Category management in Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) is a delicate balance of art and science. While data-driven insights have always played a key role, product reviews have become a powerful tool for sharpening strategies and boosting category performance. These reviews offer a goldmine of consumer feedback and can guide decisions from product reformulation to marketing focus.
This post will explore how incorporating product reviews into your category management strategy can unlock new opportunities for brands and retailers. The five areas of opportunity are:
- Understanding consumer preferences
- Optimising product performance
- Driving category growth
- Supporting retailer listing decisions
- Enhancing the impact of shopper marketing
1. Understanding Consumer Preferences
Understanding consumers is vital for any successful FMCG strategy. Product reviews provide a direct insight into what customers appreciate about a product and what they believe needs improvement. Here’s how category managers can use reviews:
- Consumer Insights: By examining positive and negative feedback, category managers can pinpoint the features that resonate with their audience. For example, consistent comments on product texture, taste, or packaging highlight areas to focus on for future marketing campaigns or product improvements.
- Identifying Trends: Are customers increasingly concerned about sustainability? Is there a growing preference for convenience? Spotting these trends can guide product positioning and marketing strategies. By monitoring these themes, category managers can make timely adjustments to their product lines.
- Segmenting the Audience: Category managers can focus their insights on specific customer groups by sorting reviews according to demographics, purchase methods, or usage scenarios. This tailored approach enhances product development and marketing, ensuring relevant and impactful communication.
Product reviews act as a rich repository of consumer sentiment, enabling category managers to build a more nuanced picture of their customer base and respond with precision.
Reviewing a category of reviews can bring fresh understanding. Shoppers' spontaneous comments can be collated and analysed with AI software to bring out the dimensions of conversations. Our blog post on moisturisers described the dimensions solely based on the shopper's comments and not from a prior perspective.
2. Optimising Product Performance
Understanding what consumers want is important, but turning these insights into practical improvements is where product reviews excel. Here’s how category managers can use reviews to enhance product performance:
- Identifying Improvement Areas: Detailed feedback from reviews often points out specific problems, whether it’s an issue with product design, flavour, or packaging durability. By gathering and analysing this information, category managers can pinpoint common issues affecting overall customer satisfaction. Addressing these problems can lead to immediate improvements in product quality and customer loyalty.
- Collaborating with R&D and Production Teams: Product review insights can encourage department teamwork. Sharing detailed consumer feedback with research and development (R&D) and production teams can inspire innovations and improvements that boost product performance. For example, if many reviews note that a product’s texture could be smoother, this feedback can directly influence R&D focus and production changes.
- Benchmarking Performance: Product reviews provide a continuous, real-world measure of performance that can be compared to competitors and previous product versions. This ongoing feedback helps ensure product performance is regularly assessed against consumer expectations, enabling category managers to track improvements or discover new areas for development. In the UK, any grocery product with an average rating of less than 4.0 is in the bottom 20% of products*. These products should be reformulated quickly or risk delisting.
*Source: CheckoutSmart Analysis
Improving product performance isn't just about fixing problems; it’s also about enhancing the strengths that customers appreciate. By emphasising their strengths, brands can create a stronger value proposition and stay competitive in a busy market.
3. Driving Category Growth
In addition to improving individual products, insights from product reviews can significantly contribute to the growth of the entire category. Here’s how:
- Identifying New Opportunities: Collecting feedback often uncovers gaps in the market or unmet customer needs. For example, reviews might show a demand for a product variant not currently offered, indicating a chance for innovation. Category managers can use this information to lead the development of new products or variants that address these needs, thus broadening their category’s range.
See our article on Haircare in Tesco
- Improving Product Selection: Customer reviews can guide decisions on which products to promote, adjust, or discontinue. By identifying which items receive positive feedback and which face criticism, category managers can enhance their selections to meet consumer expectations better. This careful adjustment can boost overall category performance and profitability.
- Building Brand Loyalty: When consumers feel their feedback is valued and leads to real changes, they will likely feel a stronger connection to the brand. This loyalty can result in repeat purchases and encourage positive word-of-mouth, both essential for long-term success in the category.
By using product reviews to boost category growth, managers address current consumer needs while influencing the future direction of their product lines. This proactive strategy can help secure long-term success in a changing market.
4. Supporting Retailer ranging Decisions
Partnerships with retailers are essential in the FMCG sector. Trust in how products perform is key to starting and keeping these relationships. Product reviews are a valuable tool that can influence retailer decisions for several reasons:
- Evidence of Consumer Approval: Positive product reviews act as a form of social proof, showing retailers that there is a strong consumer base that appreciates the product. Category managers can use this evidence to highlight the product’s appeal during negotiations with retailers.
- Improved Retailer Partnerships: Sharing combined insights from product reviews with retail partners can foster better collaboration. Retailers may be more willing to invest in joint marketing campaigns or promotions when they see clear consumer demand and satisfaction. This cooperative approach can enhance the product’s market presence and boost sales.
- Supporting Informed Decisions: Product reviews provide objective evidence from users that can help in listing decisions. By presenting a strong collection of data that highlights consumer satisfaction, category managers can effectively persuade retailers when making those awkward 50/50 decisions.
Product reviews can strongly support a brand’s case to retailers, showing why a product deserves a prominent place on the shelves.
5. Enhancing the impact of Shopper Marketing
Product reviews play an important part in shopper marketing. They can enhance marketing campaigns, making them more genuine and engaging. Here are some strategies to consider:
- Using Social Proof: Shopper marketing campaigns that include real consumer reviews resonate more with potential buyers. By adding quotes and ratings to digital ads, store displays, and packaging, brands can quickly establish credibility and encourage people to try their products. This social proof can have a strong impact during key purchasing moments. According to PriceSpider: "Where to Buy" digital product ads with ratings and reviews convert an average of 30% higher than pages without them.
- Personalising Marketing Messages: Product review insights help tailor shopper marketing. By adjusting messages to respond to common consumer questions or concerns, brands can craft a more relevant and engaging story. For example, if reviews frequently mention a product’s ease of use, marketing messages can highlight this feature to attract busy shoppers.
- Using Multi-Channel Campaigns: Shopper marketing is more effective when consistent messages are shared across different platforms. Product reviews can be a common thread in multi-channel campaigns, ensuring that the message of quality and customer satisfaction is clear whether consumers shop online, in-store, or through social media.
Category managers can transform passive consumer feedback into an active driver of sales and brand loyalty by enhancing shopper marketing through product reviews.
it is no longer optional
The role of category managers in UK FMCG companies is changing. They need new ways to understand consumer behaviour and ensure product success. Product reviews provide valuable insights to help managers with consumer preferences, improve product performance, drive category growth, support decisions for retailer listings, and enhance marketing efforts. By effectively using these reviews, category managers can gain an edge in a competitive market.
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