How to Leverage Shopper Marketing to Grow Consumer Engagement

Historically, shopper marketing existed within the aisle. The battle for consumers' minds was limited almost entirely to the grocery aisle, and the relationship that CPG brands was almost exclusively dependent on the retailer. It was the retailer who held the key to a consumer's brand loyalty. Now, long after the largely exploratory dawn of social media, consumers have shown a particular interest in brand interaction via social media.

The shopper experience has shifted to the digital landscape and shopper marketing tactics have shifted to match. From physical interactions in-aisle to digital touch-points outside of the store, winning consumer purchases means winning the battle for brand engagement.

Although the landscape has changed, shopper marketing tactics still represent an effort to grow the relationship between brands and consumers. Now, products are accessible from so many outlets, the rate of purchase has increased. A Salesforce study on consumer habits notes that half of repeat buyers wait less than three weeks to repeat their purchase. “Marketers and commerce leaders must prioritize new re-engagement strategies, including speedy retargeting, personalized loyalty offers, and perfectly timed upsell opportunities.”

Leveraging consumer products to increase interaction out of store serves as the first step in the digital shopping experience. Once the consumer has the product in-hand and they have passed the point of sale, your brand is able to leverage unique packaging to transition shoppers to digital properties.

Digital properties designed for the mobile experience act as a way to build customer retention. Brands can influence consumer habits by extending the journey out of store and straight to a consumer’s pocket.

At Realtime Media we specialize in three different shopper marketing solutions:

Receipt Validation | On-Pack Promotions | SMS/Text-to-Enter

Mobile Shopper Engagement Wins Consumer Attention

The modern shopper centers their experience around the smartphone. Almost always accessible, shopping behavior has shifted to favor mobile optimized experiences. Opening mobile channels for customer acquisition and interaction is a key to building brand engagement.

Unique to each consumer, phone numbers act as the perfect point of transition between physical products and digital properties. With SMS/Text-to-Enter integration, pushing branded content to consumers has never been more accessible. Additionally, providing consumers with a custom SMS short code as a means of entry boosts the relationship between brand and consumer, lowering the barrier to enter a sweepstakes.

To increase participation and drive high conversion rates, putting the chance to win closer to the consumer with a shorter user flow is always recommended.

Once enrolled, your brand can seamlessly push promotional messages through SMS services. Messages can be plain-text messages highlighting new promotions or provide users a richer mobile experience.
Brands engage consumers during the mobile experience in various ways. From pushing exciting content to providing consumers with chances to win exclusive prizes. Instant Win Games, for example, let consumers know that your brand is interested in more than just purchases.
Optimized for the mobile experience, consumers are able to play and instantly discover if they are a winner or not. Whether or not they have won a prize at that moment, you have won a fight for their mobile engagement.

SMS activation provides your brand a chance to engage consumers and extend the customer experience post purchase.

Extend The Consumer Experience Post-Purchase

Many shopper marketing promotions share the goal of changing consumer habits. For CPG brands the most valuable consumers are those that repeat their purchase, spending more money. Building consumer loyalty can be as simple as giving consumers a reason to return to your brand for more purchases. There are many ways to build loyalty, but extending the consumer experience beyond checkout forms a strong foundation for a loyalty program, starting with consumers that express the strongest confirmation of interest in your brand.

One way to engage consumers post-purchase is to create an incentive program that rewards each purchase. Through receipt validation, consumers are driven to repeat their purchases for a chance to earn some form of reward. Whether it is access to exclusive deals or promotions. By submitting an image of their receipt through either on-site upload or through SMS, consumer purchases are validated. This confirms purchase and gives you hard data you can apply to your purchase funnels on a per-retailer level.

Gift-with-purchase campaigns can reward customers with tangible rewards such as coupons or entries in a larger sweepstakes promotion. By granting permission for each valid purchase to be another chance to earn a reward, consumers are likely to return.

Acquire Consumer Data and Brand Preferences

“88% of retail and consumer goods marketers say personalization has improved their overall marketing program.” As reported by Salesforce, with so many brands bidding for consumer dollars, personalized messaging is important in any marketing strategy. Expanding the post purchase experience for consumers provides your brand an opportunity to collect powerful zero-party data.

Consumers are looking for brands that are willing to invest in them. Creating more personalized messaging and brand-interaction is a surefire way to achieve that. In short, zero-party data represents user-submitted data that gives brand insight into the purchase habits and preferences of consumers.

Consumers are more protective than ever about their personal data, providing a mutually beneficial opportunity to volunteer their data is key. Building data collection into promotional registration and profiling quizzes is a great way to engage consumers. Collected zero-party data gives your brand all of the tools to boost the quality direct-to-consumer marketing.

Data acquisition can come from a variety of channels, each providing your brand with different information. One strategy for collecting valuable consumer purchase data is integrating bag codes into your promotional mix. Bag codes provide a way for consumers to verify their purchases while dually providing your brand with powerful purchase data. Each bag code is uniquely mapped and tracked to a different product, store and the consumer that made the purchase.

Conclusion

By focusing on consumer engagement, your brand will start to see returns in data acquisition and consumer loyalty. Purchase validation and SMS activation provide your brand direct channels to understand and reward your consumers. Shopper marketing tools make bridging the gap between the physical shelf and the digital world easy and seamless.

At Realtime Media, we have been helping brands provide consumers with rich promotional experiences for over 20 years. All of our shopper marketing services come with full-service packages. From back-end to winner outreach and prize fulfillment, we’ve got you covered.