Category: b2b

Learn how to increase footfall in your retail store

Posted on by shopkick

Learn how to increase footfall in your retail store

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Of all the challenges currently facing the retail industry, declining foot traffic seemed to be the first that emerged. Therefore, it’s one of the first challenges brands seek to overcome. Increased foot traffic leads to more repeat visits, higher customer satisfaction rates, and, most importantly, increased sales. 

The good news is, traffic numbers in CPG and other retail stores haven’t been falling as consistently as popular media sites report. Research shows that U.S. foot traffic actually maintained steady growth in the months since Q4 2017, and has only recently started to turn back down from its highest peak. 

This trend is clearly variable—which indicates that if you can figure out how to increase footfall in your retail store, you have the potential to make a big impact. The following strategies will help your brand to attract, retain, and grow the number of in-person visitors to your stores so you can experience all of the associated benefits.  

Invest in Location-Based Marketing 

Geofencing, personalized store greetings, and other location-based marketing strategies help retailers and brands harness the immense power of mobile location services. Location-based marketing technology draws customers into store locations and incentivizes them while they’re there—assuming you can overcome the big opt-in challenge.

Utilizing All of the Available Tools

According to a recent report, 84% of companies use location-based marketing to target ads or promotions, and 94% plan to do so in the future. To get the most bang for your buck, make sure you’re balancing your efforts between all the potential strategies available—including geofencing, geotargeting, and geoconquesting—and utilizing tools across all available channels.  

Seeing the Power of Greetings

Walmart may be phasing out its staff of blue-vested greeters, but that doesn’t mean at-the-door greetings aren’t valuable. Location-based marketing takes that concept into the future by sending shoppers personalized greetings when they enter retail stores. Customers get a personalized marketing experience, and brands get their products top-of-mind.

Getting Customers to Opt-In

The biggest challenge of location-based marketing is getting customers to turn on their notifications. Proximity messaging only reaches customers who opt-in, and a significant number of people restrict all notifications on principle. Shopkick offers one innovative solution—as a third party rewards app that offers rewards for store visits, we reward shoppers for opting in, in the ways that matter most to them.

Try Buy Online Pick Up In-Store

This strategy strikes the perfect balance between online convenience and in-person immediacy. Buy-online-pickup-in-store strategies are so effective, 68% of surveyed consumers say they made multiple such purchases in the past year.

BOPIS strategies tend to increase store-wide revenue beyond the value of the original online orders. That’s because 85% of surveyed customers make additional in-store purchases when picking up their online orders. To maximize your success with buy-online-pickup-in-store, consider the following best practices: 

  • Situate your BOPIS station at the front of the store. Customers are already going to make additional purchases while they’re inside—so don’t make it harder for them! Keep all of your BOPIS activity close to the door and minimize queuing to create a smoother customer experience. 
  • Optimize logistics for faster pick-up speeds. Work to streamline your notification system so customers are notified that their purchase is ready within three hours or less. And ensure that their orders are ready when you say they’re ready. The faster your pick-up speed, the greater your sales revenue.
  • Incentivize customers with future deals. BOPIS hasn’t yet reached full saturation in the marketplace, and certain customers may require a bit of coaxing to give the system a try. Forty-six percent said they’d be more likely to use BOPIS if they were offered future deals as a bonus.

Offer Rewards—Not Flash Sales

Markdowns may entice customers to get in the door, but they also eat heavily into profit margins. Certain rewards programs and apps offer customers even more satisfying rewards that actually have a positive impact on your bottom line.

The truth is, well-designed customer loyalty programs (and apps) have the potential to drive sales more than any other channel. Why? Because they encourage the most loyal, bought-in, bottom-of-the-funnel customers to visit your store more often and give you even more of their time. An app like Shopkick can help you educate customers about new products, greet them when they enter store locations, get them to interact with your products in the aisles, and reward them for their immediate and repeat purchases. Here’s how that process played out for the following brands: 

Kraft

Leading up to the holiday season, Kraft partnered with Shopkick to inspire consumers with in-app recipes and winter-themed content. This drove customers to Walmart stores. They were rewarded for physically interacting with the products and purchasing all three of the featured baking items. This campaign raked in 18M+ impressions and increased sales from 55% unplanned purchases.

Purina

Purina used Shopkick to deliver aspirational ad content to app users. Using proximity messaging and branded greetings, Shopkick reminded users of the product as they got closer to the store. With small incentives, Purina managed to stay top-of-mind during habitual shopping trips and inspired shoppers to try their new product—with 85% of shoppers indicating that their choice was motivated by Shopkick.

Rimmel London

Targeted ads in the Shopkick app helped paint Rimmel London as a top beauty brand to their most valuable customers. Proximity messaging reminded shoppers of their product line and incentivized customers to see past the clutter of the cosmetics aisle and choose Rimmel London for their next purchase. Thirty-eight percent of those shoppers had never used Rimmel London products before. 

Once you figure out how to increase footfall in your retail store, you’ll tap into all of the benefits explored above. For instance, a recent report found that 71% of in-store shoppers spent $50 or more, compared to only 54% of online shoppers. It’s clear that something about the in-person shopping experience drives more revenue per visit than other channels—and by investing in location-based marketing, BOPIS, and customer rewards strategies, you can make sure those traffic numbers keep climbing. 
Shopkick is the most innovative retail rewards app on the market. Through location-based strategies and powerful rewards, we help our partners increase foot traffic and drive sales. Contact us to learn more about what a partnership with Shopkick can do for your brand.

