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Tag: in-store

Impact of video on in-store activity

Posted on by shopkick

In today’s attention-based economy, marketers must seek out advertising formats that their target audience will engage with and not block or skip.  As consumers have become skillfully adept at evading interruptive marketing messages, some advertising formats stand out as particularly effective at capturing consumers attention and driving key brand metrics. Two formats in particular, video and incentive-based rewards, are consistently ranked among the most positive forms of advertising, and viewed most favorably by consumers.

Video is one of the most engaging ways to reach consumers and capture their attention to tell a brand’s story. In fact, the rise of video advertising can be attributed to the fact that short-form video is a true win-win for consumers and marketers. Consumers get branded content that is more dynamic, educational and entertaining while marketers have a greater opportunity to engage, tell their brand or product’s story and build meaningful relationships.

On the Shopkick platform, we’ve found video to be a particularly powerful driver of brand metrics across the purchase journey. While planning their shopping trip or building their list, users can watch a branded video at home or on the go, and be rewarded with kicks, our in-app currency. After viewing, they can save the featured product to their shopping list. Engagement rates for video are much higher than industry standards, as the incentive for viewing drives up Shopkick average completion rates to 94%, compared to industry average of 68% (IAB 2017).

On Shopkick you can connect the viewing of the video to in-store activities like product engagements and purchases. Users are incentivized to visit the product in-store, and are rewarded for picking up the product at shelf. At this point, users who have watched the video are already aware of the product attributes and benefits, and with the product in-hand, we’ve found they are much more likely to purchase.  For example 24% of unique scanners watch the brand video and 32% of receipt uploaders watch video.

An example of how video works in the Shopkick platform:

To reach and engage their target audience, marketers must understand the types of content consumers seek and deliver it in the right context to build awareness and ultimately drive sales.Reaching consumers before they get to the store is critical to establish awareness, affinity and get on the shopping list, ultimately increasing likelihood of conversion and purchase.

To learn more about Shopkick Video, contact us today!

How American Eagle used location technology to create magical moments for shoppers

Posted on by shopkick

Lars Djuvik, Associate VP Retail

The use of location based technology (presence technology, proximity technology) can be an incredibly powerful toolset for connecting brands and retailers with shoppers when it’s done right.

Whether it’s creating a virtual geographic boundary around a store to remind a shopper when they are getting near a retailer that they might want to visit, or leveraging more advanced technology like beacons to remind a shopper to take an action once they are already inside the store, there is no shortage of location based marketing tools to truly serve the right message to the right person at the right time – and at the very right place.

The power of location-based technology

These tools can both verify and inform that the shopper has actually crossed “the lease line” to their store, or visited the dressing room. They can even help the brand avoid costly endcap placements by guiding a shopper to their product regardless of placement inside the store. The right balance of where, and more importantly how frequently, a shopper should receive these notifications is the real magic for marketers when they get it right. It can be downright annoying when it’s done wrong and the ‘magic’ wears off because of incorrect location or too high a frequency of messages.

In (almost) all scenarios, location based marketing notifications triggers the shopper to open the application… which is the whole point of leveraging a mobile device in-store… enabling a dialog between that shopper and the retailer.  Both sides are winning: the shopper is getting very specific information such as offers or other calls to action, and the retailer/brand is able to communicate with the shopper in a real-time/real-place. Now that the shopper is engaged in the experience and conversation with the retailer – via the mobile app – the retailer or brand earns the opportunity to show them the next proximity based offer when it’s done right. When it’s done wrong – most notably too many messages & the wrong call to action that the shopper isn’t interested in – that conversation can and will end.

At Shopkick, we leverage geofencing/GPS, beacon/BLE and other forms of location based marketing as a means to an end. We always serve the mutually beneficial goal for shopper and retailer to keep that conversation alive by being valuable to both sides and not just serving these notifications because you can.  More important than knowing when to send a shopper a notification is knowing when NOT to show them another notification.

