Millennial shoppers will soon be the biggest purchasing group in the United States and are estimated to spend $600 billion each year. So, what does this mean to you? The marketing landscape is changing and you will now need to focus on the needs of the millennial generation. What do millennials want in a company? In a recent study they found that 81% of millennials expect companies to make a public commitment to charitable causes and citizenship. Traditionally consumers just “wanted” companies to incorporate social good into their business model but have come to expect it in recent years. In fact, 90% of Americans say they are more likely to trust and stay loyal to stores that actively try and make a difference. Now more than ever it is important to portray and actively pursue a socially responsible image. Studies have also shown that 88% of consumers would buy a product with a social or environmental benefit and an astounding 84% would tell friends and family about the companies cause. Turning your customers into your personal marketeers. Along those same…
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Keys to effective loyalty
Loyalty programs begin with wanting to reward loyal frequent customers, however most loyalty programs fail within 2 months of implementation because there isn’t a strategy designed to support them. Recently I attended an event hosted by Spin Pizza where I learned how their loyalty program achieved success. They started by identifying that they did not want it to be a discount program. Offering frequent discounts tells the customer you’re playing with margin and they are being over charged at regular price. Reward based loyalty performs better than instant discount by more than 42%. Upon customer sign up they load the users card with points, this kind of “primes the pump” so to speak. The customer then builds additional points per visit, when certain bench marks are reached the customer gets special perks like “Spin Club Dough”, basically cash vouchers that can be used for purchases. Loyalty rewards need to be carefully analyzed to determine how tolerable the reward is to sales. As a customer it would be nice to get paid for eating pizza, but that wouldn’t be the most…
Diving into 2016 ACSI Retail Report
[vc_row type=”in_container” full_screen_row_position=”middle” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column column_padding=”no-extra-padding” column_padding_position=”all” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″ column_shadow=”none” width=”1/1″ tablet_text_alignment=”default” phone_text_alignment=”default” column_border_width=”none” column_border_style=”solid”][vc_column_text]The 2016 American Customer Satisfaction Index report was released at the end of February. Supermarkets saw a jump of 6.8 percent in their average score to 78 out of 100. While no AWG banners appeared on the list there are some good takeaways from the report. Numbers are up across the board. As usual convenience leads the way but remains unchanged. The biggest jump came in courtesy and helpfulness of staff. What you will be most interested in is that customers’ satisfaction with overall food quality is up despite “ability to provide name brands” is down. This can only be a good thing for our private label brands. As customers realize the quality combined with the savings more and more will move toward your stores to take advantage. Website satisfaction is up a point. It still hovers right around the average with plenty of room to grow. We talk about how important your website is until we are blue in the face. A solid website can set…
Marketing to Millennials
Continuing our coverage of KCDMA’s Age of the Customer event from January 26. We already have a post about the event as a whole and about a presentation from Angie Hendershot about insights. A recent AWG blog post reminded me of a presentation from Barkley’s Jeff Fromm on marketing to Millennials. Jimmy’s post told the story of someone who went out of his way to get groceries from a store where he could order online. Fromm spent most of his presentation talking about how Millennials crave a frictionless journey. “If your process isn’t as easy to us as Amazon,” Fromm said, “then you have work to do.” From went on to describe how millennial shoppers are “always in beta.” Which is to say they are always testing and looking for ways to improve. Jimmy’s friend drove by a much closer grocery store because they refused to evolve. “We let consumer boredom creep in by doing the same thing every time,” Fromm said. Embracing online shopping would help retain Millennial customers that many retailers are losing. Like Jimmy, I enjoy wandering the aisles of…
We are in the Age of the Customer
