Category: Retail

The top factors that influence consumer purchasing decisions you haven’t considered

Posted on by shopkick

Throughout the history, two primary factors have influenced consumer decision making: the internal and external locus of control. Those with an internal locus of control attribute their success to their own practices and abilities. Those with an external locus of control attribute success or failure to fate and external forces.

factors that influence consumer purchasing decisionsThese beliefs and practices can extend all the way to of marketing, and to how consumers purchase decisions are influenced by external and internal opinions. External opinions are related to the social perception of your brand, and what influencers in the consumers’ peer group think of the brand. Internal opinions are based on the consumer’s existing brand perception, as well as their emotional mindset when entering the path to purchase.

When attempting to influence consumer purchasing decisions, marketers need to focus on a combination of these two factors. Multiple tactics make this possible. For instance, marketers can either connect with a consumer one-on-one by sending a marketing message directly to them. Or, they can connect with consumers indirectly by first reaching influential members of the consumer’s peer group. Mobile marketing can be used in either situation to improve brand perception, connect with influencers and interact with consumers as they’re in the shopping aisle, and even help convert prospects into sales.

Social Groups As Factors That Influence Consumer Purchasing Decisions

Brands can’t make someone influential, but they can leverage an influential person to improve perception of the brand. This is why celebrity endorsements have become such a common method for reaching consumers. Yet even non-famous people act as influencers in their daily lives.

Consumers will have different levels of influence based on three group dynamic systems:

  • Reference group: A reference group is any group a consumer uses to model their behavior. As these groups evolve and change, the consumer’s behavior may also change. As an example, a consumer’s spending habits will be different when they’re with a group of single friends than when they’re with couples with children.
  • Family group: The role a person plays within a household will determine their spending habits. A mother purchasing for her family, for example, will likely be more price conscious than that woman’s teenage daughter.
  • Social status: This is the classic example of “keeping up with the Joneses” where a person of higher social standing often becomes the trendsetter their group. If a member leaves the group or a new person is added, social standings typically change within the group, too. Very generally, a new addition to a social group will hold less sway over the opinions in that group than an established member.

Depending on the group we choose to spend time with, our sphere of influence changes. For example, a woman may have a high sphere of influence when it comes to the purchase decisions of her household. At the same time, she may be a new member of her social group, giving her a lower sphere of influence over the purchase behaviors of those friends. In either case, spending decisions are impacted by those around us.

When brands want to leverage an individual’s social influence, they need to reach out to those with the most influence over the specific groups associated with that product. One of the best means of achieving this is through social media, which can provide brands the insights needed to identify ideal influencers. By understanding how someone impacts the groups they are a part of, brands can better target those customers who act as influencers in their social pools. These influencers can be reached individually with timely marketing messages delivered via mobile apps.

How Mobile Moments Influence Consumer Purchasing Decisions

The simplest and subtlest influences can impact consumer purchase decisions on a personal level. One watershed study revealed that when a supermarket played French music, French wine outsold all other wines. When German music was played, consumers opted for German selections. This study into subconscious level advertising laid the groundwork for the future of advertising and revealed just how impactful a single moment can be when a consumer is already in the shopping aisle.

Today, brands can create these moments through smartphones, connecting with consumers at any time, and wherever they may be. There are several ways brands can connect with individuals as they go about their daily lives:

