Price And Value: The Yin And Yang For Customer Conversion
By Jason Beckerman, Unified
For retailers, the secret to acquiring new customers, and maintaining them long-term, will always come down to price and value. With this in mind, it’s critical for retailers to leverage the massive social media ecosystem to usher customers down the purchasing path.
Digital influences and touch points are becoming ever-present in the lives of shoppers. In fact, a recent study found that more than half of grocery sales are influenced by online shopping. A staggering amount of those shoppers are using digital coupons as well.
Social media has been incredibly beneficial for retailers and grocers. Next year, social budgets were expected to swell to over $50 billion. Retailers of any size and within any industry must keep this number in mind as it signals the explosive growth of social media marketing — and that it’s here to stay. By leveraging social media platforms to better understand and reach various audiences, these campaigns allow marketers to create strategies that efficiently identify potential customers, provide value to the customer in a clear way and ultimately inspire in-store traffic.
As a result, the best way for retailers to ensure their digital strategies are driving foot traffic within physical stores is by committing to take the necessary measures to convert online searchers into offline shoppers.
Digitally-Minded And Economy-Proof
While traditional supermarkets are economy-proof in theory, demand for convenience and price cuts have increased substantially in recent years. How do brick-and-mortar grocers compete as Amazon and other online marketplaces threaten to crack their foundation?
In order to amplify in-store traffic and overall sales, retailers and grocers should be thinking about where their customers, both new and old, are spending the majority of their time — online and on their phones. They must come up with digital marketing strategies, focused largely on social media platforms, that allow them to drum up customer interest and entice them to sign up for online accounts with coupons and features that make shopping at the store more convenient.
Giving CRM Some TLC
The ultimate goal retailers should focus on is acquiring customers. One of the most proven social tactics for acquisition and upsell is to tap into existing CRM lists, including current account holders, for exact targeting on Facebook and other social platforms.
This accomplishes a few different things. First, it ensures that the brands can reach exactly who they want including prospects, customers, or loyalists with specific content; second, it allows them to build lookalike audiences off these list for new acquisition efforts and increased targeted reach; and third, it allows retailers to learn the habits, behaviors and preferences of each audience type.
Mobile, Mobile, Mobile
Shoppers, more often than not, will turn to the brand or retailer that provides the most convenience and ease of use for their interactions. They want to be able to reach out to a store whenever they want, from wherever they are.
This makes mobile shopping more important than ever, and it’s a trend that will only continue to increase as Millennials and Gen Z shoppers grow to become the supermarkets’ largest audience.
When a grocer is activating a social media campaign, it’s imperative that they ensure that the majority of their ad placements are geared toward mobile devices. This gives them the ability to gain maximum visibility with shoppers no matter where they are, at any given moment.
The Price Is Right
To entice the user to click through to a web site and take action, messaging in a social campaign should be centered around weekly coupons. This ensures all messaging appeals to the two main drivers previously mentioned — price and value.
Once a customer clicks through to sign up, benefits should be listed in five clear bullets, reiterating the savings, along with easy online ordering, recipes and more. This creates a consistent and powerful message that appeals to crucial factors, such as price and value, for the majority of shoppers.
If a retailer is able to develop a campaign that reinforces their CRM on social platforms, meets customers on mobile and secures preferred prices on goods, they should begin to see instant success in converting customers through social campaigns. Furthermore, by using CRM lists as a means to suppress existing customers, a brand and retailer can effectively reach brand-new shoppers as needed, regardless of whether they were on-the-go via mobile placements.
These tactics will allow marketers to optimize their use of social platforms to drive online traffic to their web site, and consequently increase offline traffic to stores.
Jason Beckerman is CEO and Co-Founder of Unified. His 15 years of enterprise software experience spans the marketing, SaaS, and financial services industries. As CEO, Beckerman oversees Unified’s product, technology, operations and organizational strategy. Prior to his experience in marketing, Beckerman’s career began in the financial services and SaaS verticals, including positions at Merrill Lynch, Siebel, and Salesforce.com. Jason received a B.S. in Entrepreneurship and Information Systems from Quinnipiac University and a M.A. in Organizational Leadership from Gonzaga University.