A MARKETER S GUIDE TO CUSTOMER DATA SOLUTIONS FOR CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS

Transcription

1 A MARKETER S GUIDE TO CUSTOMER DATA SOLUTIONS FOR CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS Copyright 2017 SessionM 1 WHITEPAPER

2 INTRODUCTION CPG has long been thought of as a proving ground for Marketers because the supermarket aisle stages a ruthless battle where things like Product, Place, Promotion, and Price compete for an unfair share of consumers wallets every week-- and both Brand and Retail Profits hang in the margin. CPG brands also face the unique challenge of having their products sold across the shelves and online sites of many different retailers, creating a difficult task of piecing together the journey of a customer that purchases a product from the brand. But there is much success to be had for those brands that can capitalize on the challenges. Projected to be a $844 billion US industry by 2020, CPG sales are estimated to surpass 2015 numbers by $84 billion. One driving factor in the quest for increasing CPG sales is a sound omni-channel strategy, with an emphasis on mobile. The consumer s smartphone is often the place where many of the brand interactions take place. Even if the product is not being purchased online, a savvy consumer can research product info, search for specific deals, and find nearby locations at the touch of a fingertip. According to Retail Dive: Mobile Commerce, 60 percent of consumers use mobile devices to find information on nearby products and services and 40 percent of those are on the go when searching. For brands to capitalize on this it is essential to follow, understand, and act upon each important step in the purchase path. To maximize success in the CPG industry, brands must identify key customer behaviors and target them with personalized experiences. In this guide for CPG marketers, we ll take a closer look at the main challenges facing CPG brands, strategies to solve these challenges and some real-life examples of CPG brands that are leveraging them to achieve brand loyalty. Challenges Facing the CPG Industry No direct relationship with consumers As the goods are sold through separate retailers a barrier is placed between the two parties, limiting customer data collection for the CPG brand and hindering positive brand experiences that create loyalty for the customer. Disintermediated purchase channel With the same CPG goods existing in a number of different retail stores, it can be difficult to map the customer s full journey and interactions with the brand. With the number of different in-store and online retail options available for customers to purchase CPGs, successful brands must keep track of multiple data sources to form a single view of each customer. 2

3 Tracking marketing efficacy across channels As there can be a disconnect between a brand s marketing efforts and the third party retailer that sees the resulting traffic and sales, CPG companies can struggle to understand the marketing ROI. Proving a product s worth to retailers CPG brands often face the challenge of proving a product s worth to a retailer in competition for promotional and in-aisle shelving space. With sales figures typically fueling the discussion, brands can be left grasping for additional types of data to support their case. How CPGs can solve these challenges Start by collecting customer data Creating personalized experiences with consumers starts with intelligent data collection. If you don t know who your customers are then it will be impossible to deliver timely, tailormade engagements that impact the bottom line. For CPG brands, the most effective way to start collecting customer data is by investing in mobile. Consumers frequently shop for CPG items in stores making mobile the best, fastest and most efficient way to access potential customers. With mobile, brands can understand customers behaviors, preferences and habits, giving them the ability to customize and tailor their approach to give consumers consistent offers and experiences across different channels. 3

