Shopper Marketers: Understand the Data Today or Lose the Market Tomorrow

Today shopping has transformed into an omni-channel experience integrating online to offline at multiple touch points. As a graduate student in Northwestern University's Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC) focusing on marketing analytics,   I have found the following two articles insightful for shopper marketers. They respectively explain the big data utilization in shopper marketing and precision marketing analytics.

“Big data is a journey that every company must take to close the gap between the data that’s available to them, and the business insights they’re deriving from that data.” quoted from the article Shopper Marketing Filling the Cart with Big Data which draws the line form  Lisa Klauser , president of shopper marketing at IN Marketing Services. According to the article, the integration of online activities and offline in-store shopping experiences creates tons of opportunities for brick-and-mortar marketers to track and measure the shoppers in more aspects than ever. By collecting and connecting more data variables together, marketers can more precisely detect the causality. Tracking the patterns in data is almost like keeping abreast of millions consumers from their online engagement to their offline purchase journey, while linking the patterns together could even lead to a map of specific decision-making process of each target segments. More importantly, technology enables marketers to track individual shoppers and connect multiple devices to in-store shopping. In other words, understanding data would help us to unveil the real identity of the consumers, estimate consumer lifetime value and take immediate actions.

                                      Illustration: Mitch Blunt

Source:http://www.adweek.com/sa-article/shopper-marketing-filling-cart-big-data-158332 

More often than not, marketers use constant parameters regression (CPR) modeling to estimate advertising effectiveness, which is acceptable in revealing an overall effect which has been averaged out over time and different instance. In the article Precision Marketing Analytics: Working withTime-Varying Parameters from Accenture, the author compares the CPR modeling with the more advanced time-varying parameters (TVP) modeling. TVP modeling is able to discriminate the actual difference in advertising effectiveness at a granular level over time. Thus, it allows marketers to measure the real ROI of certain marketing activity separated from other actions across the time. As the example of a fictional FCMG company given in the article, using TVP model can especially help retailers and CPG brands attribute marketing efforts to real sales in a more accountable way considering the seasonality, geographic differences and other factors resulting in the volatility of this industry.

Connecting these two articles with my studies of marketing analytics at Northwestern, there are three actions you should consider in your next analytics project. They are as following:

1.     Leap to insights - This not only requires the analyst to carefully examine the availability and quality of data, but also put the analysis in certain context and even from a personalized perspective. The leap from data to insights is usually propelled by finding the connections between consumers’ wills and their actual behaviors.

2.     Deal with complexity. Simply average out the effect in analytics is dangerous in terms of both precise prediction and appropriate interpretation. Including time varying parameters is vital for marketers to discover the real unusual patterns.

3.     Anchor analytics to strategy. Actually, the most effective marketing analytics is an eco-system creating the self-sufficient circle from data collection, personalized interaction with consumers through multiple channels, to measuring marketing effectiveness.

The transformation that is taking place in the CPG and retail industry is just as fast as the increase of data everyday. Always being innovative and analytical, professionals in shopper marketing would never let go of such a great opportunity of boosting their business to another level with data.

Amy Zhou is a marketing analyst who has experience in formulating stories for several CPG and retail brands through data analytics and market research. She is now pursuing her masters’ degree majoring in IMC at Medill Northwestern, with the concentrations in marketing analytics and digital marketing. She is strongly interested in work opportunities in related areas.

Connect with her on LinkedIn or Twitter @Amy__Zhou.

Retailers - How Can You Survive and Thrive in Today’s Omni-channel World?

Today, brick-and-mortar is being challenged by online channels and consumers want a seamless blend of both. As a graduate student in the Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) program at Medill, Northwestern University, I am dedicated towards shopper marketing insights and digital analytics. During my research on omni-channel retailing, I identified the following two articles that will help clear retailers’ concerns about the negative outlook on the future of the retail stores and provide valuable tips on the success of today’s retailers.  

Marci Weisler, COO at EachScape Inc. and an influential strategist in digital and online businesses, discusses The Future of Onmi-channel Retail. In her article, she argues that onmi-channel in fact presents a huge opportunity for retailers although challenges accompany. She believes that retailers should leverage the multi-device landscape, integrate CRM information system and adopt other strategies such as Geofencing in order to provide customers with consistent delightful experience. However, developing seamless customer experience requires high level of cooperation and consistent planning across divisions of the company, which remains a challenge for a lot of retailers.

In ATKearney’s recent report of Recasting the Retail Store in Today's Omnichannel World, evidence suggests that consumers value the retail store experience on multiple levels and continue to make the vast majority of their purchases in stores. However, the shift to an omnichannel shopping experience means the value of physical stores' traditional role has changed. Stores, on their own, have become less productive and profitable. In order to remain retail stores at the heart of the customer relationship, retailers need to reconsider a retail store’s new role to address evolving needs and behavior by making the retail store a place for discovery, entertainment and personalized experience development.

Based on my analysis of the above two articles and other retail-related research that I have completed,  here are the three action items that retailers need to consider in order to thrive, not only survive, in today’s omni-channel world.

1.      Integrate multi-device landscape and stay consistent across channels - By connecting the customer across web, mobile, and in-store, more purchases will be driven through ease of use. Tactics such as staying consistent across channels as well as coordinated cross-channel promotions will help consumers stay loyal to a brand, and stores will gain higher customer satisfaction rates.

2.      Leverage store formats - By developing a strategic portfolio of store formats, the future of the retail stores should be able to include the discovery and entertainment elements, facilitate well-executed transactions, build strong customer relationship, and provide efficient fulfilment of online purchases.

3.      Improve retail operations system – By implementing omni-channel solutions, such as ship-from-store, in-store pickup and in-store associate ordering will give consumers the type of retail service they expect both online and offline, and help retailers to drive sales in-store.

Remember, customers have redefined commerce, requiring retailers to respond with more choices, convenience and seamless shopping experience.  Get ready and thrive in this onmi-channel world.

Christy He is pursuing her Master of Science in Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) at Northwestern University, with an emphasis on marketing analytics, shopper marketing insights and digital marketing. She previously provided retail measurement and developed retail strategies for major CPG and retail companies at Nielsen. She hopes to continue her professional career post-graduation to focus on data analytics and shopper marketing in the fields of retail, CPG and e-commerce.

Follow her on Twitter @christy_he or contact her via LinkedIn.