Collecting consumer data is crucial to attaining and maintaining a loyal consumer base, particularly for retail marketers. Marketing Insights recently caught up with Curtis Tingle, senior vice president of strategic demand and development at Valassis, a Livonia, Mich.-based media and marketing analytics company, to discuss the latest developments in shopper data collection and how marketers can use data to increase ROI.
Q: Retailers are using more sophisticated tactics these days to gather intelligence on their consumers, both in-store and online. Tell me about the latest developments.
A: Retailers for years have been able to capture data on their shoppers at various levels. You have grocery stores that have loyalty data, understanding what categories the consumer buys, how often they buy and which brands. They understand exactly who their gold-level shopper is. … You may know where they live, the Zip code they’re in. The advancements we’ve seen of late is taking that loyalty data and bringing it to life with media. In the past, your only option was to speak one-to-one with the consumer via direct mail, or e-mail. Where that’s advanced now is really through mobile. You get a consumer to download your app, log in with their loyalty card information and then communicate with them via e-mail or mail. It gives them a richer engagement that’s more efficient for the retailer.
Q: With massive amounts of consumer data coming in, how can marketers avoid getting bogged down by it and use it to effectively target consumers and encourage repeat purchases?
A: You’ve got to find a way to make data actionable so it comes to life for your brand and also brings significant value to the consumer. Whether or not you have specific one-to-one data from a loyalty database, or if you’re [measuring] sales patterns at a store level, Big Data presents an opportunity to communicate in a more relevant manner with shoppers. The key is: How do you translate that data into true insights, understand how those insights impact the shopper’s life, and most importantly, how you communicate with that consumer? There’s an element of privacy.
Q: Any best practices you can offer to help marketers allay consumers’ privacy concerns?
A: You need to market without being annoying. If you can understand what value equation the consumer needs—if a mom is planning the meals for her kids, if both parents are managing the schedule of the evening and they have no idea what they’re going to have for dinner, if you bring them a meal solution in the late afternoon—that’s going to be relevant to them. It needs to come to them in a way that’s easy, that’s turnkey, that’s quick. Don’t push irrelevant offers on them. They should be relevant and timely. The biggest challenge that marketers have is scale, how do they reach enough of their customer base efficiently so they can drive the right amount of ROI in an environment that consumers will engage with on a ritual basis. Emerging and digital media are struggling to achieve that. The level of engagement that may come with digital or mobile media is hard to replicate in traditional media, but traditional media provides scale that’s difficult to achieve in digital. You need to blend those two elements so you reach the consumer on their path to purchase, knowing if they’re planning the shopping occasion, or if the buying occasion is going to be impulse-driven. You need to locate the consumer and connect with them to get them to take action. It involves influencing the consumer on the path to purchase. Know what media they’re engaging with. Are they reading the newspaper? Are they looking for deals? Are they using coupons, and will they go to a website for coupons, or do they prefer to have coupons on an app? It’s a testing situation, because every consumer is different. The more you understand not only which media reaches your consumer, but engages that consumer, the better off you’re going to be in driving performance for the brand.
Q: Do you have any other tips for collecting, analyzing and acting on shopper data to drive results?
A: National brands have to act local if they want to be relevant, and that’s true if you’re talking about a CPG brand or a retail location in a chain. If they can engage the consumer in ways that are relevant and timely and local, they can drive greater performance from their actions. The other key is to find a way to intersect the vast amount of data you have from offline and brick-and-mortar stores with online and digital media or your e-commerce engagements so you know more about the consumer, how they want to shop and what they engage with. You need understand what websites a consumer goes to, how frequently they’re online and how often they spend time on their mobile devices with your brand. If you can combine the power of understanding your offline and online data and make that locally relevant, you can hit a sweet spot where the consumer will give up more of their privacy for increased value.
Author: Christine Birkner