Five Winning Cross-Channel Strategies for CPG
Consumer Packaged Goods companies are navigating a time where eCommerce is growing more popular than in-store experiences. But when your business model and KPIs are tied to store shelf sales, how can you get your foot in the door?
CPG marketers must go “beyond the shelf” – whether they offer on-site commerce or not – and deploy a strong cross-channel presence through store, website, email and social. This reflects the cross-channel nature of today’s shoppers and their demand for real-time connectivity.
Here are five simple strategies that drive acquisition, engagement, loyalty, revenue and subject matter expertise:
1. On-Site Email Acquisition
Every marketer knows that building and maintaining a healthy list of subscribers is critical to the success of any email campaign. In fact, the email address is more valuable than ever, as it is quickly becoming the key cross-channel customer identifier. With that being said, an easy way to build your email list is through an on-site pop-up when customers visit your site. Pop-ups are customized to reflect your brand and work with your site. You can control timing, placement and cadence so the pop-up appears when and where you want it.
2. Welcome Series
Once the customer has signed up through your pop-up, you can welcome your subscribers with a series of triggered, personalized email messages. Combining on-site acquisition with a triggered welcome series is a strategy that will greatly increase both engagement and revenue. Each message of the series is another chance to engage the subscribers with new content and messaging, giving you the opportunity to capture additional customer data that you can use to tailor future messages.
3. Content Personalization / Predictive
After collecting customer data, you can send relevant, personalized content targeted to customers with predictive content. Predictive content takes all your content like videos, tutorials, blog posts, articles, recipes and guides and delivers them – automatically – to the right consumer at the right time to engage consumers and build long term relationships. Because content is determined through predictive analytics, each message is aimed at specific customers, creating a truly customized experience. This activity keeps appropriate CPG products prominent, while encouraging their use and likelihood of repurchase.
4. Lifecycle Management
Following a customer purchase, it is extremely important to keep consumers engaged. By sending personalized messages designed to convert again, you are increasing loyalty, preventing lapsed buying behavior and re-engaging consumers that represent the most value to your brand. What’s more, is that with the use of machine learning, you can predict likely purchase behavior and reach back to customers that purchased consumable products when it is time to replenish their merchandise. With that, you can include recommended products tailored to the recipient that will enhance the experience of products that are bought in-store or online.
5. Build an Educational Hub
For CPG entities whose sites are not used to driving eCommerce business, the strategies above can still be put to good use to leverage your site as an educational outlet and to establish market thought-leadership. A product resource center and resource-based cross-channel campaigns can improve your customer lifecycle by driving shoppers back to the store based on the content you share. CPG brands can also drive site traffic by adding a registration card or a URL on brand packaging to promote their resource center and drive back customers to the site to subscribe.
With cross-channel capabilities, marketers can reach customers at every possible touch point. By delivering personalized communication, you can keep your products and brands top-of-mind, drive acquisition, loyalty and organically establish your expertise while creating a seamless experience beyond the store shelf.
About the Author
Cindy Irons is Director of Marketing Operations for Listrak.
CPG marketers must go “beyond the shelf” – whether they offer on-site commerce or not – and deploy a strong cross-channel presence through store, website, email and social. This reflects the cross-channel nature of today’s shoppers and their demand for real-time connectivity.
Here are five simple strategies that drive acquisition, engagement, loyalty, revenue and subject matter expertise:
1. On-Site Email Acquisition
Every marketer knows that building and maintaining a healthy list of subscribers is critical to the success of any email campaign. In fact, the email address is more valuable than ever, as it is quickly becoming the key cross-channel customer identifier. With that being said, an easy way to build your email list is through an on-site pop-up when customers visit your site. Pop-ups are customized to reflect your brand and work with your site. You can control timing, placement and cadence so the pop-up appears when and where you want it.
2. Welcome Series
Once the customer has signed up through your pop-up, you can welcome your subscribers with a series of triggered, personalized email messages. Combining on-site acquisition with a triggered welcome series is a strategy that will greatly increase both engagement and revenue. Each message of the series is another chance to engage the subscribers with new content and messaging, giving you the opportunity to capture additional customer data that you can use to tailor future messages.
3. Content Personalization / Predictive
After collecting customer data, you can send relevant, personalized content targeted to customers with predictive content. Predictive content takes all your content like videos, tutorials, blog posts, articles, recipes and guides and delivers them – automatically – to the right consumer at the right time to engage consumers and build long term relationships. Because content is determined through predictive analytics, each message is aimed at specific customers, creating a truly customized experience. This activity keeps appropriate CPG products prominent, while encouraging their use and likelihood of repurchase.
4. Lifecycle Management
Following a customer purchase, it is extremely important to keep consumers engaged. By sending personalized messages designed to convert again, you are increasing loyalty, preventing lapsed buying behavior and re-engaging consumers that represent the most value to your brand. What’s more, is that with the use of machine learning, you can predict likely purchase behavior and reach back to customers that purchased consumable products when it is time to replenish their merchandise. With that, you can include recommended products tailored to the recipient that will enhance the experience of products that are bought in-store or online.
5. Build an Educational Hub
For CPG entities whose sites are not used to driving eCommerce business, the strategies above can still be put to good use to leverage your site as an educational outlet and to establish market thought-leadership. A product resource center and resource-based cross-channel campaigns can improve your customer lifecycle by driving shoppers back to the store based on the content you share. CPG brands can also drive site traffic by adding a registration card or a URL on brand packaging to promote their resource center and drive back customers to the site to subscribe.
With cross-channel capabilities, marketers can reach customers at every possible touch point. By delivering personalized communication, you can keep your products and brands top-of-mind, drive acquisition, loyalty and organically establish your expertise while creating a seamless experience beyond the store shelf.
About the Author
Cindy Irons is Director of Marketing Operations for Listrak.