Grocery Manufacturers Association Study Reveals Why Your Experiential Marketing Should Be At the Top Of Your “To Do” List!

A study released recently by the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) stated that 70% of retail purchasing decisions are made in-store, and that 68% of purchases are made on impulse. Really, how many people actually walk into the grocery store (even with a list) and walk out with only those items they intended to purchase before entering? Not very many! There is a huge opportunity for you to shift consumer loyalty your way.

One very effective way is through experiential marketing. Experiential marketing involves your brand directly engaging the customer in the store. Some experiential marketing campaigns involve coupons, discounts, give aways or take away samples. We believe the best and most effective form of experiential marketing campaign performed in grocery stores is live product samplings.

Live demonstrations have a high probability of converting the prospect into becoming a customer. If a customer who samples your product likes it and feels that the price is right, they are likely to purchase. Running an experiential marketing campaign in the grocery store however is easier said than done. The representatives that administer your experiential marketing campaign must be outgoing and willing to stop passers-by to sample your product. They also must be knowledgeable about your product. For example, if you sell a food product or a product that has chemicals in it, the consumer may have questions about the product’s ingredients. Your representative is a direct reflection of your brand and their ability to knowledgeably interact with the consumer it vital.

Experiential marketing is a science and should not be approached lightly. Experiential marketing is not achieved simply by putting a student in the grocery store in front of a table stocked with your product. Experiential marketing campaigns represent many opportunities, especially if you run your campaigns across multiple locations. The more coverage your experiential marketing campaign has, the more consumers you can reach. This will not only increase sales and brand recognition; an experiential marketing campaign is also an excellent way to gather product feedback and intelligence about your product.

Providing the representative who performs the experiential marketing campaign with data points to capture opinions about the customers’ experiences with your product can enable you to improve not only your products but also your packaging and marketing messaging. Having a plan to mine the data and report statistically about the results from your experiential marketing campaign will help you report on the results with success and provide valuable statistics that you can use in future business cases and business planning.

One of the biggest things that the GMA study has done is validate the opportunity and value proposition inherent in an experiential marketing campaign. If 68% of purchasers are making their buying decisions on impulse and if you can capture even a fraction of this audience through your experiential marketing campaign, then your campaign will be a success! If you don’t have the resources in place to facilitate your campaign there are experiential marketing companies who can guide you through the process. Experiential marketing companies can provide you with the staff and technology to make the most of your experiential marketing campaign both in-store and afterwards.

For more information about experiential marketing please visit www.storesupport.ca or call 905-847-6513.

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