Category: CPG

Product launch best practices that capture your target market

Posted on by shopkick

Even with a great product and a known brand, every product launch poses uncertainties. About 10,000 new products debut every year in the CPG industry alone, and within two years, 85% of these items are categorized as failures and are scrapped.  

There is no precise formula for capturing the adoration of your desired target market, but there are ways of harnessing decision science best practices to understand who your potential buyers are, what they want, and how to reach them. Studying the latest product launch best practices can provide meaningful insights into how to make your next product launch a surefire success. Let’s explore the top four practices from 2020 in more detail.

The Top 4 Product Launch Best Practices From 2020

Many of the top failures of all-time could have been prevented by following these best practices: 

1. Collecting Actionable Data to Inform Marketing.

Brands need to decide exactly who their products are designed for. Effective targeting requires a robust database of omnichannel information about shopper wishlists, buying history, sharing history, in-store behaviors, preferences, life-stage, and demographics. Using A/B testing to pinpoint your precise demographic accurately can result in an 80% higher trial rate and 17% higher repeat purchase rate. 

Today’s consumers are seeking a highly relevant, personalized shopping experience. Far too many campaigns fall flat due to a failure of activating local campaigns based on store-level data. Loyalty is largely connected to personalized marketing, which means timing offers based on purchase frequency, proximity, and past purchases are essential to ensuring an experience based on individual relevance.

2. Rewarding Repeat Buyers.

Offers and rewards are just as important for soliciting repeat purchases as they are for driving new product trials. Keeping tabs on buyers and retargeting with ads, texts, and offers is an effective way to maintain interest. 

A third of new consumers are obtained via contests, which are effective at encouraging trial and expanding presence. Creating a sweepstake with clear expectations—like extra entries for social media shares—is a great way to make valuable connections. 

Loyalty programs are typically associated with retailers rather than brands. However, eCommerce platforms offer a means of rewarding repeat customers who may have some level of loyalty fatigue, or offering prospective customers an added incentive to try your products over the competition’s. Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, partnering with an established shopping app can improve reach and retention while achieving a significant return on investment (ROI).

3. Engaging New Customers to Encourage Loyalty.

A successful product launch consists of more than converting sales and convincing shoppers there is value in trying your product. Once a purchase is made by the customer, it shouldn’t be viewed as the end of marketing efforts, but rather the beginning. Since it takes approximately eight purchases for a trial buyer to become loyal to a brand, creating an onboarding experience is crucial. 

The best product launches involve the use of email, retargeting ads, social media, text push notifications, rewards programs, and shopping apps to engage and support consumers long after the first purchase.

Does the buyer know how to get the most from the purchase? Is another offer necessary to prompt the next sale? Are there complementary products that could help buyers enjoy the new product more? Aftermarket information delivered by email, text, phone call, eCommerce app, or mail can be a key differentiator. 

4. Choosing an Incremental Marketing Strategy in Pursuit of Long-Term Success.

Many marketers make the mistake of investing heavily during the first year of promotion, but between the first and second purchase, brands lose roughly half of all buyers. This process of attrition continues until stability is achieved around the eighth purchase, so marketers will need to think long-term. 

An incremental marketing strategy involves breaking up a long-term marketing plan into a series of campaigns and assigning milestones to determine the effectiveness of the tactics, messages, and methods used. Successful campaigns will be built upon, and poor performers will be halted before more money is committed.

Find a Product Launch Partner to Double Your Odds of Success

Even if a failed product launch doesn’t lead to financial ruin, it can lead to a loss in reputation, mass layoffs, and damaged morale. A proactive approach that employs product launch best practices and uses the latest technology is certainly preferable to managing a rebound. Sometimes it can take years or even decades to erase the effects of a product flop. 

Shopkick is a proven marketing partner for brands launching new products, helping them employ many of the aforementioned best practices.

Here’s how it works:

  • Before your product launch, Shopkickers have the opportunity to discover your brand as they search for rewards offers in their area, browse through your curated lookbook, and watch your branded video ads.
  • Upon entering a store where your products are sold, Shopkickers are invited to engage with your campaign by scanning the barcodes of or purchasing select items in exchange for “kicks” (rewards points).
  • Accumulated kicks are redeemed for gift cards of the Shopkickers’ choice, solidifying a memorable, meaningful consumer experience without discounts or coupons that can erode your profit margins.
  • With the Shopkick app, brands can collect consumer behavior data, personalize interactions, and continually reach out to new or existing shoppers.

