Shopper marketing blog

The 3Ps of Supermarket Shopper Marketing

When launching your long-planned and lovingly-developed grocery NPD into supermarkets, it’s critical that it appeals to and is tried by the target consumers. Getting it into the hands, baskets and homes of the right grocery shoppers can be a daunting task, but here’s what you need to remember and how to go about it.

Supermarket shoppers are the key to NPD success as they are the ones who actually pick the product off the shelves and take it home, regardless of whether they, or someone else in their household is the end consumer. This is the crux of  Shopper Marketing and understanding the art  of getting shoppers to Pause, Pick up & Pay for your product is known as the 3 Ps of shopper marketing.

It is worth bearing in mind at this point that the vast majority of grocery shopping is still done by women in the UK (Independent Newspaper), with the highest volume coming from those who are 25 - 55 years old.

1. Pause

To get shoppers to pause and notice your beautifully crafted label design, they either have to trip over it in-store, thanks to some sort of brilliantly-designed and branded POS, which is almost impossible to deliver in the Top UK supermarkets these days or they have to be actively looking for it. In the case of the latter, placing your NPD on the top shelf next to some very similar looking alternative products can be effective. Alternatively, you can use something most grocery shoppers carry with them to influence their choice as they plan their shopping list or move round the store. We’re talking about the ubiquitous mobile phone.

2. Pick-up

Once they have Paused, you now need to get them to Pick up your NPD, examine it (the so called “First moment of truth”) and put it in their basket. This consideration phase doesn’t happen for most grocery purchases in a normal weekly shop. For these regular or habitual purchases, the shopper gives very little active thought to it and will navigate across a familiar landscape by colour and shape, without  reading any text. It’s not as easy as you’d think for a supermarket shopper to pick up your NPD. As with anything new and unfamiliar,  the risk of the unknown can be a barrier. Will it be as nice as the product they usually buy and will it work as well as their usual choice? Mitigating the risk of the unknown and providing confidence in quality and value of your product are key to converting the shopper from picking up your NPD, to placing into the basket.

3. Pay

The importance of getting shoppers to part with the hard-earned cash is no mean feat, especially in light of the current economic climate. Inflation has remained well ahead of salary growth in the last few years, making supermarkets feel as though they need to fight tooth and nail just to stand still. You can of course run activity with supermarkets to reduce the price of your NPD to reduce that risk, but it might not be that simple. What if….

 …the retailer won’t let you promote when you want to or even at all, as you haven’t achieved the minimum rate of sale hurdle?

 …it is too early in your NPD’s distribution drive to start reducing prices for fear of starting a price war?

 …you have just promoted it and the rate of sale has now dropped but you don’t want to flag that to the retailer by promoting it again?

So what do you do to get your NPD into Shopper's hands?

We have proven with our clients that to really deliver on the 3Ps of Shopper Marketing for your NPD you need mobile-led solutions that reduce the risk for shoppers, direct them to find your product where you are stocked and get them to pay upfront where you are actually stocked are much more effective long term then giving away products to strangers on the street or promoting to anyone who passes the end aisle.

A mobile solution like CheckoutSmart is a smart digital way to get your NPD into the hands of supermarket shoppers. Once a shopper has successfully bought and tested your product, they know where to find it in-store again, vastly increasing the repurchase rate.

Recent Case Study – Dessert NPD Trial & Research

In the last couple of months, we have worked with a well-known global food business assisting them in driving the trial of a chilled dessert. In just three weeks, we persuaded nearly 10,000 grocery shoppers throughout the country to search out this new product in the chilled foods section, pause, pick up and pay for it. Based on a non-incentivised follow-up survey we received from over 1,100 of the trialists, 95% had never heard of the dessert prior to trying it through CheckoutSmart, but 80% would recommend it to friends and family.

More importantly, we had some strong insightful feedback on the product from those that would not buy it again, helping the brand team focus on areas for change in the future.

Follow-up options

What sets our approach apart from trialling an NPD is the brand’s ability to follow up easily with NPD trialists in a number of distinct ways. As well as swift research options (our “Five-day feedback” option), we also have:

• “Free & Follow-up” – After trialling a product we have a proven method to encourage shoppers to purchase the product up to 3-4 times to drive conversion and into the shopper repertoire. See Birds Eye Case study here

• “Ratings & Reviews” – We ask the trialists to leave a review on a relevant retailer’s website. We are then able to include feedback from  those that would buy it again. See our Kerry case study for more on this.
  
  
• “Cross-sell” – What could make more sense than to follow up with these trialists with other flavours / varieties in your range? You already know they are happy to deliver on the 3 Ps.

• “Up-sell” – If they have bought one already, why not get them to buy two, three or even five? We can run multi-buys which have delivered strong share performance for those all-important heavy category buyers, driving category share improvements.

To see more ways we help brands be successful, see our Blog article: The Top 10 Ways Cashback Apps Help Grocery Brands.