  • Branded video content: Not all video content has to be advertising. Brands can better interact with consumers by offering content that reveals how to use products or gives an inside look at the company, for example. To make the most of this kind of subconscious messaging, a brand should ensure its logo is visible in the video and provide a call to action capable of converting passive viewers into buyers. Even among those who aren’t ready to purchase these cues stick. They also help establish the brand as an authority and can serve as an unconscious reminder of the brand when future purchasing opportunities arise.
  • Interactive mobile displays: Displays that encourage consumers to interact with products in the store are great options for gaining attention to a brand as they draw consumers to its products and encourage them to learn more. An interactive display may be as simple as providing product samples. Or, it may be more complex, like a makeup company providing product demonstrations via a touchscreen tablet or offering consumers the ability to digitally try on products via their smartphone.
  • Mobile apps: Mobile apps, like Shopkick, travel with consumers and can reach them when they’re most motivated to make a purchase. By incentivizing consumers’ visits via a mobile rewards program, such shopping apps can drive traffic. Take, for example, the case of a QSR working with Shopkick that wants to increase traffic to a location during midday. A consumer using the app during her lunch break who receives a notification of rewards available at the QSR is more likely to choose that location to dine.
  • Rewarded video: When trying to get consumers to watch advertising content, incentivizing them to watch to completion has been proven highly effective. Consumers who receive rewards for watching a video will be more receptive to the brand’s message, which can also lead to sales.

All of these moments can best be leveraged through a mobile app marketing campaign. Smartphones offer brands unparalleled access to consumers and even allow those brands to connect with them as they travel.

Both external and internal opinions of your brand act as factors that influence consumer purchasing decisions. Understanding these factors, as well as group dynamics, helps marketers reach the right influencers in the right circles.

In addition, using retail mobile apps can be a powerful means of connecting with a consumer when they’re in a buying mindset. Connecting with key influencers through mobile apps allows brands to create affinity, capitalize on powerful moments in the decision cycle, and even sway consumer purchase decisions.

Shopkick offers our partners a great way to connect with shoppers through an innovative shopping app. To learn more about how our app can benefit your brand, contact us.

Image courtesy of onephoto

Rewarding consumer experiences anytime, anywhere

Posted on by shopkick

Bill Demas, Chief Executive Officer

Our vision as a company is to create rewarding consumer experiences for our users anytime, anywhere. We are taking another step in fulfilling that vision today by releasing a web version of Shopkick. This gives users more ways to earn kicks and discover new products, brands and services.

For our partners, the expansion to desktop completes our omnichannel solution, offering deeper insight into consumer behavior across channels and throughout the fragmented shopping journey. Brands and retailers now have the opportunity to reward our users for shopping across desktop, mobile and brick and mortar.

Launch partners include Walmart, Macy’s, Groupon, JCPenney, Sephora, Sam’s Club, Payless, the Body Shop, Stride Rite, Ann Taylor, Loft, Nordstrom, Francesca’s, Lane Bryant, Foot Locker, Sur La Table, and See’s Candies. In addition, we continue to expand our online merchants in the Shopkick app. Most recently we have added Asos, eBags, Etsy, Fandango, the Home Shopping Network, Hulu, Lane Bryant, and Living Social.

Stay tuned for more announcements coming soon on our exciting product roadmap! To learn more about our new e-commerce offering, get in touch at partners@shopkick.com.

If you have any feedback on this new initiative or any other Shopkick omnichannel solution, send me your thoughts at ceo@shopkick.com.

Grocery retail apps: Why they attract millennials to CPG brands

Posted on by shopkick

Gaining millennial interest for a CPG brand is a common challenge marketers face. Grocery retail apps could be the answer. Millennial purchase behaviors are often erratic, not due to the fact that millennials themselves are erratic, but because of their reliance on technology.

retail apps for grocery storesCurrently, millennials make up one of the largest buying groups in existence. Understanding their behavior is the key for CPG brands to maintain their relevance and their market share in today’s crowded marketplace. Millennials are the first generation to grow up with access to the internet. They use it as a tool to influence their everyday purchase decisions. Because of that fact, the internet has a profound impact on their buying behaviors.

CPG brands that want to attract their attention must be willing to do so through technology—specifically, through retail in-store apps. Grocery retail apps can help a brand connect with a millennial audience, often simply by being conveniently available to consult as they make their purchase decisions.

How Millennials Shifted the Marketing Paradigm

Chances are, you’ve noticed how important the smartphone is to millennials. The average  millennial touches their phone 150 times a day. This behavior doesn’t mean they’re addicted to their cell phones, per se; instead, it’s due to the fact that the smartphone is this generation’s television. It doesn’t just provide entertainment, it connects them to the world.  