In essence, partners can take advantage of incremental marketing strategies, piggybacking off Shopkick’s audience to expand their own market share while also surprising and delighting prospective customers with rewards as soon as they enter a store. Using beacon technology, partners can capture important data about how their target audience behaves in-store, and continue building better relationships that ensure today’s buyers are tomorrow’s buyers, too.

Looking for more product launch best practices? Contact Shopkick to gain insights into developing a highly successful product launch campaign as a partner or read success stories for more ideas on how technology can be used to drive trial and purchase. 

 

Despite Vaccinations, Americans Still Expect Safety Precautions When Shopping In-store

Posted on by shopkick

Shopkick survey uncovers consumer sentiment toward COVID-19 vaccines and how it will impact current shopping habits

For some, widespread vaccinations offer a glimmer of hope that life will soon return to normal. However, with many Americans (44 percent) planning not to receive the vaccine, consumers say vaccinations will hardly change their current shopping behaviors. In fact, nearly all consumers (96 percent) say they will continue to take personal safety precautions while shopping, and of those who have already received the vaccine, less than half (48 percent) report feeling more comfortable shopping in-store now. 

In its ongoing commitment to support brand and retail partners with regular insights during the COVID-19 pandemic, Shopkick surveyed more than 20,000 consumers between Jan. 20-24, 2021, to learn about current shopping behaviors and how the vaccine impacts those habits. 

National Vaccine Insights:

  • Many consumers do not plan to get the vaccine. While most consumers surveyed have either already received the vaccine (8 percent) or plan to receive it (48 percent), 44 percent say they do not plan to get vaccinated.
  • Millennials are the least confident in the vaccine. Millennials make up the largest segment of people not confident in the vaccine (35 percent) and do not plan to get vaccinated (51 percent). Comparatively, America’s youngest and oldest consumers appear the most confident in the vaccine, with 71 percent of Gen Zers and 75 percent of Boomers feeling some level of confidence.
  • Vaccinations do not mean consumers will flood back indoors. Of those who have already received the vaccine, less than half (48 percent) report feeling more comfortable shopping in-store and taking part in other indoor activities, and only 18 percent say they will do so more frequently now vaccinated. Similarly, of those who plan to get the vaccine, only 15 percent say they will shop in-store or take part in indoor activities more frequently after receiving the vaccination.
  • Personal health and safety habits are here to stay. Nearly all of those who have already been vaccinated or plan to be vaccinated say they will continue to take personal safety precautions while shopping in-store (96 percent and 97 percent, respectively). Precautions include wearing protective face coverings (93 percent), using disinfectants (87 percent), shopping at less busy times (66 percent), using debit or credit cards to avoid exchanging cash (66 percent), using self-checkout (58 percent), or wearing protective gloves (21 percent).
  • Consumers expect health and safety to remain top-of-mind for retailers. Even if a large majority of Americans are vaccinated, 79 percent of consumers expect retailers to continue enforcing health and safety restrictions, such as requiring protective face coverings for shoppers and employees (89 percent), offering disinfectants for shoppers (86 percent), enforcing 6-feet-social distancing (80 percent), keeping plexiglass barriers at checkout (74 percent), and limiting the number of shoppers allowed inside (62 percent). According to 62 percent of respondents, enforcing these guidelines will influence where they choose to shop.

Additional Insights Include:

  • More than half of consumers are using BOPIS for essential purchases. As consumers try out different options for picking up the essentials, 55 percent say they are now using BOPIS (buy online, pickup in-store) at varying degrees, including sometimes (35 percent), often (11 percent), or very often (9 percent). 
  • Stockpiling rates are down and consumers are seeing the impact on store shelves. Forty-nine percent of consumers say they are currently stocking up on essential items, a decrease from November 2020 findings, when a whopping 61 percent of shoppers were stockpiling. In turn, 41 percent say essential items that were out-of-stock or low-in-stock one month ago are now more in-stock, compared to 36 percent who say items are still out-of-stock and 23 percent who have not yet noticed a difference. 

