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We’ve all groaned about the inefficient steps or irritating workarounds in our content marketing workflow. Make this the month you leave those headaches and frustrations behind. Try these time-saving remedies today. Continue reading
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Consumers’ buying journey for pet products is changing as omnichannel shopping becomes the new norm. As shoppers increasingly turn to e-commerce retailers for their pet product needs, simply being a part of a local pet retailer’s assortment is no longer enough.
Even if shoppers aren’t completing their purchases online, they’re still researching and comparing products they expect to find on their next in-store shopping trip. To be successful in this environment, your pet brand must master both the physical and digital shelf.
Identifying online and in-store growth opportunities based on consumer insights, sales trends and competitor analysis is the key to increasing your sales. Here are three actions you can take to expand your share of the e-commerce space using data:
#1. Identify key trends and growth opportunities
Online sales are very important to pet product manufacturers—perhaps even more so than other retail categories. In fact, 30% of all pet supply sales in a 52-week period (ended 10/24/20)* occurred online. As an early mover in e-commerce, many pet-centric online retailers are already well established. That’s why finding opportunities to grow sales on these major platforms is crucial. Measuring online sales by monitoring consumer shopping behaviors can reveal trends and opportunities for growth.
PRO ADVICE: Monitoring e-commerce sales by e-receipt capture is the most accurate and stable way to measure performance across platforms. Analyzing overall sales for your category and segment on a monthly basis provides insights into growth opportunities, for example, by introducing a new product or marketing existing products in a new way.
#2. Analyze performance relative to competitors
For pet product manufacturers, online competitors may be growing faster and representing a greater threat than competitors in brick-and-mortar channels. Identifying those competitors and comparing your products’ performance to theirs is important for developing effective sales strategies.
PRO ADVICE: Analyzing monthly e-commerce data helps identify which brands and banners are leading your pet product category and segment. You can spot which are growing fastest and might be a potential threat to your sales. Comparing competitors on the e-commerce report to those in traditional RMS reports highlights which brands are more competitive in each channel, allowing you to tailor your sales and marketing strategies accordingly.
#3. Understand how consumers shop across online and in-store channels
To motivate consumers to purchase your product, you’ll need insight into their online and offline decision-making processes. Understanding what goes into the buyer’s journey—for example, their pre-trip preparation, browsing habits and research—can help you influence behaviors at both the digital and physical shelf.
PRO ADVICE: With insights based on e-commerce panel surveys, you can learn how consumers are shopping and understand what’s driving their purchase behaviors. Analyzing Omnichannel Shopper Fundamentals leads to understanding the path to purchase, including shopper motivations, barriers and purchase influencers.
Nielsen provides the fast, flexible and agile tools pet product manufacturers need to grow both online and in-store sales. Monthly e-commerce measurement provides accurate tracking of online sales as well as shopper insights, while RMS data provides the most current and comprehensive snapshot of in-store retail performance available. Omnichannel Shopper Fundamentals offer insights into the consumer path to purchase, motivations and sales drivers both on and offline.
If content creators forget this crucial step, your content will miss the mark with your audience. Here’s an acronym to help you and your content team remember it. Continue reading
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Maintaining good relationships with retail partners is a must for emerging pet manufacturers. Effective collaboration with retailers can help you develop the best possible pricing and promotional strategies for your product—and amplify your success.
By accessing specific retailer data, you can identify key accounts and understand which promotions have worked effectively in the past. You can also learn which pricing structures will drive product sales for both you and your retail partners, and establish a collaborative approach together.
Here are three tips for working with your retail partners to develop pricing and promotion strategies that create win-win outcomes:
#1. Identify key accounts and access their data
The pet retail landscape is broad, but top-heavy—big name retailers with large geographic footprints can have an outsized impact on your product’s success. Know who your key accounts are, and study their point-of-sale (POS) data to learn which pricing and promotional strategies may work.
