How to Use Consumer Targeting in Your Shopper Marketing Campaign

Shopper Marketing Campaign: Matching the Right Consumer With the Right Products

Unlike other forms of marketing and advertising that focus on awareness and familiarity, a shopper marketing campaign focuses on appealing to

active shoppers, often catering to their impulsive decisions. But to be successful with this strategy, you need to match the right customers with the right products. So how do you do it?

Shopper Marketing Campaign: Market Research and Positioning

It’s impossible to match the right customers with the right products unless you know who your customers are. Accordingly, you’ll need to plan with market research and brand positioning.

•   Demographics. First, you need to think about your target demographics. Who will be buying your products? How old are they? What gender are they? Where do they live, what do they do, and how much money they make? What is their education level? How else can you describe them? With the help of market research, you should be able to figure out even more details about your target demographics, allowing you to understand them better.
•   Behavioral patterns. Next, you need to think about the behavioral patterns of the people you’re targeting. Are these the type of people to make impulsive decisions? Or do they take their time and make calculated decisions? Are they looking for fast food to fill a craving quickly or for healthy, nourishing food?
•   Values and perspectives. What values and mindsets do you find within this target audience segment? For example, does this group of people value family above all? Do they pride themselves on maintaining a professional image? What kind of political philosophies do you usually find within this group, and how do they see the world?
•   Interests. Similarly, you’ll want to know the significant interests of your target demographics – and whether there are any new trends to capitalize on. For example, is there a media franchise that could function as an attractive marketing tie-in?
•   Goals. Do the people within this target demographic have specific goals they’re trying to achieve? If so, can your products help them achieve those goals?

Shopper Marketing Campaign: Packaging and Displays

You’ll need to think carefully about your packaging and positioning in both physical displays and online displays. Consider:

•     Visuals. What visual elements can you use to make this packaging attractive to your target audience? For example, is there a specific color scheme that’s more likely to stand out to this group? Can you highlight some particular aspects of your product, like its explosive flavor or its large size, to appeal to these specific shoppers? Work with your graphic designers to come up with a plan.
•     Differentiation. While you’re at it, find a way to differentiate your product from others that fill a similar niche. For example, if you’re producing a snack food similar to the snack foods of your top competitors, you need to find some angle that makes you uniquely stand out.
•     Pricing. Pricing also matters when finding a perfect fit between your customer and your product. How much is your customer willing to spend, and how can you make a successful appeal to them? There may be specific products that are entirely off the table because they’re too expensive, but you can also sell these products in smaller quantities to fit a tighter budget.
•     Placement. How are you going to place this product? Shopper marketing often requires you to make your products immediately visible and easy to reach for your target demographics in a physical environment. That’s why sugary breakfast cereals with colorful mascots are often placed at eye level with young children riding in a shopping cart. If you’re marketing your products online, you’ll need to design your website to allow traffic to naturally funnel to your top products.

Shopper Marketing Campaign: Testing, Research, and Analysis

Don’t rely on your gut feelings or assumptions throughout the shopper marketing campaign process. Instead, you’ll need to commit to ongoing testing, research, and analysis. Back up your ideas with hard data and use focus groups, surveys, and other tools to test your hypothesis. For example, if you feel you’ve created a perfect fit for your target customer with your new packaging, try it out and see if your customers genuinely like it. If your results are less than you hoped for, go back to the drawing board and try something else. Most brands go through several iterations before they land on something that works.

Shopper Marketing Campaign: Marketing and Advertising

You also need to think about your marketing and advertising for your shopper marketing campaign. You may have an ideal product for your target customer, complete with excellent packaging and branding. Still, if you don’t have a marketing and advertising strategy to support it, people may not even realize it exists.

•     Your website. Your website is the ultimate marketing tool, serving as the foundation for the rest of your online marketing strategy. Choose a strong domain, include plenty of compelling copy, and keep your most interesting products above the fold so customers can easily find them.
•     Paid advertisements. Consider investing in paid advertising and placing your ads in locations where your target demographics are most likely to see them. Pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns are especially helpful since you can target specific keywords, interests, or groups.
•     Social media. Get active on social media as well. This is one of the easiest ways to appeal to a specific market segment since you can control who you reach and how you reach them.
•     Email newsletters. Email newsletter campaigns are also valuable, especially because they don’t cost much money to start or maintain. Once you start building up a loyal following, this content is going to become even more useful.
•     Remarketing/retargeting. Remarketing and retargeting allow you to reach people who have demonstrated interest in your brand or your products, encouraging them to return to your website for purchase.
  

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