Ways to implement shopper insights successfully
We all know shopper insights and loyalty data can be very powerful tools within the CPG industry.
However, access to all this extra data (on top of existing data) can be very daunting and leave you feeling like Alice falling down the Rabbit Hole.
The more you dig into the data, the less you feel you understand and then you’re stuck in ‘analysis paralysis’.
The keys to successfully integrating shopper insights into your organization and your day-to-day role are focus and simplicity.
Focus: It is true that loyalty data can tell you (almost) everything you could want to know about your shoppers and how they purchase your brands and categories. For brand teams, this could be very important to track over time. How are we performing against our target market and how is their behaviour/loyalty evolving?
But for a trade team trying to hit your targets, why spend time every day learning every aspect about the shopper, when all you need to understand right now is: did my recent TPR attract shoppers from my major competitor, and did those shoppers stay with my brand for subsequent purchases while being incremental to the category?
Shopper insights shouldn’t be a separate entity to everyday tasks. It should be used on a daily basis to test and confirm specific hypotheses and objectives. Knowing which loyalty metric or shopper insight to use for each hypotheses and objective is therefore critical to success.
Simplicity: Integrating shopper insights into the day-to-day of your organization is only possible if loyalty metrics are easily accessible, available on-demand, relevant to your specific need and presented clearly and concisely. Insights teams or power users may want completely customizable reporting, however most users will be able to achieve success with shopper insights from five simple reports:
Key measures – What is driving sales? Loyalty/non-loyalty members, number of customers/transactions, purchase frequency, units per transaction or price per unit.
Who buys? – Easily see who buys your brand/competitors/category. Age, gender, price profile & loyalty profile.
How do customers cross shop? – How loyal are shoppers to SKU/brand/pack format? Is competition for my shoppers & their dollars increasing or decreasing?
Trial and repeat – Understand success of new product launches, major price/promotional changes and overall Brand health. How many customers trialed my product/category and what % re-purchased? How many times do customers repurchase my product and how many units to they buy per transaction.
What else does my customer buy? – Understand what else is in your customers’ transaction and what the total transaction is worth to the retailer. Where are opportunities for cross promotions or line extensions?
By ensuring shopper insights are integrated into your organization with focus and simplicity, you can enhance the day-to-day performance of your teams, without increasing their workload or drowning them in excess data.