PRO ADVICE: While internal sales figures can show you which of your current retail partners are your biggest accounts, market-level RMS (retail measurement) data can help you identify which pet retailers sell the highest volume of other products in your category. A data provider with direct access to your key accounts’ POS data can help you gain more specific insights into store-level performance.
#2. Pinpoint retailers’ keys to success
Not all promotions are created equal. Some might work for a specialty pet retailer but will be less effective in a grocery setting. It’s important to identify promotions that will be most effective in your key accounts. By learning what drives retailers’ revenues, you can identify promotional strategies that will benefit both sides.
PRO ADVICE: Analysis of key account sales data shows which promotions have worked for your retail partners in the past in terms of individual product performance and overall store sales. When you’ve identified which promotions created win-win outcomes, you can work with retailers to replicate them through a retail collaboration platform.
#3. Deploy marketing dollars where they will have the most impact
Trade promotions are a powerful tool for manufacturers and their retail partners. But to be effective sales drivers, promotions must be well-planned and targeted. Analyzing the sales lift resulting from promotions in your key accounts shows where your trade dollars will have the most significant effect.
PRO ADVICE: Because there are so many variables to consider when developing a promotional strategy, having the most accurate and current information is essential. Revenue management optimization tools provide the analytics you need to plan efficient trade promotional spending.
Nielsen’s data provides the insights you need to work effectively with your retail partners. Our exclusive key account RMS data lets you drill down into shelf-level performance at your most important partners’ stores. Revenue Management Optimization (RMO) provides advanced analytics and predictive modeling, so you can get the most return from your promotions. Retail Collaboration programs offer a shared platform for you to work with your retailers to develop mutually beneficial pricing and promotion strategies.
While LinkedIn is primarily a B2B social media platform, both B2B and B2C brands can benefit from it. Executives from Virgin, GE, and Microsoft all publish on LinkedIn. Here’s what you and your brand should know. Continue reading
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Research shows that images can increase sales. This is why you should add them to your PDF marketing materials.
The post 5 Benefits to Using Visual Content in PDF Marketing Materials via @martinibuster appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
When hair and nail salons temporarily closed their doors during shelter-in-place ordinances earlier this year, Americans looking to maintain their personal care routines had little choice but to adopt a do-it-yourself (DIY) approach to beauty and self care. But this trend didn’t stop at the human consumer level. As shoppers became more invested in their DIY routines, many pet owners placed an added importance on maintaining their pet’s health and hygiene at home, especially when temporary (and some permanent) business closures left consumers with few other options.
More than 11 million U.S. households adopted a pet during the pandemic, according to the American Pet Products Association’s (APPA’s) “COVID-19 Pulse” study. This sparked notable sales growth across all pet care categories (i.e., pet supplies, pet food and pet treatments). Pet supplies have been the fastest-growing category in pet care throughout the pandemic and pet grooming has been one of the fastest growing segments within the category.
In tune with consumers’ recently developed DIY health and beauty habits, pet parents haven’t limited their efforts to themselves, as many have familiarized themselves with at-home pet grooming this year. While the sales growth rates for grooming necessities like brushes and combs, grooming supplies, shampoo and conditioner have slowed since the peak purchasing period back in May, sales remain substantially above pre-COVID levels, with total pet grooming sales up 27.4% since the outset of the pandemic. This far outpaces the 3.2% growth generated by the total pet care category.
As shoppers stocked up on what was newly deemed essential, increases in the average number of units purchased per shopping occasion and average spend per buyer contributed to pet grooming category growth. In addition to driving increased grooming sales, the pandemic has boosted household penetration by 5.1% across all Nielsen tracked channels during the 52 weeks ended Oct. 31, 2020.
But there’s still a massive opportunity for retailers and brands to capture new buyers. According to the APPA’s 2019-2020 National Pet Owners Survey, over 106 million households own a cat or dog, but Nielsen Homescan data shows that only 12.3 million households purchased pet grooming products in the year ended Oct. 31, 2020. To drive increased adoption, brands need to educate consumers on the importance of personal pet care with comprehensive deliverables that inform shoppers on how to maintain their pet’s health. By offering pet-friendly products that make clear connections between consumers’ reprioritized sense of self-care and pet personal care, brands and retailers will be able to tap into the large segment of households that have yet to purchase within the pet grooming category.
