Category: Video

Navigating the Consumer Journey: Awareness to Conversions

Posted on by shopkick

At a AdWeek retail event Shopkick’s Vice President of CPG and Retail Partnerships, Stephanie McHale talked with Mondelez’s Regional Vice President, Omni Shopper Activation and Strategic Partnership, Steve McGowan.  The event provided valuable insights into adapting strategies to meet the changing needs and preferences of shoppers. Here’s a recap of some key takeaways from the discussion:

  • Embracing Digital Engagement: With the Shopkick app at the forefront, attendees explored the integration of digital engagement with physical retail experiences. Shopkick’s Vice President highlighted the app’s role in engaging shoppers from discovery to purchase, emphasizing the importance of seamlessly blending digital and in-store experiences.
  • Prioritizing Shopper-Centric Strategies: Amidst constant consumer evolution, speakers emphasized the need to prioritize shopper-centric strategies. By putting the shopper at the center of decision-making processes, brands can better understand and address their needs, driving engagement and loyalty.
  • Balancing Digital and Physical Touchpoints: As digital influence on purchases continues to rise, speakers stressed the importance of balancing digital and physical touchpoints in the shopper journey. By combining both channels effectively, brands can maximize reach and engagement while ensuring a cohesive brand experience.
  • Leveraging Data for Optimization: The integration of data analytics into retail strategies emerged as a key theme. By leveraging data insights, brands can optimize their efforts, identify best-performing tactics, and drive incremental sales growth.
  • Addressing Friction in the Shopping Experience: Speakers highlighted the importance of reducing friction in the shopping experience, particularly in-store. With consumers increasingly seeking convenience and simplicity, brands must focus on streamlining processes and making shopping experiences hassle-free.
  • Ensuring Product Availability: Product availability emerged as a critical factor influencing the shopper experience. By maintaining consistent product availability on shelves, brands can enhance shopper satisfaction and prevent lost sales opportunities.
  • Personalization and Experiential Retail: Looking to the future, speakers envisioned a retail landscape driven by personalization and experiential offerings. By delivering personalized messaging and immersive experiences, brands can create memorable shopping journeys that resonate with consumers.
  • Measuring Incrementally and ROI: Finally, speakers emphasized the importance of measuring incrementally and return on investment (ROI) in retail activations. By accurately assessing the impact of marketing efforts, brands can refine their strategies and allocate resources effectively.

The retail activation event provided valuable insights into navigating the complex consumer journey. By embracing digital engagement, prioritizing shopper-centric strategies, leveraging data analytics, and focusing on friction reduction and product availability, brands can stay ahead in an ever-evolving retail landscape. As the industry continues to evolve, personalization and experiential offerings will play a crucial role in shaping the future of retail engagement.

How to Build an Effective Video Marketing Strategy

Posted on by shopkick

The benefits of video marketing are best reflected in the explosive popularity of video-first social media apps like TikTok and Instagram Reels. These apps emphasize authentically created, short-form videos that allow anyone to promote brands and ideas.

Many businesses have successfully leveraged the demand for short-form video content by forming partnerships with influencers and skilled creators, following and adapting to stylistic and cultural trends, and creating value for viewers that extends beyond entertainment. Additionally, when done well, video marketing can have a much farther reach than other marketing channels when the content is focused on shareability.

 

Video marketing can help brands connect to younger consumers

Video is now among the most-consumed types of content, especially among social media users. According to Pew Research, 72% of Americans now use at least one social media channel. When you unravel those numbers by age, 84% of those aged 18–29 use social media, while 81% of those aged 30–49 use at least one service. 

Youtube has been the most popular video-focused social media service by far. An impressive 81% of all Americans use YouTube, underscoring the vast popularity of video as a format.

However, businesses that want to reap the benefits of video marketing and start effectively connecting with younger audiences may want to pay special attention to Snapchat and TikTok. According to the aforementioned study, 65% of adults aged 18-29 use Snapchat regularly, at nearly a 3-1 ratio, compared to the next-largest age group of users (those aged 30-49, at 24%). Meanwhile, 48% of adults aged 18-29 use TikTok regularly, compared to more than twice that of adults aged 30-49 at 22%. 

 

Well-crafted videos can increase ROI

A recent Wyzowl report found that video marketing is currently one of the most highly effective channels available to businesses:

  • 94% of marketers report that video marketing has increased consumers’ understanding of their product and/or service
  • 87% believe the format provides a good ROI
  • 86% state it’s increased their website traffic
  • 78% of video marketers say video has directly helped increase sales
  • 83% report video has decreased bounce rate

Additionally, there’s still space for enterprising businesses to take a dominant stance within short-form video marketing on emerging platforms. Many businesses have shied away from developing effective marketing strategies for emerging short-form video platforms, instead are going all-in on the dominant services, such as Facebook and YouTube.

Wyzowl found that only 20% of respondents planned to market on TikTok, for example. Creative businesses have the opportunity to carve out a lasting presence before their competitors.

 

Want to market with video? Learn the language of the space

What does “well-crafted” mean in the context of video marketing? The answer to that is “It depends”. Social media users have different expectations of what content looks like across different platforms. Every social media platform has its own culture. Brands that want to find success on any given platform will need to study the structure of what makes content on that platform successful and then strategize around that. 

A handy “cheat” for this is to partner with known personalities and influencers who have found a winning strategy. Not only will that help your brand with cultural alignment, but it may be the deciding factor for many consumers. In fact, a 5WPR study found that 64% of YouTube users aged 18-34, and nearly 50% of those aged 35-54 purchased products because of an influencer.

Another simple, yet effective way to reap the benefits of video marketing is to find a third-party mobile app with an innovative video offering. With Shopkick, consumers earn rewards for watching branded video advertisements both at home and in-store. The incentive establishes positive brand affinity as the consumer prepares to shop, keeps the brand top-of-mind throughout the shopping trip, and increases purchase likelihood at the crucial moment of purchase decision. 

Video marketing may seem old-fashioned, especially for companies that have created video advertisements for TV or the web. But the emerging short-form video trend has its own unique DNA. Learning and implementing video marketing best practices can be just what businesses need to connect to previously hard-to-reach demographics.

Shopkick helps our partners deliver informative and engaging video content to consumers at home, in-store, and on-the-go. To become a partner, and connect with our highly valuable user base, contact our team. 

 

Shopkick’s parent company, Trax, secures $640M in series E funding from visionary investors

Posted on by shopkick

Today, we’re excited to share that our parent company, Trax, has secured $640 million in a Series E financing round led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and technology-focused funds managed by Trax’s existing investor BlackRock, Inc. 

 

Trax acquired Shopkick in 2019 to accelerate its mission to drive the future of retail, where the physical and digital combine to enable the best shopping experiences. Since then, the team has made major strides in enabling brands and retailers to better navigate the new frontier of retail: delighting shoppers and providing actionable insights right at the shelf.

This financing round accelerates Shopkick’s mission to expand our footprint to new audiences and destinations, enabling our partners to reach consumers all throughout their digital and physical day, beyond our core shopping endemic environments. These new opportunities to earn rewards will attract new and diverse audiences, elevate our omnichannel offering and deepen our first-party consumer insights. In the coming years, we’ll continue to focus on growth through new partnerships, new audiences, and expansion into new markets. 

It’s an exciting time in retail, and we are thrilled to continue to chart the future as part of the Trax family. 

Best,

Dave Fisch

CEO, Shopkick

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