Millennial-focused marketing is a major paradigm shift for many marketing and advertising professionals because social media and digital marketing have created a more transparent and direct connection between brands and these consumers. Millennial shoppers also have more access to information period, whether that information is about international politics, financial matters, or new trends and products. Because of the major role the internet has played in their lives, millennials typically are:

  • Socially responsible: The first Earth Day was held in 1970 but it didn’t gain widespread popularity until the early 80s, which is when the first millennials were born. Millennials grew up with an environmental conscientiousness that wasn’t seen in generations that came before them. As a result, brands that focus on digital marketing, which does not unnecessarily waste resources, tend to resonate well with them.
  • Fiscally savvy: About one-third of millennials have a financial or savings plan in place. That far exceeds the planning of older generations, including Generation X and even baby boomers. Millennials seem to have learned from the mistakes of those who came before them, planning for retirement early and keeping unnecessary spending down.
  • Highly sensitive to scarcity: Because of their easy ability to access up-to-the-minute information on just about everything, millennials are more easily impacted by scarcity, otherwise known as the “fear of missing out,” or FOMO.

Millennials depend on technology to help them make informed decisions. They are open about sharing their signals of purchase intent if it makes their brand experience better. In the past, the internet may have been used as a resource for researching high-ticket items. However, because millennials live in an age flush with accessible data, even their small dollar purchase decisions are likely to be impacted by the abundance of information they can conveniently access. This is why grocery apps act as such a major persuader to the millennial market.

Using Grocery Retail Apps to Impact Millennial Purchase Decisions

Millennials don’t just want to buy from a brand; they want to create a relationship with that brand. They are attracted by brand awareness campaigns that create a real and genuine relationship. This is why mobile marketing is such a powerful purchase influencer for them as it:

  • Offers Rewards: Apps like Shopkick, a retail shopping rewards app, provide recognition for making smart purchase decisions in the form of reward points that users can later redeem for gift cards. This acts as an efficient purchase driver as, often, the perceived value of these kicks is even higher than the dollar amount they cost marketers.
  • Creates a social environment: Users of grocery shopping apps, like Shopkick, are encouraged to share their shopping and saving experiences online via Facebook and other popular social platforms. This creates a community of fiscally savvy consumers who discuss money-saving tips.
  • Communicates in the moment: As already discussed, millennial consumers touch their phones hundreds of times a day. An app that can connect with them as they’re in the shopping aisle is extraordinarily effective for gaining brand recognition.
  • Extends social responsibility: Digital apps offer a benefit that paper circulars and advertising materials can’t: They’re scalable and responsible. That means that millennials don’t have to worry about the waste involved with paper coupons or offers—and brands don’t have to spend money printing materials.  

Today’s millennial consumers are not coupon clippers, but they are fiscally intelligent. They want to save money while they’re saving the environment. This is why grocery retail apps are so appealing to this group. They allow shoppers to collect the rewards that make them feel fiscally responsible while limiting the waste of paper coupons or rebates.

Millennial shoppers are informed shoppers. They don’t want to just buy from a CPG brand, they want to know more about the brand than the product they sell. They want to know where that product came from, how it was sourced, and how it can make their lives better. Marketing to the millennial consumer is therefore not just about sales; it’s about providing a free exchange of information.  Using technology, brands can better express their sustainability methods, money-saving ideas, and incentivized sales in a way that truly resonates with these new consumers.

Shopkick offers a platform for fiscally savvy millennials to explore while our partners get the opportunity to interact more thoroughly with this unique consumer base. For more information on how our platform creates relationships with today’s millennial consumer, contact us today.