Pet care products had strikingly high omnichannel adoption rates before the pandemic. However, as COVID-19 pushed more than 18 million Americans toward the online CPG landscape for the first time, e-commerce accounted for more than half (53%) of all pet grooming dollar sales between April and September 2020, up 11 percentage points compared with pre-COVID levels. Within this 53% figure, roughly 5% of e-commerce purchases were fulfilled via click-and-collect, but click-and-collect sales heavily declined after the peak pandemic purchasing period in May. By offering exclusive in-store savings, special click-and-collect promotions, in-store product education and contactless payment and pickup methods, retailers can entice online shoppers to visit brick-and-mortar stores and convert additional sales.
Pet grooming shoppers will become further entrenched in their online shopping habits into the ‘new normal’ and e-tailers need to enhance their customers’ shopping experience through easy-to-use personalization tools as consumers continue to seek out convenience. While pet shoppers continue to shift toward the omnichannel landscape, retailers need to create comparable experiences both in-store and online by providing diverse product assortments, offering promotional sales and price points to accommodate different budgets and educate consumers on pet personal care needs. Retailers should focus on their omnichannel capabilities and make products available through multiple vehicles like home delivery, subscription services, click-and-collect and curbside pickup—all of which will become even more appealing amid rising COVID-19 cases.
The total pet grooming category has consistently seen substantial growth throughout the pandemic, and private label brands continue to dominate as much as 75% of total dollar share in some subcategories. Given the lack of diversity in products and brands, consumers looking to cater to their pets at home are limited in terms of innovation, and it’s possible that not all shoppers’ needs are being met.
More human-centric personal care brands are entering the pet grooming space, with Hempz, Wet Brush and Waterpik all releasing successful pet product crossovers. Many of the top pet grooming brands got their start in human beauty and personal care, including Burt’s Bees and CHI, and these brands have experienced highly accelerated growth as consumers stocked up on at-home pet care. Outside of the health and beauty care space, tool manufacturer Dremel has expanded its expertise into pet grooming with a nail grooming kit. With an “if it’s good enough for me, it’s good enough for my dog” mindset, pet owners have shown that they’re highly inclined to purchase grooming products for their pets from brands that they trust for their own personal use.
These aforementioned brands, traditionally known for their human products, experienced steep sales declines in beauty and personal care throughout the pandemic. Their pet grooming product lines, however, helped insulate a great deal of those losses and capture growth from an entirely new shopper segment. Beauty and personal care brands looking to enter the pet grooming space will be able to attract pre-existing customers to their pet product lines as they seek out familiar, trusted brands for their furry family members. As the outlook for beauty and personal care remains bleak, moving into pet grooming products can capture additional dollars from DIY-lovers looking to care for their pets at home.
Pet brands need to take advantage of the growth in DIY and get consumers excited about taking care of their pet’s grooming needs at-home. The majority of pet owners have yet to purchase within the pet grooming space, and retailers and brands need to offer easy-to-use, comprehensive product kits that satisfy a variety of grooming needs as consumers familiarize themselves with at-home pet care. In addition, brands and retailers need to teach consumers about the benefits of routine, at-home pet care and make clear connections between their reprioritized sense of self care and pet care.
Emotion can be an incredibly powerful engagement tactic when used artfully. Let’s explore the science of emotion and how you can use it in an empathetic way to create more meaningful content. Continue reading
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As a gift to our tribe of weary content marketing warriors, we compiled our favorite time-saving tips, productivity checklists, and useful templates. We hope these will help you start the year energized and prepared to conquer 2021. Continue reading
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Let’s look at some of the expert advice, innovative approaches, and novel thinking from CCO magazine this year – all of which hold lessons that can help you keep calm and carry on successfully in 2021 and beyond. Continue reading
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