How to drive incremental sales to your retail store or brand

How to drive incremental sales to your retail store or brand

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It’s not always easy to connect with consumers at various points on the path-to-purchase, but the most successful companies are exploring ways to drive immediacy and are developing campaigns that encourage overbuying, whether due to demand or desire. Make it your mission for 2020 and beyond: drive incremental sales to your retail store or brand. You won’t regret it.

What Are Incremental Sales?

The term “incremental sales” is used to describe the direct, measurable results of a marketing activity or campaign that produces greater sales than anticipated. 

Whether you’re a retailer or a brand, one sign of success is the increased number of leads, customers, sales, or other key performance indicators that would not have happened without the current marketing campaign’s lift above-and-beyond your expectations.

When looking to drive incremental sales, brands should look into ways to reach consumers at any given point on the path to purchase.

Why You Should Be Driving Incremental Sales

Incremental sales matter because they increase your revenue, allowing you to surpass goals, invest more back into the business, and enjoy bigger profits. Incremental sales are a matter of basic efficiency and capturing market share before others do.

You’ve likely worked hard to gain customers’ attention. If you’re a retailer, you’ve invested in selecting merchandise, training your staff, constructing displays, arranging layouts, and creating targeted promotions. If you’re a brand, you’ve invested in attracting top talent, product development, packaging, and creating engaging campaigns. All you need to do is encourage shoppers to spend now, and as much as possible, and incremental sales are your proof—shoppers are spending more than you expected.

How to Drive Incremental Sales to Your Brand

The incremental sale is valuable in courting brand new customers from competitors—people who may have never previously considered your brand before. Brands looking to drive incremental sales should consider the ways in which they can engage consumers—turning browsers into buyers, increasing transaction value, and creating more demand.

Turn Browsers Into Buyers

Half the battle is getting your product in the consumer’s hands. Once shoppers can touch, feel, and explore your product in-person, the conversion is not such a far leap from there. In-store sampling, guerilla marketing promotions, and demos are traditional methods of putting your products on center stage. These methods have a more dramatic and sustained impact than mere aisle displays. On average, a demo provides a 150% boost in same-day sales and a 90% boost over the following three months. It’s evident that meaningful engagement turns browsers into buyers.

Increase Transaction Value

Performing better-than-expected on a campaign is not just about increasing the number of sales, but about increasing the amount of money people spend on their transactions, too. Bundle your products in new ways. Take products that complement each other, but are typically sold separately, and try offering the complete package for a single fixed price to create irresistible value. Offer added value at the point of purchase, when buyers are most receptive. Upselling a newer model or cross-selling a complementary product or service at the point-of-purchase can entice 30% to 50% of shoppers to spend more.

Create More Demand

Shoppers don’t necessarily have to need a product to justify their desire for it. There are many ways brands can create demand. Releasing engaging new products is one way to keep a fresh stream of demand lining up around the block. Consider how Apple does this each time the tech giant releases a new iPhone. Building meaningful and personal relationships with shoppers will make them more likely to buy from you even if they weren’t originally planning to do so. Thoughtful data collection and routinely reaching out (via mobile, email, and social media channels) also lets consumers know what they want or need even before they are aware of the void.

How to Drive Incremental Sales to Your Retail Store

For retailers, an incremental sale represents an encouraging sign that campaign marketing dollars are being well-spent, a particular promotion or advertisement is working, or the store layout is enticing shoppers to spend. Similarly to brands, retailers can drive incremental sales by engaging with consumers via multichannel marketing strategies, creating a unified shopping experience across all touchpoints and channels. Retailers with omnichannel strategies drive an 80% higher rate of incremental store visits.

Provide Multiple Touchpoints

It takes anywhere from five to seven touchpoints to make a sale. Ideally, you want to connect with a shopper at multiple touchpoints along the journey to purchase. In the early stages of awareness, you might advertise online to get mobile users into your store. During the engagement phase, you might advertise a sale or hand out informative flyers to let shoppers know what you have to offer. Once shoppers are in the store and considering your offers, nurture these leads by greeting them with highly trained sales professionals who serve as the friendly face of your retail establishment and helpfully answer questions as customers peruse the aisles.

Attract Mobile Foot Traffic

Increasingly within the last five years, retailers have had to adapt their marketing methods to reach consumers wherever and whenever they are planning their shopping trips. Mobile devices are the next frontier for marketing messages. Retailers can use SMS push notifications, mobile-optimized websites, scan codes on packaging, online advertising, retailer-specific apps, and third-party shopping platforms to reach consumers surfing for deals on the couch or planning their trips to the store. Once they’re in the store, shoppers are accessing mobile to learn more about products, compare prices, and snag deals; retailers can capitalize on this.

Reward Loyal Shoppers

High-value offers combined with low purchase requirements are highly effective in driving trial among first-time shoppers. Going one step further, a rewards program is a powerful motivator in encouraging larger purchases and sustained business. Customers are willing to invest more when the perceived value they get in return is higher. They might earn points toward desirable gifts or automatically receive a percentage off a future purchase. Increasingly, top retailers are including partner offers, in addition to offering VIP services and members-only invitations, to enhance the exclusivity of their programs. You can develop your own in-house rewards program or partner up with a rewards platform shoppers already use. 

