Apparently, men and women are remarkably similar when it comes to shopping. Apparently that means that we can take a one-size-fits-all approach to how we market to shoppers. Really? If that were true, that would be amazing right? Our lives would be so simple! But before you dust off your beach clothes and plan to take the rest of the year off, maybe you should read the rest of this post first. Sorry to be the one that bursts that particular bubble. Marketing isn’t simple. Shopper marketing isn’t simple. Winning with shoppers in stores, be they online or offline, isn’t simple. YOu can’t just take a shopper marketing shortcut to a plan by reading some generic survey. Which is a good job, otherwise everyone would be good at it and how on earth would we be able to get any advantage over our competitors.
No shortcuts to winning with shoppers
So why am I being the killjoy? Wouldn’t life be so much simpler if we could just treat men and women the same? Treat every shopper the same? If we could just copy and paste a marketing strategy no matter who we were targeting? Yes, but it simply isn’t true.
I must admit I do like some of what this article is saying. Pointing out that some of our long-held preconceptions about shopping behavior are false is great. I still come across marketers who struggle to believe that a shopper can be male, let alone that their behavior might possibly be similar to that of women. I applaud the idea that simple demographic segmentations are often meaningless, or at least far less powerful than other segmentations. I do! That is a great step forward. But to then suggest that men and women shop ‘the same’? And THEN to suggest that there was therefore a simple way to market to them all? That feels like a shopper marketing shortcut to wasted money and missed opportunities. Just because there are similarities – that doesn’t that mean we can treat them the same. It doesn’t mean we can just apply a generic marketing approach?
Shopper Marketing Shortcuts: Some shoppers are similar to others
Clearly there are similarities in the ways that men and women shop. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to be surprised. After all, there are similarities in the way we drive, walk, eat, breath. Why wouldn’t there be similarities in the way we shop? And that is a legitimate shopper marketing shortcut. While everyone is different, there are often similarities.
The factors highlighted in the article don’t seem particularly surprising. Apparently, both men and women trade off quality and price when making a purchase decision. Hmmm. Apparently they are all equally likely to use a surprise offer. It appears that the ‘surprise offer’ is about the only surprise here! And so there is the rub. So what? Just because something is true doesn’t make it powerful. It doesn’t make it an insight.
All shoppers are different
I’m probably coming off cynical and grumpy (let’s blame the latest lockdown!), but here’s the thing. You can take ANY two groups of shoppers and find things that are similar. But that doesn’t mean we can treat them alike. That doesn’t mean it is a legitimate shopper marketing shortcut to copy and paste a generic plan (or what you did at a previous company, or in a previous year!). Marketing is about understanding what makes people different. It’s about working out who we are targeting, working out what makes them different, and talking to that.
Because it only takes a moment to read this, and then to think. Hang on a minute! It is clear that shoppers are not all the same. All that this report shows is that potentially gender isn’t a particularly valuable segmentation. For that I should be grateful. But it does rather raise the question. Are you saying that I can treat shoppers all the same? Surely not?
One size marketing doesn’t fit all
Apparently, as the article goes on, you can. “”Brands must up their mobile selling strategy to sell to more men and women,” Rodney Mason, daVinci Payments CMO, said in a press release on the study. “This means maintaining a significant presence on Amazon, offering loyalty rewards people prefer like virtual prepaid rewards, consistently delivering best-in-market prices most often derived from rebates, and capturing more return payouts by driving spend-back with offers attached to virtual prepaid rewards.”” Now, call me cynical, but I’m guessing that is exactly what DaVinci payments specialize in.
So let’s make it clear.
No
Brands
Shouldn’t
Necessarily
Do
That.
No.
Brands shouldn’t take a one-size fits all approach to their marketing. You can’t take a shopper marketing shortcut that says that “because lots of people do something, that is what we need to do.” People are different. Maybe there are big similarities between men and women, but there are differences too. 17% of men don’t care about loyalty programs. 25% of both genders wouldn’t use their surprise offer. Not everyone buys everything on Amazon.
What most shoppers do isn’t important
What ‘most shoppers’ do is irrelevant, unless you are targeting market shares that require you to win with ‘most shoppers’. If your market share is 5 percent, you can grow your business by 20 percent by influencing only one percent of the market. That means you could conceivably ignore 94% of the market (100 minus the 5% you have already and the 1% you need to grow). What if the 6% you need don’t use Amazon? What if they don’t like loyalty programs? What if they don’t care about price? What if?
Generic target marketing is ineffective and inefficient
If we follow generic rules of marketing we waste money. We spend money on channels that are irrelevant to our shoppers. We discount when our shoppers would have happily paid full price. We list our brands in stores that they don’t go to, or on sites they don’t visit (or don’t visit for your category).
Time to be more targeted in our shopper marketing
It is time to stop taking the short cuts. It is time for shopper marketers to start thinking carefully about who their target shopper is. To think about them as shoppers, not just as consumers. To understand they shopping missions, to understand what they are looking for. To understand the triggers, enablers and barriers that exist for them. Understand how your target shoppers make purchase decisions. That is how we engage shoppers, delight shoppers, win with shoppers. Its how we deliver growth that is profitable and sustainable.
Supercharge your shopper plans now
Anyone can pump money into distribution on whichever platform is popular. Anyone can push their brand on social media. Anyone can run discounts, deals and offers. What is going to set you apart from the crowd? Putting some marketing back into your shopper activities!
A legitimate shopper marketing shortcut
But here is a legitimate shopper marketing shortcut. If you spend a little time working out who your target is, and understanding them – everything you do will be more effective. Everything! And here is another legitimate shopper marketing shortcut. You don’t need to work it all out for yourself. If you want to supercharge your shopper marketing in 2021 please get in touch. We have solutions to fit every budget – and we can definitely help your business drive sustainable, profitable growth. We’ve done it again and again with some of the world’s leading brands. I know we can do it with you. Please get in touch now.