Image courtesy GeorgeRudy

CPG retail analytics: How consumer apps can bolster market insights

Posted on by shopkick

CPG retail analytics provides valuable insight into consumer purchase behavior. In the past, the data necessary for this analysis was only available to consumer packaged goods brands from retailers well after a purchase was made. This often resulted in an expensive delay between the implementation of a marketing strategy and determining how effective that strategy was for bolstering sales—and whether or not it should be continued, adjusted, or abandoned.

retail analytics cpg However, the modern consumer’s increasing dependence on mobile apps opens up a solution for CPG brands in need of immediate insight on existing marketing campaigns. Data from shopping and retail apps can be used to gather real-time information on consumer buying behaviors that can, in turn, help to inform CPG companies on marketing decisions.

Shopping apps offer a benefit that other sources of data collection don’t: the ability to travel with the consumer throughout the buyer’s journey, from awareness to purchase. Consumer purchase behavior data can be used to strategize marketing campaigns for digital as well as brick and mortar locations that consumer packaged goods are sold in. It can even be used to gather customer feedback on new products within a limited launch market before they’re rolled out into the aisles nation-wide, or even worldwide.

By incorporating timely consumer data into their marketing and advertising decisions, CPG brands can better understand why consumers buy their products and when—and use that knowledge to stretch advertising dollars while increasing profits.

CPG Retail Analytics: Gaining Deeper Insight with Big Data

In the past, CPG retail analytics was focused on the supply chain. Brands would use the number of orders they received from specific retailers to understand where their products sold best, during which times of the year, and to whom based on the demographics of the neighborhood where the products were sold. This collection of historical data involved a specific category of analytics called Descriptive Analytics.

Big data and advances in technology have since introduced the ability to collect data in the moment, rather than just relying on historical sales information. This has led to the creation of several new categories of analytics that give more timely insight on specific consumer behavior:

  • Diagnostic Analytics: Descriptive Analytics involves gathering historical data. Diagnostic Analytics, on the other hand, looks specifically at the whys behind that data. A simple explanation of this is a grocery store that sees a sudden jump in nutmeg sales in November. If the store investigates this jump, they may notice that these purchases were often made in conjunction with canned pumpkin, ready-made pie crusts, and brown sugar. Using Diagnostic Analytics, the store can reasonably assume that customers are buying more nutmeg in November because they are making pumpkin pies for the holidays.
  • Predictive Analytics: Predictive Analytics takes historical data and Diagnostic Analytics a step further. For instance, continuing with the above example, the company would take the past Diagnostic and Descriptive analytics into consideration to predetermine when the sale of nutmeg will peak—and when it will drop.
  • Prescriptive Analytics: Prescriptive Analytics involves acting on the Predictive Analytics by evaluating several scenarios to determine the best way to capitalize on the known data. So, in the nutmeg example, the store could choose to increase its supply of nutmeg, raise the price of nutmeg, or release a new line of pumpkin pie seasoning that includes nutmeg during its peak buying months.

A similar theme among all these categories of analytics is that they require making certain assumptions based on existing consumer behavior. Big data makes it possible to use prior sales history to speculate about the future of sales based on the law of large numbers. The law of large numbers implies that the more data we have available, the more accurate predictions made about an outcome are likely to be. This is why consumer mobile shopping apps offer such a great opportunity for gaining insight on retail analytics for CPG brands.

Using Consumer Shopping Apps to Gain Better Analytical Insights

Signals of purchase intent provide a digital map of a consumer’s journey. They might see an ad on Facebook, follow that ad to the company’s website, read information on a landing page, then add a product to their shopping cart. They may then abandon the shopping cart without making a purchase. By pinpointing this exact moment where purchases are commonly abandoned, brands can find stumbling blocks in their purchase path and remove or resolve them.

This approach can be applied both in the digital and the brick and mortar environment by using innovative retail mobile apps, like shopping apps. Shopping apps incentivize consumer use by providing rewards for interacting with brands. One such app, Shopkick, uses this strategy to provide valuable data to its clients. Via Shopkick, or similar apps, brands can discover trouble spots that might be impairing the consumer’s path to purchase.

