One could be forgiven for thinking that you should start a shopper marketing process with the shopper. However, you do NOT. Instead, you start with the consumer.
There is a good reason for this decision. If you are marketing to shoppers, you need to understand them, their behaviour and thought processes. However, shopping most of the time starts with a consumption need.
Think about it. You go to the shop to buy a specific item for your meal later that night, or because you ran out of your kiddy’s shampoo. Therefore, it stands to reason that if you want to understand shopping and purchase decisions, you need to understand the thought process of a shopper. That starts with … the consumer.
Also, from a business point of view, there is not much value in purchase change without a concomitant change in consumption. It is pretty easy to drive purchase but that alone is not enough. You need to create value.
True value is created when you drive additional purchase and people use what they buy. This leads to future purchases and future consumption. Therefore, a cycle is created – which results in true value.
However, keep in mind that value to the organisation is dependant on what you are doing with the shoppers being connected to what you are doing with consumers. The shopper and consumer are inextricably linked.
Going back to our five-step process, the entire process starts with consumption – who to target and how consumption behaviour can change.
The consumer and shopper marketers need to collaborate and work towards a shared goal. The consumer marketing team is there to drive consumption. So if a shopper marketing team can demonstrate that they can help that purpose, they work wonderfully together. Together they have a common purpose.
When shopper marketers are approaching consumer marketers, it is vital that they remember that they are marketers. Therefore, they need to understand their target market – that is, the consumer marketing team – as well as be able to talk the language of marketing. Use data to build their argument. Demonstrate they are there to help the consumer marketing team drive the growth they seek.
If you would like to know more about working with consumer teams, log in or sign-up and listen to our experts talk more on how we engage the consumer marketing team in the shopper marketing process.
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