Gabby Donnelly, January 2021
In shopper marketing, understanding the data behind your campaign performance is crucial. Recognising how you can utilise key campaign insights to influence internal and external conversations can unlock a wealth of benefits.
External negotiations
1) Demonstrating the value of your brands
Actively understanding how your brand contributes to the wider category, in terms of the growth and revenue is a crucial tool when negotiating with retailers. Having the historical data to display how the overall category is directly benefitting from the media you activate is important. Showcasing the value that your brand brings to the category helps support negotiations for unlocking secondary space which in turn aids in driving incremental sales for your brand. Data provides a wealth of knowledge that will hold you in good stead with retailer conversations, helping to unlock advantages in store.
2) Selling in brand plans to retailers
Showcasing concrete evidence of your past campaign success on the category can further help in the negotiation process. Providing context behind your brand plans through data, helps to reassure your key contacts that the objectives of future campaigns are right and achievable. For example, many brands opt for activating a competition mechanic to generate engagement around the campaign, however it is important to demonstrate the rationale behind activating a competition. In this instance, this could relate to your brands target demographic being of a certain age group (e.g. under 45) who you know from previous activity are more likely to engage with competitions.
3) Securing the right media
Prioritising a data-driven approach to your media touchpoint selection is crucial to securing the right media for a campaign. Analysing and picking apart the data will aid in your understanding of what media works well and what does not for each of your brands. Consider the following: ROI performance at either a featured or brand level, what impact on the category does each touchpoint deliver, what % and £ uplift does the media deliver in comparison to alternative options. This data can be particularly useful when retailers are prompting you to invest in a media touchpoint which the data suggests is not effective for your brand. Furthermore, this information is essential when you are tied to a JMP as activating the correct media will aid in optimising spend across the major retailers.
Internal negotiations
1) Unlocking shopper budgets
While spending your shopper budget externally is important, negotiating for that spend internally can be difficult. Having concrete evidence to share with your internal stakeholders that showcases the value of what your shopper campaigns bring to both the brand and business is crucial to consolidate your argument. With return on investment being the ever-hot topic, actively being able to display how your campaigns are consistently achieving a positive return on investment, will support when negotiating internally.
Helping your internal teams understand what brand is currently winning in store and what brands need extra support. By doing so, you can ensure all teams are aligned on focuses and priorities split by brand. This allows you to comprehensively split shopper budget based on key learnings from the previous year. For example, identifying brands where £ uplift tends to be relatively weak and exploring ways this can be optimized by investing in new media touchpoints. Alternatively, with brands that tend to perform well, consider artwork options where you can feature top performing brands with smaller SKUs to contribute to an overall stronger performance.
2) Strategic planning
A vital part of the planning process is reflecting on past activations and using the key learnings to shape your future campaigns. Using historic data can help guide your media choices. Understanding what works well and what doesn’t for your brand is paramount when seeking to activate a successful campaign. These key learnings can be actioned when planning, ensuring budget is used for optimal effectiveness, and in turn reducing any budget wastage.
The above are just a few examples of the advantages that can be unlocked by leveraging data. In summary, proactively using data to leverage both internal and external conversations can be crucial when looking to unlock benefits for your brand and shopper investments.