Last week KCDMA hosted a symposium on The Age of the Customer. We already have one post covering one of the event’s breakout sessions. This will cover the event as a whole. Obviously, based on the title, all of the presentations were focused on putting the customer first. The hot word was “empathy.” As marketers, it is important to remember to put the customer first. Sometimes we get so bogged down in what we think is important we lose sight of our purpose. We all want to increase sales or views, or conversions, or whatever metric by which we measure our success. We sit in meetings and come up with what the customer wants. Adele Revella told the room to stop “making stuff up.” Revella said that the only way to know what matters to your customer is to talk to them. She suggests conducting extensive interviews with not only your customers but from potential customers who chose not to buy from you. Just as much, if not more, can be learned from customers that went with someone else. From these…
Check out the Checkout 51 app
Checkout 51 is a new offering for AWG retailers. This new app allows customers to earn cash back from purchases made at your store. Retailers can make a product list with offers. Shoppers then buy those items and earn money back. Retailers have the ability to target customers with specific deals. This allows retailers to “get the right deal to the right person at the right time to increase visits, basket size, and share of the basket.” In a time when everyone is trying to capture the millennial dollar, Checkout 51 will give retailers a leg up. Younger shoppers are more likely to use an app to find specials than a weekly circular. Currently, shoppers will upload a photo of their receipt to earn their cash back. However, through T-Log integration, you can eliminate this step. This integration will give shoppers a choice of how they want to receive their savings. They can choose between savings at the register or they can earn a refund through the app. Retailers then have the option of sending Checkout 51 a full transaction log…
How to use Twitter for customer care
[View the story “#HootChat: Twitter is best for Customer Care” on Storify]
Star Trek gadgets could work today with an open mind
“3D printed food you can eat,” makes me think of the “replicator” in Star Trek. The Replicator seemed like a magical device with the ability to make something out of nothing. I had forgotten the Replicator used technology from the transporter. This means the replicator actually found whatever you ordered and sent it to you. Quickly. At the end of a long day, I read the article mentioned in a recent Coffee with CART about the 3D edible food printer “Foodini”. Reading the article helped me shed my Star Trek Replicator assumptions and first off, I wasn’t impressed. I left work thinking “Big deal, somebody figured out how to fit a cookie factory into a box the size of a microwave, and it doesn’t even cook! Why would any of our retailers be interested?” It takes me 20-30 minutes to drive home from work, so I tend to relax some during this time. I started to think of factories that produce food. Basically, food goes in, it gets rearranged, and then packaged food comes out. Why do we have factories? To mass-produce. Now lets…
Geofencing
Geofencing is the use of GPS satellites, Bluetooth or WiFi to create a virtual boundary around a specific location from which you can trigger an event for your mobile device. This technology has been used in apps to help parents locate their child or lost pet and in professional environments to communicate location with employees working in the field. Imagine you’re driving home from work, caught up in the details of what happened at the office, keeping an eye on traffic and you forget to make that stop at the grocery store to pick up what you need for dinner that night. Here’s how geofencing can help. As you’re approaching the exit ramp to the local grocery store, your phone is tracking your location and it also gets a signal that a grocery store is nearby. Your phone then alerts you with a reminder to pick up dinner. Grocery store owners, you can go a step further by sending advertisements for your store and specials as a prospective customer enters your geofencing area. A customer who would normally stop at…
Dispelling the Myth of Manufacturer Promotions
The nature of the retail and vendor relationship is quickly changing. We are transitioning from an era where print ad was king into one centered on personalized, digital marketing. This shift represents a huge opportunity for retailers and vendors to provide more valuable partner promotions to their customers than ever before. Last week I joined a webinar from Deb Stambaugh and Global Market Development Center on “Dispelling the Myth: Retailer and Manufacturer Collaboration Is Too Hard.” Stambaugh spent some time reviewing the trends currently impacting the retailer/manufacturer relationship. The industry has somewhat been shaped by early digital movers like Amazon and Zappos, customers now understand the benefit deep digital integration can provide and are beginning to expect it from all retailer interactions. There is a noticeable divide between digital first retailers (i.e. Amazon, Zappos, Warby Parker) and the brick and mortar then digital operations. The organizations who take the leap to adopt this change and integrate technology into every aspect of their brick and mortar operation are the ones poised for the greatest success. Smaller footprint stores have the most…