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.

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.

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. 

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.