4-KEY BTL MARKETING STRATEGIES TO MAXIMISE REACH, INFLUENCE AND REVENUE.
Key Takeaways
Competition among consumer brands – fast, slow and services – is fierce. Socio-economic conditions are strained, and consumer confidence and discretionary income are under enormous pressure.
?But it’s also the first post-COVID peak season, and maskless consumers are relishing (indeed, demanding) interactive, entertaining shared experiences. Below-the-Line (BTL) marketing tactics present a great opportunity to create these experiences while generating brand awareness and driving sales.?
?What should you be doing to?attract and retain consumers?
Here's how:
1. How to Make Trade and BTL Marketing a?Value?Differentiator.
Instead of spending marketing budget on generic deals or flyers, brands looking to stand out and win consumer attention need to be bold, interesting and engaging.
In a?previous post , we learned how value is a key driver for consumer purchasing decisions so reminding shoppers about the value you add to their lives in important. This can be achieved through BTL marketing activities like promotions, or bulk deals, but the right positioning can also overcome price.
For Example: –
A premium detergent brand perceived as expensive could, for example, provide a visual representation of just how many laundry baskets consumers get from a 2kg bag of washing powder – as compared to ‘cheaper’ or private brands. They could print this visual for in-store display and share images on social media.?
But if they really wanted my attention, they could take it a step further and actually have laundry baskets in-store that disrupt my shopping experience and provide tangible evidence of value.?
If they wanted to win my affiliation and loyalty, however, they need to demonstrate how their values align with mine, and that they care about my community. The same brand could challenge the local community to fill those laundry baskets with food and clothing for donation to a local charity, with an offer to match the community’s contribution.
Tracking the progress of the charity drive could be the basis of a social media campaign that is far more likely to elicit engagement and has the potential of virality.
2. The?Value?of BTL Shopper-tainment.
We all want to be entertained, and shopping is no exception. We’ve noted that South African consumers are shopping less frequently and closer to home.
For retailers,?understanding your community?and making sure that you are?delivering excellent in-store experiences?is key to winning footfalls and inspiring loyalty.?
For?65% ?of U.S. customers, an excellent shopping experience is more influential than advertising.?
Effective FMCG marketing strategies demand that we go beyond traditional advertising and marketing tactics and focus on the customer experience – in-store and online.
Tips for creating an effective in-store customer experience:
For the?brands?on the shelves, it’s about?understanding the community surrounding your retailers?and promoting the right brands in the right way for maximum reach.
Win-win?for Brands and Retailers?
It’s never been more important that retailers and brands collaborate to create excellent in-store experiences for mutual benefit. Retailers win because BTL brand activations and in-store promotions provide entertainment and brands win because they gain access to a captive target market intent on buying.
At Tradeway we combine TRADEFORCE (skilled brand ambassadors and field marketers), PROMOFORCE (proprietary reporting and management platform technology) and our EXECUTION ENGINE (operational infrastructure that includes?creative and strategic advisory,?procurement, warehousing, logistics and project management) to ensure that in-store promotions, out-of-home brand?activations and experiential marketing ?is delivered to the highest standards – on time and in budget.
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3. The Future of Retail is?Hybrid: A Case Study.
Don’t assume that the majority of South Africa’s retail consumers are not online.?The 2022 Township CX Report found that?70% of respondents ?(particularly the youth) reporting making online purchases, with 23% having used a service in the past six months – higher than the national average of 22%.
Statistica ?reported in March 2022 that almost 70% of South Africans are active internet users, and 46% are on social media.??
So, while the digital divide persists and continues to disadvantage many sectors of the population, strides are being made to address this, and resourceful South Africans continue to demonstrate grit, finding ways to bridge the divide themselves.
There’s no doubt. The future of retail is hybrid. Even where consumers purchase in-store, their buyer journey is complex and often informed by online research and influence. Conversely, they may go to a shop to see and touch a product, before ordering from the cheapest outlet online. Retailers and brands must be at all the touchpoints where consumers browse, transact, and consume for maximum reach.
Effective omnichannel strategies will see digital and physical working together to amplify results and reach. This is evident in how digital marketing can be leveraged to drive foot traffic in-store, and in online-only retailers opening physical stores or pop-ups to drive sales and awareness.
Case Study
Consider our own digital-native,?Yuppiechef . The ecommerce veteran, founded in 2006, took the surprising decision to open its first brick-and-mortar outlets in 2018.
Why? Well according to Yuppiechef, themselves, this move was to accommodate the need to “touch and feel a product before buying it, get advice on the perfect tool for the job and have someone show you how it works”.??
The in-store experience they provided was like no other in South Africa at the time. Leveraging data from the online stores, they incorporated star ratings and QR codes into their price tickets and displays
Presumably, they were also able to leverage data from their online stores to inform stock and inventory choices, in-store.?
In?2021 , the company was acquired by Mr Price for almost half a billion Rand, cash, so one also assumes that these strategies were effective.
And then of course, there’s Amazon, who needs no introduction and is another digital native embracing a hybrid retail model.
4. Maximising?Reach?through BTL Experiential Marketing
Consumer goods are, by their nature,?multisensory?– tactile, sometimes tasty or fragrant, and even audible (can you just hear that cheese griller sizzling?).
They therefore lend themselves to experiential marketing tactics. Giving consumers an in-store opportunity to ‘try before they buy’ is often the best way to demonstrate a consumer good’s key differentiators and value.
But there’s added benefits:
1. Experiences make brands?more memorable
Engaging multiple senses in a brand message makes that message and brand more memorable than single-sense stimulation, alone.?
2. Last mile buyer-journey?engagement and conversion.
Where traditional advertising may start a consumer’s buyer journey, shopper marketing is the closer. It is present at the critical “last mile” to purchase where shopper intent to buy is also the greatest.
3.?Overcome?the Digital Attention Deficit
Shorter consumer attention spans and an increasing crowded e-commerce landscape mean marketers’ ability to influence decisions through digital or
Conclusion
Above-the-Line marketing is more challenging than ever. Brands can overcome these challenges by optimising below-the-line (BTL) in-store and co-branded shopper marketing activities.
Experiences like these are also harder to ignore than an image on a social media feed, resulting in impressions that are lasting and engagements that convert.?
So, while many of the latest trends in marketing are geared towards brand equity and awareness through sexy Above-the-Line and digital advertising, in-store shopper marketing campaigns have the power to drive sales conversion and volume at the point of purchase. They may seem pedestrian compared sophisticated digital reach strategies, but they remain extremely effective.?