Shopper Marketing doesn’t have to remain a mystery. Understanding the difference between a consumer and a shopper, the triggers to buy and shopping behaviour throughout the path to purchase, can turn any good business manager into a shopper marketer.
Here, shopper strategist and AdSchool course presenter Emilia Archibald unpacks a couple of considerations to explore when formulating a shopper marketing strategy for grocery buying as an example:
- Purchase drivers when shopping – Emotional versus Functional
One grocery shopping basket can represent the fulfilment of multiple consumer demands, such as those of a partner, kids and pets.
The demands of each these consumers in a household may change depending on the multiple occasion types that occur on any given day, such as breakfast, the school lunch, soccer training and tonight’s dinner.
Therefore, one full grocery trolley can represent a complex range of emotional and functional considerations for each member in a household that the shopper has factored in with each purchase, ranging from expressions of parental love to weight loss considerations for the cat.
Understanding which drivers will prompt brand purchase, communicated at what point within the shopping journey..be it pre store or in store, underpins best practice shopper marketing. - Convenience and the Omnichannel shopper
Convenience for shoppers, ie removing pain points that may stand between a brand and a purchase, is a macro trend transforming many retail environments.
For instance, if bulky or heavy items are part of the weekly grocery shop (eg nappies/bulk pet food/drink bottles/cans) the shopper may offset the value she has paid for these items with the benefit of paying someone else to manouvre the goods into her own home.
This means that the brand that makes it into the shopping basket may simply be the one that offers packaging easiest to carry and unpack, regardless of how emotionally engaged she is as a consumer with the brand promise of an alternative brand.
There are many trends that affect the way shoppers spend disposable income in different categories. How they are harnessed can ultimately affect business growth and invariably involve a different but complimentary approach from that of consumer marketing…its called Shopper Marketing.
Emilia Archibald is one of the most experienced shopper marketers in Australia, and has crafted strategy for clients such as Lion, Diageo, CUB, Coca Cola, Mars Petfood and many more since 2006.