Analyzing the effectiveness of location based marketing

Posted on by shopkick

Analyzing the effectiveness of location based marketing

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The way gurus talk about location-based marketing, it sounds like the panacea for the retail industry as we know it. And it might be⁠—with geofencing, beacons, proximity marketing apps, and augmented location data, we have the potential to target customers more specifically than ever before, in the very locations where they’re likely to be most receptive. Location-based marketing seems like selling umbrellas in Times Square during a rainstorm.  

However, by taking a more nuanced look at location-based marketing strategies, we’re forced to admit that there are significant challenges involved⁠—namely, the massive problem of consumer buy-in. With technology as it stands in 2019, push notifications and in-app messaging are the primary tools that execute on location-based campaigns. Without customer engagement in these specific areas, even the strongest location-based marketing strategy could fail. 

If your brand is preparing to invest further in location-based technology, be prepared to meet these inherent challenges head-on. The studies explored below illustrate how successful these strategies can be for retail brands across multiple categories⁠—and by pursuing innovative solutions, you can ensure the effectiveness of location-based marketing in producing a positive ROI for your brand. 

The True Effectiveness of Location Based Marketing

Though location-based technologies are still relatively new on the market, research is beginning to show their success. One particularly glowing report from Factual and Lawless Research surveyed 700 location data buyers⁠—536 of which were consumer brands⁠— and found that a vast majority were succeeding with location-based marketing strategies. Key stats from that report are highlighted below:

84%

of brands saw higher customer engagement when using location-based marketing strategies.

86%

of companies achieved customer base growth from location-based strategies.

89%

of companies saw increased sales when using location-based marketing.

When asked how these companies used location-based data to reach these success metrics, 65% responded with “ad targeting” as their highest priority. Other high-ranking applications included location-based offers, customer experience/personalization, and audience engagement. Surprisingly, heavily-discussed categories like beacons, weather-based ads, and event marketing came out near the bottom. 

All in all, these statistics paint a very promising picture for brands considering the effectiveness of location-based marketing. Based on the potential for success, it would make sense for every retailer to experiment with location-based tools⁠—and to prioritize solutions and applications that lessen the inherent challenges of this channel.

Surpassing the Challenges of Location Based Marketing

Push notifications are the most valuable player in the game of location-based marketing⁠—but they’re also the biggest challenge. Push notifications have been found to increase app engagement by 88%. But a significant number of users choose to disable notifications in an effort to preserve privacy, productivity, or digital minimalism. How can location-based strategies succeed when only a percentage of smartphone users opt-in? 

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The Problem

According to a study from Accengage, only 43.9% of iOS users opt-in to push notifications. (The rate is much higher for Android users, who are automatically enrolled.) Beyond the point of download, the same study found that one weekly push notification inspires 10% of users to disable notifications and 6% to uninstall the apps altogether. 

This could be attributed to the fact that, according to research from PushCrew, 31.37% of surveyed users don’t like getting push notifications at all. Of those who do, the vast majority prefer them to come from social media only. 

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The Solution

In order to maximize the effectiveness of location-based marketing strategies, brands have to find a way to get a wider audience to opt-in. The answer is to launch app touchpoints that add value far beyond what consumers normally get from retail brands. 

Mobile proximity rewards apps provide a unique solution to this problem. Rather than slashing prices or offering coupons, an app like Shopkick gamifies the shopping experience and makes errands more like rewarding scavenger hunts. Users opt-in for the adventure, and are continually rewarded for engaging with targeted content in store aisles. When customers are engaging with a proximity marketing app regardless of push notifications, you know you’ve won.  

Successful Location-Based Marketing Campaigns

Getting customers to accept a push notification when they are within a quarter-mile of your store is powerful. Incentivizing them to complete in-app video ads and actually pick up your products in store aisles? That level of engagement is priceless.

The following brands partnered with Shopkick to enhance their location-based marketing strategies and achieve game-changing results.

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Purina

Purina used the Shopkick app to send proximity messaging to users when they entered Target stores, which effectively kept their brand top of mind during the shopping trip. The brand then followed up with targeted content that inspired consumers to break habitual shopping patterns and trial their products instead. 

85% of shoppers reported that Shopkick motivated their decision to purchase, resulting in a significant increase in incremental sales for Purina.

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Rimmel-London

Rimmel-London also capitalized on the power of proximity messaging to drive customers into Walmart, Target, Ulta, K-Mart, and drugstore locations. Direct product engagement through Shopkick’s trial-in-aisle program helped Rimmel-London shine through the clutter of the cosmetics aisle and gain new customers. 

Through their campaign with Shopkick, Rimmel-London stole 14% of market share from their next competitor and earned a 5:1 ROI. 

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Household Cleaning Company

A leading household cleaning company used the Shopkick app to launch proximity messaging that greeted and rewarded customers for entering retail locations at Kroger, Lowe’s, and Bed Bath & Beyond. In-app promotional content drove users to scan products in store aisles and purchase bundles for even bigger rewards. 

Shopkick’s promotional unit days brought 92% increased sales and 232% increased foot traffic, with 58% of customers motivated to purchase by in-app content. 

According to projections from Bia/Kelsey, location-based ad spending is slated to reach $38.7 billion by the end of 2022⁠—growing from a mere $17.1 billion in 2017. Based on the growing array of location data applications and technologies available on the market today, your company could spend an incredible amount on location-based marketing tools alone. Make sure that you’re allocating spend wisely and investing in innovative solutions that will mitigate the challenges of this channel and further your brand’s long-term business goals. 
The proliferation of location-based marketing has only just begun. Join our partners and get on board today with a solution like Shopkick. Contact us to learn more about the effectiveness of our location-based marketing tools.