Are You Reaching Out to New Audiences Using the Latest Tools?

Shopkick is among the most popular mobile shopping apps that rewards consumers throughout the full-funnel purchase journey. For brands and retailers, Shopkick provides high consumer engagement along the entire path to purchase. Its unique pay-for-performance model has been proven to deliver high ROI, driving incremental traffic, product engagement, and sales.

Here’s how the rewards platform works: Shopkick app users begin their purchase journey by browsing engaging in-app content from partner brands and retailers, whether they’re at home or on the go. Content like curated lookbooks, informative video ads, and more build pre-shop awareness and consideration. In-store, Shopkick utilizes an engaging gamification strategy that drives shoppers to products at-shelf and encourages physical product interaction in exchange for kicks. This feature is a huge part of driving incremental sales—driving shoppers to a product they may not have thought of or necessarily needed, offering them a reward for picking it up, and another reward for purchasing. This interaction also boosts product awareness at a crucial point in the customer journey and effectively closes the sales loop. Eventually, Shopkick users redeem their kicks for free gift cards, which builds a positive affinity and loyalty for the brands and retailers that awarded them.

Brands and retailers can be confident in a partnership with Shopkick, which boasts a proven track record of increasing incremental sales. For example, after a two-month Shopkick campaign, 68% of Bomb Pop popsicle purchasers over a busy Fourth of July run-up bought the product spontaneously. Nearly half of shoppers (44%) first became aware of the product through the Shopkick app.

When Shopkick’s retail partners wanted to know of the sales, transactions, and customers that Shopkick was driving—how many would not have occurred without the Shopkick program—they conducted research to measure program incrementality. The findings were that Shopkick is a highly incremental program for Shopkick retail partners as a whole and these results stood true across different retail verticals. 

  • Fifty-seven percent of all sales driven by Shopkick were incremental. That incremental spend was driven by new customer acquisition as well as increased loyalty of existing customers. 
  • Fifty-five percent of department store sales were incremental, 49% of electronics/big box store sales were incremental and 67% of specialty store sales driven by Shopkick were incremental.

Increased incremental sales represent true success in your latest marketing efforts. Shopkick offers you yet another platform for advertising, metrics, consumer engagement, and personalization. Whether you have an existing loyalty program or not, you can add value to your brand by partnering with one of the most popular mobile shopping apps at a time when mobile marketing is on the rise.

If you’re a forward-thinking brand or retailer ready to translate ideas into actions, Shopkick is the partnership for you! Our partners use Shopkick to drive sales, steal market share, and produce incredible ROI. Contact us to see how we can help you drive incremental sales and increase consumer engagement. 

How to Homeschool: Easy Science Experiments

We continued to share more fun activities you can do with your student at home while you navigate homeschooling together. Yesterday was all about science! We welcomed first grade teacher Mrs. Lamb back to Facebook Live, and she shared two great science experiments she discovered on ScienceFun.org. We’ve listed the steps and her ideas to further your student’s learning experience below.

Orange Fizz Experiment:

This experiment allows students to discover what happens when an acid combines with a base. Hint: Mrs. Lamb and her kids describe it like experiencing a healthy version of orange soda!

You will need:

  • 1 citrus fruit – An orange or clementine works perfectly.
  • Baking Power – You only need just enough to dip a piece of fruit.

Steps:

  1. Peel your fruit and separate it into pieces.
  2. Dip a piece of fruit into the baking power. You don’t have to cover the entire fruit. Dipping a portion will work well.
  3. Pop the fruit into your mouth.
  4. Share what you experience!

Further Learning:

Mrs. Lamb shared she likes to combine subjects together as much as possible, so she encourages parents and students to share the results of the experiments through writing about the experiment and the results, turning to PowerPoint to work on tech skills to create a presentation, and talking through what happened.

Explode a Bag Experiment:

Like the orange fizz experiment, this experiment also showcases what happens when carbon dioxide is emitted and contained. The results may take you by surprise!

You will need:

  • Ziploc Bag
  • Baking Soda (1 tablespoon)
  • White Vinegar (1/4 cup)
  • Baking Sheet

Steps:

  1. Pour the white vinegar into the bag.
  2. Twist the bag so when the baking soda is added, it’s in the envelope at the top of the bag.
  3. Seal the top of the bag.
  4. Release your hand to allow the mixture to combine.
  5. Shake the bag and place it onto your baking sheet.
  6. Step away and watch it explode!

Further Learning:

Mrs. Lamb suggests turning your phone onto video in order to capture a slow-motion video of your facial expressions and the exploding bag. Then share your video with friends, family, and teachers to share what you’re learning!

Make sure to tune into Mrs. Lamb’s Live on our Facebook page to try both experiments this weekend! Also, keep watching because Mrs. Lamb (and her kids!) offers tips for healthy snack recipes, how to limit screen time, and creative challenges you and your family can do together.