Shopper marketing (part 1) - definition and influence on customer acquisition

In one of the previous articles on marketing, we discussed the issue of sensory marketing in more detail. It is a form of promoting products / services, the aim of which is to directly influence the customers' subconscious and their senses.As a result, elements such as an appropriate interior design, pleasant music and appropriate smells floating between the shelves are to influence the appropriate purchasing decisions, which customers most often describe as "spontaneous purchases". Today, we will expand the mentioned topic to include the issue of shopper marketing.

Shopper marketing - characteristics

While sensory marketing takes place at the point of sale and works primarily on the senses, shopper marketing is a variety of activities that begin in the point of sale environment, i.e. before making a purchase decision. The environment can be understood as both a stationary establishment that a potential customer has entered, as well as online stores, and even the opinions of friends or Internet users regarding selected products / services.

With regard to retail stores, shopper marketing is various types of investments focused on marketing in points of sale (stationary and online stores) on various media (television, press, radio, internet, etc.). Shopper marketing is based primarily on research and understanding of individual market segments, i.e. potential customers interested in our brand, products or services. It develops with technological progress.

Shopper marketing - the beginnings of development

Initially, the researchers examined the reaction of consumers to specific goods and tried to understand the customers at various stages of the purchase - initial interest, arriving at the store, buying or resigning from the transaction. New technologies have brought advanced methods of researching customer needs, such as e.g. advanced computer systems, customer databases (especially useful in relation to internet marketing and website audience research), and even collecting information on the basis of loyalty cards and cataloging them in the system internal company. Summarizing the current knowledge, it is worth quoting here a precise definition of the concept of shopper marketing.

Shopper marketing - these are all kinds of marketing initiatives based on understanding the implicit needs and motivation of the client. The goal of shopper marketing is to meet the needs of the so-called shoppers by enhancing their shopping experience. As a result, these types of activities lead to increased revenues and brand strengthening.

Who is the shopper?

In order to understand the idea of ​​shopper marketing, the concept of shopper should be characterized. While in sensory marketing we deal primarily with a consumer who makes a spontaneous purchase, a shopper is a person who goes through several stages of purchasing before finally deciding to spend money.

A shopper is a person operating in a shopping mode in various situations - it can be preparing a shopping list in advance, tracking information about a product / service in an online store, and even planning shopping errands on the way to the store. While the consumer usually acts with his own self in mind, the shopper can plan purchases for other people. A good example of a shopper is a father who went shopping for the whole family, 3/4 of which were intended for consumption by other people (in this example, for a wife, two children and a dog). Therefore, a potential customer becomes a shopper before reaching the store, at the moment of starting the planning of purchases.