  • Geo-tracking info: Geo-tracking information from a consumer app can alert brands to the most popular cities or regions where consumers purchase from them, as well as the least popular. Brands can use this data to discover area-specific anomalies in order to better control and distribute supply. For example, let’s say a brand sells mosquito repellant and sees a sudden spike in purchases in February at airport gift shops in Florida. This might tell the brand that there’s a demand, specific to the area, which they should prepare for. By gaining this insight via real-time retail mobile apps, the brand can gain awareness of this spike as it occurs.
  • In-store product visibility: Shopkick, as an example, offers consumers rewards in the form of points (called kicks) for finding and scanning products while they’re in the shopping aisle. However, if consumers find it too difficult to locate these products, they likely won’t make the effort to seek them out and scan them. A low number of scans may tell a brand that they need to reconsider their product placement in-store.
  • Marketing message impact: Shopping apps allow brands to share their marketing messages with consumers via video advertising. The watching, or not watching, of these ads, can speak volumes. If consumers navigate away before the end of a video, or before the message even starts, there could be a technical problem that’s preventing them from viewing it. Or, there could be a disconnect between the audience and the brand’s message. Either way, a rapid abandonment rate could indicate the ad needs to be reevaluated as it may be generating a negative ROI. However, if the average consumer is taking the time to view the full ad, then seek out the brand and its products, it’s a good sign the message is making an impact.

Consumer retail apps offer brands real-time data that they can use to inform greater marketing decisions. This is especially useful when it comes from shopping apps where the most dedicated shoppers tend to congregate. Use of a shopping app shows a consumer researches brands more frequently—and plans out shopping trips more thoroughly—than the average consumer.

The insights gained from retail mobile apps, along with other big data, can help brands better understand their audiences and offer a smarter, faster way to target the right consumers effectively. When CPG companies can effectively analyze and predict behavior, they can successfully align marketing campaigns with their target audience. With the right insights, brands can more effectively use their marketing budgets to grow their consumer base—and their profits.

Shopkick provides a shopping app that our partners can use to drive shopper behavior and better understand their customers. For more information, contact our team today.

Image courtesy ekkasit919

2018 tax refund trends: early filers spending on travel

Posted on by shopkick

If the only sure things in life are death and taxes, then tax refund spending is surely a seasonal shopping moment that shouldn’t be ignored. We recently conducted a survey to find out when Americans file their returns, and how they plan to spend their refunds.

The majority of those surveyed (66%) expect a refund this year and nearly 80% plan to spend at least part of it – and they plan to do so soon. Travel was a common theme, with 23% of people planning to spend tax refunds on a vacation.

70% of respondents file as soon as they receive W2s, compared with just 6% that wait until April to file. And the earlier you file, the earlier you can spend your refund. For the 23% of respondents planning to spend their refund on a much-needed vacation, filing early can make all the difference when it comes to finding and booking the cheapest flights, hotels and entertainment.

“We filed our tax return the minute our W2s came in January,” said Oklahoma City resident Kendra Barreda. “We’re planning our family summer vacation now and 90 percent of the funding for our road trip out west to Disneyland is coming from our tax refund. This isn’t the first year we’ve used our tax refund on vacation either, last year we took the family to Universal Studios and Harry Potter World thanks to our refund!”

Returns aren’t just going to vacations, however. Other ways Americans will be spending their refunds this year include:

  • Doubling down on debt: 62 percent will put their tax refund toward paying down existing debt
  • Being basic: 36 percent will use the money to pay for everyday expenses
  • Loving life: Home improvement projects (19 percent), major investments like a car or home (17 percent), self-care (16 percent) and shopping spree (11 percent) round out reported spending

Twenty-four percent of people will be saving the entirety of their refund by:

  • Sticking it in savings: 70 percent will send it into their savings account
  • Preparing for the worst: 17 report using the refund to create an emergency fund
  • Being sensible: 3 percent plan to invest in retirement accounts, the stock market or college savings accounts, respectively
  • Keeping It old school: 4 percent will stash the goods under their mattress

Shopkick now offers opportunities to earn rewards when booking travel through a variety of partnerships with leading travel sites Booking.com, Hotels.com, Hotwire and CheapOair.

