Shopper Marketing

Shopper Marketing

What is Shopper Marketing ? 

Shopper marketing is a marketing strategy that aims to increase growth of brand and sales by focusing on the overall shopping experience. Key parts of this strategy include online presence, digital coupons, mobile presence, contextual relevance, product placement, promotions, food displays, store layout, lighting, sound and scent. Each element is chosen with the goal of influencing the customer into making a purchase decision.

Long before the internet existed even, food brands focused on trying to capture customers while then they were most likely to buy – when they were already in the store.

Shopper Marketing Online 

But now with the internet playing a much more crucial role, Shopper Marketing starts online. With the average supermarket carrying more than 30,000 items, many purchase decisions are being made online, well before arrive in-store. While the original elements such as store atmosphere and product placement are still important, shopper marketing has become more advanced.

Developing an Effective Shopper Marketing Strategy

The first step to developing a strong shopper marketing strategy is to collect data on how your current and potential shoppers’ shop. Where do they shop? How frequently? What do they buy? What influences their buying decision the most? This data is getting easier to attain thanks to advances in technology. It’s also important to note that there is a distinction between target customer and target shopper. A customer is a broader term whereas a shopper refers to a someone making a purchase decision in a particular location at a specific time.

Once there is a clear shopper segmentation, then campaigns can be developed to target each of these segments. It’s important to consider the cost versus the potential gained market share or increased sales from each campaign. Often the most successful strategies involve a collaboration between a manufacturer and retailer. Online and social media platforms can also play an interesting role in today’s shopper marketing strategies.

As with any marketing strategy, shopper marketing strategies should be monitored and evaluated while they are in effect and after they end. This information will help inform future successful shopper marketing strategies.

Shopper Marketing Solutions from Gourmet Ads 

Since 2008, Gourmet Ads has helped Food Brands around the globe to put their brand in front of Grocery Buyers, by influencing and engaging with them. Below are some examples of how our Shopping Marketing Solutions. We can create any sort of Digital Shopper Marketing campaign.

1. Recipe Targeting

Shopper Marketing starts online and our Recipe Targeting options allow brands to advertise directly next to recipes that are contextually relevant. This allows brands to be “front & center” while grocery buyers are researching recipes and marking their shopping lists. Grocery buyers who write down your brand on their shopping list, tend ignore other brands in-store. Our Recipe Targeting can use various Media Formats such as Display, Video and Native.

2. Digital Coupons

Digital Coupons are a great way to “pre-sell” to the grocery shopper and ensure the sale. Consumers that download a Digital Coupon with an offer are more likley to buy that brand once in-store. So running a wide reaching campaign with the call to action being a Digital Coupon.

3. Mobile Presence 

Technology is affecting shopper marketing in several ways. Shoppers are more likely to use their phone while shopping to comparison shop (25% of shoppers) or look something up (50% of shoppers). This trend opens up an opportunity for stores to combine digital and in-store experiences. Gourmet Ads can focus on targeting content while grocery buyers are in-store using location targeting. We can employ techniques like Mobile Adhesions to continue the “front & center” theme.

4. Building Audience Segments 

For Digital Shopper Marketing campaigns, often so much focus goes into the media and the media effectiveness. We tend to take a long term view and while we do ficus on the campaign and the targeting, we’ll challenge food brands to take a long term view and encourage them to build reusable audience segments that can help target shoppers for multiple campaigns.