Halloween Lives On: Americans Hit the Stores this Spooky Season

Posted on by shopkick

Shopkick survey finds big box will win shoppers’ dollars; majority of parents will allow their children to trick-or-treat this year

Whether it be decorating the house, carving pumpkins, watching seasonal favorites, or handing out candy to trick-or-treaters, plans for this year’s Halloween festivities appear spookily similar to years’ past, despite the pandemic. Turns out, most consumers (84 percent) will shop in-store to purchase costumes, candy and decor. Even more surprisingly, 55 percent of parents said they will allow their children to go trick-or-treating this year. 

Shopkick surveyed more than 13,000 people to see how they plan to participate in this Hallows’ Eve.

Halloween Headlines:

  • Tricky Treating:
  • Although CDC advises against it this year, 55 percent of parents say they will allow their children to go trick-or-treating. Of all parents, millennials are most likely to allow trick-or-treating (65 percent), compared to Gen Z parents (51 percent) and Gen X parents (51 percent). Additionally, parents from states with some of the highest COVID-19 infection rates, like Florida (50 percent), Texas (49 percent) and California (33 percent), are less likely than parents from states with some of the lowest rates, like Colorado (67 percent) and New Jersey (59 percent), to allow their children to go trick-or-treating this year.
  • In-Store Wins Halloween: This year consumers plan to shop in-store for their Halloween goodies. More consumers will head to big box stores for purchasing candy (49 percent), costumes (48 percent) and decorations (43 percent). 
  • Costume Craze: Of the 46 percent that plan on purchasing costumes either for themselves or their children this year, 73 percent will buy them in-store at big-box retailers (48 percent), a Spirit Halloween store (32 percent), or a party store (9 percent). The majority of shoppers purchasing their costumes online will do so on Amazon (57 percent). Nearly twenty percent of parents will not buy new costumes for their kids, instead opting to re-wear something they already have.
  • Spooky Spending: Despite the pandemic, the majority of those surveyed (56 percent) will spend the same amount of money celebrating Halloween as they have in the past. When it comes to candy, 47 percent plan to spend up to $20 and 40 percent plan to spend between $21 and $40. Just 10 percent plan to spend between $41 and $60. For costume-wearers, 44 percent will spend between $21 and $40 on their look, followed by 23 percent who plan to spend between $41 and 60, 18 percent who plan to spend $20 or less, and 15 percent who will spend over $61.
  • Candy Cravings: When asked what kind of candy consumers will purchase, most say anything with chocolate (88 percent). The second most popular candy is chewy/fruity (42 percent), followed by caramel (40 percent), lollipops (37 percent), sour gummies (36 percent), candy corn (28 percent), taffy (25 percent) nut-filled (20 percent) and gum/mints (12 percent). Most shoppers will purchase fun-size variety bags (83 percent) rather than full-size candy bars (23 percent).   
  • Chocolate over Carrots: Although sweets and treats are viewed most favorable on Halloween (71 percent), 29 percent of consumers say they will opt for healthy alternatives like carrot snack bags, toothbrushes, or trail mix. 
  • The Sooner the Sweeter: The vast majority (93 percent) of consumers purchasing candy will do so in-store, most popularly at big-box stores (49 percent) or grocery stores (29 percent). Of those, 55 percent plan to make their candy purchases in early October, followed by 26 percent the week before Halloween and 3 percent the day of. 
  • Pumpkin is King: When it comes to spooky decor, the majority of shoppers (85 percent) say pumpkins are the most essential, followed by Halloween lights (60 percent), Jack-o’-lanterns (57 percent), spiders and spider webs (52 percent), skeletons (45 percent), tombstones (27 percent), animatronics (12 percent), and, lastly, fog machines (10 percent).
  • Halloween at Home: When asked how they plan to celebrate Halloween at home this year, the majority of consumers plan to participate in all the usual ways. The most popular activities include decorating the house (39 percent), carving pumpkins (31 percent), having a Halloween movie marathon (27 percent), and staying home and giving out candy to trick-or-treaters (26 percent). 

 

To learn more about how Shopkick can help you drive sales this Halloween, send us a note partners@shopkick.com. 

Shopkick conducted a survey of 13,852 consumers across the country to gain insights into their Halloween plans. The survey was conducted online from September 9 – 14, 2020.