Valentine’s Day Shopping Habits: Survey Results

Posted on by shopkick

It’s that time of year again, when kids bring valentines to school, romantics make grand gestures and the flower and chocolate businesses boom. We’ve polled Shopkick users to find out what kind of gift giving they are planning this year, and how gender, family, and age come into play.

According to our survey, men are spending more than twice as much as women: an average of $207.60 on their significant other and $70.24 on their children. On the other half of the heart, women plan to spend $89.54 on their sweeties and $40.30 on the little ones.

Some more key insights on Valentine’s day shopper behavior include:

  • Guys are more giving: More men (40 percent) than women (31 percent) believe it’s “very important” to give a Valentine’s Day gift
  • But most don’t care about getting in return: Fifty-five percent of men don’t find it at all important to receive a gift, and not many of either gender find it very important; only 17 percent of women and 11 percent of men
  • Getting crafty: Women are more likely than men to make a gift (15 percent vs. 7 percent) or give experiences (16 percent vs. 10 percent)
  • Tried and true: The most popular gifts are the traditional dinner out (27 percent) or flowers and chocolate (21 percent)

And finally, despite the reports that having children kills romance, mom and dad still plan to celebrate Valentine’s Day. Seventy-six percent of parents consider themselves romantic and 38 percent start planning the big day a month in advance; 55 percent are more excited about Valentine’s Day since becoming a parent.

Wishing all of our partners and friends a very happy V-day!

Uncover the consumer insights you’re missing with social media

Posted on by shopkick

Kim Bielak, Marketing Manager, Shopkick

It’s 2018 and no secret by now that social listening is a great addition to your market intelligence toolbox. But is your brand really taking advantage of the wealth of information about your consumers that you could be harvesting from this rich digital soil?

As a Marketing Manager responsible for both our social media channels and various market research sources at Shopkick, pouring through insights, feedback and personal stories from our users on social media is one of the most rewarding parts of my job. It never fails to give me a refreshing new perspective on why we do what we do.

So, whether you’re new to social media or just looking for new ways to share the voice of your consumer throughout your organization, here are 4 ways I’ve come to find social media incredibly valuable in finding insights that can translate into real business impact.

  1. Understand Your Core Audience Demographics & Interests

You have at least 4 communities with platform-provided analytics at your fingertips to understand who your core customer is, and your sample size is generally not insignificant. Not only can you triangulate age, gender, household income, and other demographic information from sources like Facebook and Twitter Analytics with your other customer data sources, you can also find an enormous source of additional color from asking questions such as what your fans’ favorite music, movies, and books are.

One way you can do this is to type queries directly into Facebook Search like “[Musicians] liked by people who like [Brand].” (Not a bad way to source talent or options for your next spokesperson, eh?) Similarly, services like DemographicsPro will analyze your followers on Instagram and can tell you their affinity with other Instagram accounts, media, and even their most-used hashtags.

  1. Listen and Look for Patterns

You know the saying: you have two ears and one mouth for a reason. Your customers are out there telling you exactly what they like, exactly what they don’t like, and exactly what they want, and you just have to pay attention long enough to notice it!

First, find out where your brand is coming up organically in conversation by doing a search for your brand’s handle, hashtag, or search term. If a consumer has gone as far as to include you in a public post, it often means one of two things: they absolutely love you, or they absolutely hate you. Be prepared for and really listen to both. While the former is often hard to hear, don’t be too quick to brush it off as whiney behavior. Complaints are often one of your most valuable sources of data, providing clues as to why you’re losing sales, or previously loyal customers. Even if you believe your brand is in the right, remember, your positioning is always in the eye of the consumer, and if you’re seeing a certain perception over and over, you know where you have work to do.

