programmes are shaped by a company’s commitment to earn and grow shoppers’ lifetime loyalty. Focusing on growing the number of loyal shoppers and on growing the spending by loyal shoppers, is a potent and sustainable strategy to drive sales and profits.

10. Conclusion

The aim of shopper marketing is to turn shoppers into buyers, at the point of purchase. A relatively new area of marketing, it requires investment to understand shopper needs and trends, retail environments and buyer behaviour.

“The retail store is a theatre, the shopper an actor and the retailer an actress.” (Author)