4 Leverage a loyalty program to incentivize customers to reveal their information In order to start collecting data on your customers, you need a way to motivate them to self-identify. The best way to do this is through a loyalty program (specifically one connected to mobile) that makes consumers feel valued and offers features that will make consumers lives easier and more convenient. Mobile-first loyalty enhances brand perception, influences a consumer s decision-making and improves interactions with a consumer throughout their whole path to purchase. Implementing a mobile-first, consumer loyalty program can help increase the lifetime value of a customer, improve the effectiveness of your outreach and grow revenue. With the first-party data a loyalty program provides, CPG brands can gain an understanding of what products customers are purchasing when and at what retail partner, while also establishing a direct relationship with customers. CPG brands can start to understand individual consumer s retail preferences in order to tie campaigns to specific partners and provide reporting and attribution back to the partner to track efficacy. This can then be used to help advocate for additional/better shelf space, etc. Marketers can also leverage this data to tie specific offers to purchases. For example purchase this size toothpaste within this date range and we will give you a coupon for free tube of toothpaste, or make a purchase of toothpaste at this retail partner and we ll send you a $5 gift card to that retailer. Digital Commerce In addition to taking control of sales growth through data collection and mobile-loyalty, digital commerce also provides a significant source of revenue that many CPG brands are neglecting today. A Deloitte study, Digital commerce in the supermarket aisle: Strategies for CPG brands, revealed, fewer than one in seven CPG executives self-assessed their company s digital commerce capabilities as advanced across 15 digital commerce areas, including e-commerce vision, processes, talent, and having a single view of the consumer. With consumers embracing digital purchase channels more and more, CPGs that focus on digital commerce now may have a competitive advantage down the road. Besides differentiation, CPGs stand to gain numerous other benefits from digital commerce. As a 2016 McKinsey study explained Without digital commerce efforts, CPG marketers have limited ability to develop direct relationships with customers, drive loyalty and advocacy, or collect immediate insights. Spending on digital commerce gives CPG marketers the building blocks to complement their indirect channel strategies with direct-to-consumer (DTC) engagement. 4

5 Examples of CPG Brands providing great customer experiences Coke Freestyle Loyalty Program The Coke Freestyle Loyalty program is a great example of how consumer packaged goods brands can collect customer data and leverage it to create a purchase path. How they do it By merging cross channel account data and accessing campaign eligibility in real-time, Coke is able to trigger marketing and personalized engagements as customers take actions in stores. With a holistic customer profile, Coke can automatically access campaign eligibility to trigger promotions as customers take action, even combining multiple campaigns. Customers can take certain actions and immediately become eligible for points. Customers with the Coke Freestyle app are able to connect to machines via QR code to order and pour their customized drink. Customers receive a pour confirmation via push notification. After 5 pours, customers automatically receive a $5 Amazon card all in real time. Huggies Rewards The Huggies Rewards program showcases how mobile engagement enables CPG brands to more effectively collect customer data and engage customers in real time. How they did it Huggies sold their product primarily through retail vendors, and therefore did not know much about its customers. They had a generic, desktop only loyalty program in place; requiring busy parents to save pin codes from diaper packages and manually enter them on the website. Huggies modernized their rewards program to make it easy to use in order to understand consumer behavior and connect with their customers. With their new mobile-friendly program, customers could upload a picture of their receipt to earn points. Customers can then collect points and submit orders all from within the Huggies app. 5

6 This enabled Huggies to gain nearly 4x monthly volume of loyalty-linked purchases and intel for lifecycle management: 96% of survey-responding members would recommend this program to a friend. They also found the app to be more effective than web with 160% higher point earning (purchase and campaign related) in the app than the web platform. The CPG industry is more competitive than ever before. In order for brands to survive, they must prioritize an omnichannel strategy that includes a strong mobile presence. This is the only way for brands to start collecting customer data that they can then act on to provide personalized experiences at the moment of impact. By delivering tailormade engagements when it matters most, CPGs stand to gain significant revenue, cross-sell and upsell opportunities and market share in general. Those brands that wait for a digital transformation may find themselves in dire straits within a few short years. Your path to more purchases hangs in creating a direct path to purchase. The time to act is now. READY TO GET STARTED? SessionM helps businesses forge stronger relationships through smarter customer engagement by identifying customer behavior, putting it into context, applying rules of engagement and executing the next best interaction. Across any channel. In milliseconds. Our platform streams-in customer data from disparate sources to create a single actionable profile that is updated in real time with every event. With a dynamic actionable profile, marketers can then engage individual customers in real-time with personalized messages, offers, incentives and content across any channel. Leverage predictive analytics and marketing automation to capture every opportunity to upsell, delight and retain your most valuable customers. For more information on SessionM, visit or us at marketing@sessionm.com 6