Our specific magic ingredient in the conversation is our location and action-taken based reward currency called “kicks” where there is always something “more” in it for the shopper than just great information.  The more they engage with the app at the right time/right place (leveraging location based technology plus great content, great brands, great retailers) they earn kicks and are incentivized to stay in the conversation.  In turn, the retailer or brand has the ability to have a dialog with the shopper throughout the awareness, consideration and action stages of a purchase.

How American Eagle rewarded in-store behavior

American Eagle discovered that once their Shopkick-driven shoppers were in-store, they could layer-on a secondary offer: giving the shopper kicks for visiting the dressing room. The shoppers would already have the app open to earn beacon-activated Shopkick currency “kicks” for walking in, initiating contextually relevant messaging.

A second in-store shopBeacon was therefore placed in the American Eagle dressing rooms.  The shopper would try-on the items and receive their “fitting room kicks” by coming in proximity of the shopBeacon.

In this example, GPS geofencing was used to inform shoppers that they were near an American Eagle store.  Once they crossed the lease-line and were inside the store – where GPS is no longer accurate – we used the first (entrance-installed) shopBeacon to verify that they were indeed inside the store – and not just “near” the store.  By verifying they were in-store they de facto had to have opened the Shopkick app which is when we gave them the next offer to visit the dressing rooms.

The key is to then incentivize the shopper to take further actions that they choose with good content, such as information or products truly customized to her or him.  In this case, the mobile app (in-store) becomes their own personalized store while they are inside the store.  A real digital overlay on the physical shopping world where they can scan product barcodes, visit a specific section of the store, and ultimately – convert – without over-messaging the shopper throughout the process.

In the end, a smart use of location based marketing made for magical moments for American Eagle shoppers, and in turn both the shopper and the retailer ‘won’ because of the location based dialog pre-shopping, near the store and in-store.

The next generation of retail experiences

Posted on by shopkick

Is your brand prepared for the CPG shopping experience of the future? Is your retail store equipped? New, innovative technologies are powering the next generation of in-store experiences and beyond. These three tips will help you create an efficient, effective endless aisle strategy.

1. Reach Consumers Pre-Store During Micro-Moments

Busy schedules and long to-do lists have fragmented the average shopper’s attention span. Dedicated ‘shopping trips’ are becoming a thing of the past. Shopping now happens during small windows throughout the day, such as 20 minutes while waiting to pick up a child from school or arrive at an appointment.

Today’s consumers place a premium on experiences, and these micro-moments offer an ideal opportunity to engage customers with educational videos or life hacks like timesaving recipes, money-saving offers, and product alternatives before they enter the store. Retailers, grocers and brand marketers need to build on the behavioral elements that drive purchase now and extend experiences across screens, beyond the store, and around the clock.

2. Focus on time spent, not clicks

App downloads are slowing thanks to a maturing ecosystem, dropping 20% among the top 15 US app publishers. However, a year-end analysis by App Annie found that time spent in apps is up by 25% over last year, so clearly this medium isn’t going anywhere. Apps remain an important touchpoint with consumers, indicating that engagement and frequency of use are the most accurate success metrics.

Consumer attention is the currency in marketing and advertising today. Retailers and brand marketers need to understand that it’s time spent that matters most, not click-throughs or downloads. As a result, it makes sense to focus more on immersing existing customers into the brand experience than enticing new customers.

3.    Develop Mutually-Beneficial Campaigns for Customer and Brand

The strongest argument for interactive engagement in-store is that ‘endless aisle’ solutions benefit brands, retailers, and consumers alike. Cutting-edge marketing technology finally enables CPG marketers to achieve closed-loop attribution for their efforts, while retailers see additional foot traffic, more guidance and exploration in-store, and movement from the perimeter to the center aisles. Consumers have a more entertaining shopping experience, save money, and accumulate rewards simply for doing the shopping they’d already planned to do.

Your brand or store doesn’t have to build a record-breaking mobile app to succeed. Consider the role interactive technology plays in your current customer interactions and how delivering an out-of-the-box, endless aisle solution can deliver better results for your marketing efforts.