Out With Mass Marketing, In With Mobile
The retail store of the future will turn your strategy for new product introductions on its head. How? By squeezing your launch and execution into shortened cycles, requiring more careful aim — at consumers, shoppers, retailers and store locations — and altering order and fulfillment operations.
The main culprit behind the dramatic shift is the pervasiveness of mobile technologies and the way it has changed the shopper’s path to purchase. Media spends’ move out of mass marketing and into personalization and engagement has been gradual. But mobile’s uptake has been lightning fast.
Mobile is moving faster than most brand owners can adapt. What’s more, its speedy adoption is propelling omnichannel shopping, fueling customers’ expectations for a seamless experience as they move among websites, mobile devices, catalogs and stores.
How will your marketing organization introduce new products into this changing retail environment? Here are three key actions you need to take to succeed in the store of the future.
1 Be more granular. Consumer-need spaces are moving to more granular segments based on new dimensions like lifestyle and context. Placing new products where shoppers are most likely to purchase them requires a granular understanding and execution at channel, store and shelf levels, as well as in e-commerce and with Internet of Things initiatives such as Amazon Dash.
Missing a new product market forecast and not being able to ensure a real-time response to consumer/shopper adoption will jeopardize and negatively impact results.
In the store of the future, granular data will be at the heart of new product rollouts. How can brand owners drive traffic into the retail environment? What joint marketing programs will support new products in smaller segments suited for specific shoppers and retailers? It’s a seismic shift for brand owners. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) systems and processes have always focused on creating scale. Uniqueness costs money. But today’s marketplace requires brand owners to embrace personalization — and data.
2 Know your end customers. Customer intimacy feels foreign to many brand owners. But it’s key to the success of future product launches. You need to know not only the likes and dislikes of the shoppers who buy your products, but also the details of their shopping experience. What does the zero and first moment of truth look like? How do they satisfy it? How can you make it convenient for the shopper to be aware of your new product and easily purchase and experience it? Identifying shoppers’ trip mission, routes to purchase and retailer store or channel is becoming an essential factor in new product launches. So are store-specific planograms. Already CPG companies are identifying clusters of consumers and shoppers at the store level and configuring planograms for them. Cluster-based planograms balance brand owners’ need for scale and shoppers’ clamor for personalization.
3 Be ready to share data. The mobile connected devices’ unprecedented adoption is accelerating a cultural change in the way you and your partners need to collaborate on new product promotions. The tug of war over POS and loyalty data still wages among retailers, manufacturers, and third-party providers on many product fronts. But tensions are receding. In today’s supply chain, everyone needs granularity. In the future, we will all need even more. Prompted by mobile’s swift adoption, many retailers and manufacturers are learning to adapt together.
How will your marketing organization promote new products in the store of the future? The answer is different for every CPG company. Change is here, and it brings your organization opportunities for both flexibility and profits. Finding the right balance between mass/personal and channel/store depends on your new product characteristics and your organization’s capabilities.
The main culprit behind the dramatic shift is the pervasiveness of mobile technologies and the way it has changed the shopper’s path to purchase. Media spends’ move out of mass marketing and into personalization and engagement has been gradual. But mobile’s uptake has been lightning fast.
Mobile is moving faster than most brand owners can adapt. What’s more, its speedy adoption is propelling omnichannel shopping, fueling customers’ expectations for a seamless experience as they move among websites, mobile devices, catalogs and stores.
How will your marketing organization introduce new products into this changing retail environment? Here are three key actions you need to take to succeed in the store of the future.
1 Be more granular. Consumer-need spaces are moving to more granular segments based on new dimensions like lifestyle and context. Placing new products where shoppers are most likely to purchase them requires a granular understanding and execution at channel, store and shelf levels, as well as in e-commerce and with Internet of Things initiatives such as Amazon Dash.
Missing a new product market forecast and not being able to ensure a real-time response to consumer/shopper adoption will jeopardize and negatively impact results.
In the store of the future, granular data will be at the heart of new product rollouts. How can brand owners drive traffic into the retail environment? What joint marketing programs will support new products in smaller segments suited for specific shoppers and retailers? It’s a seismic shift for brand owners. Consumer packaged goods (CPG) systems and processes have always focused on creating scale. Uniqueness costs money. But today’s marketplace requires brand owners to embrace personalization — and data.
2 Know your end customers. Customer intimacy feels foreign to many brand owners. But it’s key to the success of future product launches. You need to know not only the likes and dislikes of the shoppers who buy your products, but also the details of their shopping experience. What does the zero and first moment of truth look like? How do they satisfy it? How can you make it convenient for the shopper to be aware of your new product and easily purchase and experience it? Identifying shoppers’ trip mission, routes to purchase and retailer store or channel is becoming an essential factor in new product launches. So are store-specific planograms. Already CPG companies are identifying clusters of consumers and shoppers at the store level and configuring planograms for them. Cluster-based planograms balance brand owners’ need for scale and shoppers’ clamor for personalization.
3 Be ready to share data. The mobile connected devices’ unprecedented adoption is accelerating a cultural change in the way you and your partners need to collaborate on new product promotions. The tug of war over POS and loyalty data still wages among retailers, manufacturers, and third-party providers on many product fronts. But tensions are receding. In today’s supply chain, everyone needs granularity. In the future, we will all need even more. Prompted by mobile’s swift adoption, many retailers and manufacturers are learning to adapt together.
How will your marketing organization promote new products in the store of the future? The answer is different for every CPG company. Change is here, and it brings your organization opportunities for both flexibility and profits. Finding the right balance between mass/personal and channel/store depends on your new product characteristics and your organization’s capabilities.