News

Report: shopper marketing success requires understanding the customer

June 4, 2008

COLUMBUS, Ohio — All shopper marketing campaigns are not created equal because every retailer has a unique customer base. For a campaign to be successful, marketers should tailor it to their shoppers' preferences and include media that influences them to purchase. For example, according to findings released by BIGresearch at the Promotion Marketing Association's first annual Shopper Marketing Summit, 71.6 percent of Kroger shoppers say coupons influence their grocery purchases, while only 59.2 percent of Safeway shoppers say the same.

"Consumer insights are an important building block for shopper marketing campaigns," said Kim Rayburn, senior vice president of BIGresearch. "Marketers should base promotions off what their shoppers actually want, not what they think they should want to increase ROI."

Findings presented at the summit included a deeper look at grocery, specifically Kroger and Safeway shoppers:

• Although Kroger shoppers are more influenced by coupons than Safeway shoppers, this form of media is most likely to influence both groups in their grocery purchases. Newspaper inserts follow (51.1 percent for Kroger shoppers and 48.5 percent for Safeway shoppers). In-store promotion rounds out the top three as 45.9 percent of Kroger and 43.5 percent of Safeway shoppers said the media influences their grocery purchases.
• Kroger shoppers said that the in-store promotion that influences/greatly influences them the most is product samples (60.6 percent) followed by shelf coupons (47.8 percent) and store loyalty cards (47.6 percent).
• Product samples (58.5 percent) are also most likely to influence/greatly influence Safeway shoppers; however, reading product labels (48.9 percent) was second for them. Store loyalty cards (46.6 percent) came in at #3.
• Grocery shoppers "date around." More than one-third (34.3 percent) of Kroger shoppers buy their health and beauty products at Wal-Mart; 22.5 percent of Safeway shoppers pick up their prescriptions at Walgreens.
• More than 75 percent of both Kroger and Safeway shoppers indicated that gas prices are impacting their spending; 28.8 percent of Kroger and 28 percent of Safeway shoppers said that they are spending less on groceries as a result of fluctuating gas prices.