Part 2 Store of the Future
Hi There,
Last week, I talked about in-store marketing tactics. This week I am shifting into online retailer marketing tips. You are probably thinking, “Brooke, you are a DTC expert, brand builder and community builder”... yes yes that’s true, BUT, I used to lead omnichannel marketing for Clorox during the peak pandemic so I learned a lot about in-store marketing strategies. The pandemic's impact on marketing was the blending of the in-store and the digital world, so I think it is really helpful for founders that sell in-store to understand how retailers' websites, like Instacart and Amazon (although that will be a deep dive webinar for another day), all now play into your strategy.
I had a plan of sharing shopper insights and retailer capabilities in this email for you, but then I started watching Pepsi, Where's My Jet? and lost track of time. If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it (unless you're supposed to be doing something else). That said though, the insights and capabilities details I was going to share, I will save for my Retailer Webinar next week.
This week, the biggest things you need to understand are going to be what online retailers' marketing capabilities are and what you can leverage.
Retailers have the following data:
Their customer's data because of their emails, loyalty cards, etc. so they have:
Home address
Past purchases of this customer
What other things are in their basket (ie: what products being purchased with yours)
Shopping habits (how often they shop, their spending thresholds, etc.)
However, most retailers aren’t sharing that information with you!!! How annoying is that?
Instacart is sitting there with all of this information. Kroger’s 8451 is as big of a money maker business for Kroger as their actual stores… this information is powerful, so how are you able to access it. Well you need to do 3 things:
Ensure the content of your product on retailers websites (i.e. Instacart, etc.) is updated with imagery, keywords etc.
Leverage retailer search capabilities to ensure you are covered
See what media placements you can try out (adding to the shopping basket if low-cost item, bundle promotions etc.)
Those are just the low-hanging fruit opportunities for you. I can't wait to see you at my webinar next week!
Client Highlights
De La Creamery
Let me start off by saying that I have loved watching Stephanie grow her business. We first connected over our passion for ice cream. IN FACT, we started the world's only ice cream podcast (shocking, I know) called Let’s Spoon. We interview ice cream brands and businesses to learn about how they launched, and the stories behind the flavors and talk about what growth in the ice cream industry looks like.
WITH ALL OF THAT SAID, Stephanie came to me saying she actually wants to launch a pop-up ice cream business. We sat down for a few hours and brainstormed how her brand is going to come to life. We even discussed the name of the brand, and which angle for the logo. I shared with her resources to kick off her business operations and connections that have helped her bring it to life. We have our check-ins at ice cream shops and continue to talk about her business growth.
How is she seeing success? De La Creamery’s engagement is all on social media through videos! Everyone is lining up for her pop-ups and flavor drops. She has tapped into an unmet market of Mexican ice cream and so the nostalgia of her flavors has really connected with her audience. She also is able to build connections with everyone that buys her flavors which was key to building her “cult following”. It’s been awesome to be along for Stephanie’s journey and see the hype of the brand come to life.
Promotion - Marketing Road Map!
Many clients reach out to me for a marketing roadmap to help them have a strategic guide for how to focus their marketing. I talk to a lot of founders investing tons of money in influencers (kills me to see the overspending here) or dumping money into social media with a limited understanding of their audience.
If founders are looking to build their marketing themselves and need more “coaching” along the way. Check out the Marketing Road Map Program. In this you will get:
Marketing Roadmap Template
Content Calendar Templates
Target audience deep dive Template
Access to multiple marketing video deep dives
2 hour long Coaching Session, that you can break up however you like (all at once, half-hour sessions, before building plans or after building etc.)