Blog

5 strategies for combating pressure at the shelf

Missy Pydo, vice president of client development, Inmar, shares insight on why retailers, aiming to boost success of a brand at shelf, should walk before they run with new product launches and carefully nurture the relationship with the category buyer.

Photo by istock.com

November 1, 2019

By Missy Pydo, vice president of client development, Inmar

We all know how quickly commerce is changing. The tidal wave that is e-commerce has inspired more retailer investment in their own house and private label brands while the sheer number of SKUs from new and established brands continue to grow. With more data available more quickly than ever before brands are experiencing ever more pressure to perform in less time, using less shelf space.

How should brands approach today's marketplace in brick and mortar stores? Here are five things to consider when combating pressure at shelf.

1.    Tightly identify your target audience

Our ability to precisely target a brand's core consumer has increased as we learn more and more about individual consumers through new data streams. Knowing your buyer's "sweet spot" and tightly defining this can help ensure every dollar you spend reaches the consumers with the highest potential for trial, and repeat, purchase.

2.    Prove category incrementality

Spend the time to gather the right data and do the robust analyses necessary to prove your worth. What is the profile of your early adopter? Your core consumer? Where does the volume for your product come from? Are consumers trading up in the category to your product, or is your product bringing new shoppers to the category? If you aren't growing a retailer's category, you run the risk of getting delisted.

3.    Choose one to two retailers for launch

Choosing a small number of retailers for launch allows for laser-sharp concentration on a handful of markets and stores. This can improve your odds of success and help sell in an item to other retailers. While a slower roll out may be difficult if you're turning on national advertising, taking several months to focus on a smaller market can provide the data points you need to stay on-shelf and advocate for the support you need as you broaden your reach across the country.

4.    Work closely with the retailer and your category buyer

Having a clear understanding of the retailer's strategy (Are they a classic good, better, best retailer? Are they passionate about sustainability initiatives?) helps you when you craft your sell story and choose the product assortment most relevant for the buyer.

Foster your relationships carefully and know which metrics are crucial to your buyer and their incentives. Demonstrate that you're always acting in their best interest by incorporating those metrics in every message you send them. Oftentimes category incrementality is a key metric.

In-store execution is critical as you fight to gain consumer's attention in crowded stores. Work with your retailer to gain as much feature (circular, digital) and display (secondary placement) as you can possibly get.

5.    Speak directly to your small but mighty, and loyal, target audience

National ad campaigns can drive scale but using hyper-targeted social media in the retailer(s) local markets can be effective to ensure that your message reaches the right person at the right time. Leveraging influencers to tell your story also brings authenticity to your brand and can provide opportunities to tell your story that would go unnoticed in a banner ad. Inmar's Collective Bias group boasts average time spent on a branded blog post of 1 minute and 24 seconds.

This strategy also has advantages if you're a smaller brand as the chances that you'll be able to compete on marketing spend compared to the national name brands is low. Understand that buyers depend on those marketing dollars and if you're a brand that can't compete on the total spend, have a dynamic plan on how you'll drive trial, conversion and Units Per Week with creative approaches like social influencer marketing.

To increase the success of your brand at shelf: walk before you run with new product launches to maximize your (always) limited budget, carefully nurture the relationship with your category buyer by using data to your advantage and deploy hyper-targeted social influencer marketing to reach the right buyers.