Then there’s the brand love (the best part!). These are your advocates. Are there patterns, or common and relatable things many of your customers have experienced you can source insights from? At Shopkick, we see people talk about using the app to get their steps in as they walk around the mall, going on Shopkick dates with their significant others, or even using the app as a game with the kids to keep them manageable in the store. These are all insights about the unique way people are using our app we didn’t even have to ask for, and have been repeated time and time again. We’ve even been able to mine Facebook comments about some of the brands we work with and have found second uses for products like cat litter and yogurt containers!

From there you can then do the same types of searches for your prospects, competitors, and the larger cultural conversation. If you’re looking to launch a new product, go into a new vertical, or pursue a new target audience, see how consumers are already talking about it. A yogurt brand might search terms like “Greek yogurt,” #Whole30, or even just #breakfast to see what consumers think is significant enough to share. And pay attention to trending topics on Twitter and Google trends, as they are often the first places the next big thing pops up before your insights team has had a chance to do a focus group about it.

Finally, I venture as far as to suggest following your customers and your target audience. Don’t be creepy about it, but within reason, many people get excited when their favorite brands follow them back! This is one of your purest forms of ethnography, as you have a chance to see your customers in their everyday environments. Notice what they include in their profiles, the photos they share, and the moments they find significant. This is truly one of the greatest ways to put a face to your consumer and foster a sense of empathy with their hopes, challenges, and ultimate business needs.

  1. Ask Them!

I’m not suggesting you ask for your fans’ household income and divorcée status on Facebook, but do ask engaging questions as a great way to acquire some qualitative quotes and insights. For example, we ask our users what they’re saving their Shopkick reward points (called kicks) for all the time. It was on Facebook that we discovered the wealth of users saving their kicks for Disney vacations, but were doing so by cashing out for Target gift cards in the app, and then re-buying Disney gift cards in-person at their local Target stores! If we had only looked at our internal gift card redemption data, we would have seen what we already knew: Target was one of our most popular gift cards. Never would we have realized that so many of our users actually wanted us to add the option of a Disney gift card instead. Needless to say once we added it, our users were very pleased.

Another way to translate these insights into more quantitative data is to export your comments and code them. We recently asked our users what else they wanted to earn kicks for and were able to codify over 800 responses to determine the most popular requests. Once we found the offers we didn’t have enough representation for that were in high demand, we were able prioritize outreach to new partners and business development. We also had the great added value of new crowd-funded ideas we may not have previously thought of, such kicks for experiences, video streaming, and, once again, rewarding people for getting their steps in!

  1. Create a Testing Ground

Finally, testing is one of my favorite uses of social media that often gets overlooked. Say you’re looking to run a major new ad campaign, or exploring a messaging refresh – you have 365 days to experiment with the light version on social media before you commit to your whole investment! At Shopkick, for example, we’re planning a brand campaign where we’ll be delivering a wish in every state across America this year. Not a small program to risk the types of responses we were going to get in. So, while we were still in concepting, we asked users what they’d wish for first on social media. Not only did we get a flood of responses to demonstrate that the campaign definitely resonated, but we also got tons of insights from fans’ wishes to guide the direction of the overarching campaign message itself. You may not be able to A/B test an ad or a new product every day in the real world, but with social media you have the ability to test and iterate on an idea rapidly until you strike something that truly makes an impression with your community.

At the end of the day, social is only one piece of a full market research toolkit, but it’s certainly one with a lot of unbridled potential, and not to mention wildly cost effective. The rise of social media, big data, and other digital intelligence sources should not become a reason to neglect traditional research methods such as focus groups, IDI’s and prospect surveying. However, if you haven’t yet recognized the power of social media, don’t miss an incredible opportunity to bring the voice of the consumer to your organization. It’s a powerful way to continue to inspire and remind your team of the real faces and the real people whose lives your brand touches each and every day.