Is your brand prepared for the CPG shopping experience of the future? Is your retail store equipped? New, innovative technologies are powering the next generation of in-store experiences and beyond. These three tips will help you create an efficient, effective endless aisle strategy.
1. Reach Consumers Pre-Store During Micro-Moments
Busy schedules and long to-do lists have fragmented the average shopper’s attention span. Dedicated ‘shopping trips’ are becoming a thing of the past. Shopping now happens during small windows throughout the day, such as 20 minutes while waiting to pick up a child from school or arrive at an appointment.
Today’s consumers place a premium on experiences, and these micro-moments offer an ideal opportunity to engage customers with educational videos or life hacks like timesaving recipes, money-saving offers, and product alternatives before they enter the store. Retailers, grocers and brand marketers need to build on the behavioral elements that drive purchase now and extend experiences across screens, beyond the store, and around the clock.
2. Focus on time spent, not clicks
App downloads are slowing thanks to a maturing ecosystem, dropping 20% among the top 15 US app publishers. However, a year-end analysis by App Annie found that time spent in apps is up by 25% over last year, so clearly this medium isn’t going anywhere. Apps remain an important touchpoint with consumers, indicating that engagement and frequency of use are the most accurate success metrics.
Consumer attention is the currency in marketing and advertising today. Retailers and brand marketers need to understand that it’s time spent that matters most, not click-throughs or downloads. As a result, it makes sense to focus more on immersing existing customers into the brand experience than enticing new customers.
3. Develop Mutually-Beneficial Campaigns for Customer and Brand
The strongest argument for interactive engagement in-store is that ‘endless aisle’ solutions benefit brands, retailers, and consumers alike. Cutting-edge marketing technology finally enables CPG marketers to achieve closed-loop attribution for their efforts, while retailers see additional foot traffic, more guidance and exploration in-store, and movement from the perimeter to the center aisles. Consumers have a more entertaining shopping experience, save money, and accumulate rewards simply for doing the shopping they’d already planned to do.
Your brand or store doesn’t have to build a record-breaking mobile app to succeed. Consider the role interactive technology plays in your current customer interactions and how delivering an out-of-the-box, endless aisle solution can deliver better results for your marketing efforts.