What Can FMCGs Achieve By Activating Their Digital Channels?
The widespread use of digital platforms among consumers means that it is relatively easy for brands to have direct communication with their consumers. The benefits of this for FMCGs are that it can increase engagement and loyalty, provide valuable primary data and demonstrate support for retailer listings.
The widespread use of digital platforms among consumers means that it is relatively easy for brands to have direct communication with their consumers. The benefits of this for FMCGs are that it can increase engagement and loyalty, provide valuable primary data and demonstrate support for retailer listings.
Engagement & Loyalty
Consumers willing to interact with brands deepen their connection with them – which is vital in building loyalty: “Real loyalty…is created when the brand and the customer become intimate through multiple interactions before, during and after purchase”. Your most loyal customers can become more loyal. In many cases the variety of consumer touch-points means that those that do choose to engage with your brand can do so on multiple platforms. This is digital engagement and is crucial.
Primary Data
Digital Direct To Consumer initiatives offer brands the opportunity to collate qualitative data direct from their audience. If brands adopt this approach they will not be dependent on retailers debriefing them to gain insights into their own customers. No data will be of greater importance because it has the potential to inform and guide new product launches, refine current product offerings and clarify customer preference and purchasing habits.
Brands with more qualitative data and the agility to turn new insights into action can move towards more personalised content. In the FMCG world in Europe, companies such as Johnson & Johnson and P&G have started out on this route by running Direct To Consumer programmes, but brands could be making much more use of behavioural triggers that enable them to serve up personalised content and offers.
Support For Retailer Listings
The predominant model for the distribution of fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) remains brand to retailer and then retailer to consumer. Brands have power, certainly, but retailers who control shelf space allocation and ultimately the means of distribution seemingly have more power.
Retailers, in their role as gatekeepers of the consumer relationship, have been struggling to have dialogue with consumers on behalf of brands – only the brands themselves can do this because they understand their products and can engage with consumers authentically on that basis.
By running Direct To Consumer marketing activities brands can demonstrate support for their retailer listings, and by activating these activities with the right tools, such as digital printable coupons, they can demonstrate how they are driving consumers in store.
Activating a brands digital assets offers great potential for those looking to build real engagement & loyalty with consumers, gather primary data and support their retailer relationships.
Quotient (formerly Coupons.com), is a leading digital promotions and media platform that connects FMCG brands, retailers and consumers. Is your brand considering a Direct To Consumer marketing initiative? We would be happy to discuss how coupons can help play a part. Give us a call on T 44 (0) 208-865-1999 or send an email to ssankey@quotient.com.