INDUSTRY TIPS/CONSUMER BEHAVIOUR: Shopper Relationship Management - RetailWire

RetailWire offers some tips about the value of consumer data and transaction logs when it comes to marketing - this is part of Shopper Relationship Management. Transaction logs and other consumer data provide first-hand insight into consumer behaviours, and retailers can use this data to tailor their marketing strategies and selling points accordingly. How do you track your consumer behaviour? Do you think SRM is an effective way to help your business thrive?

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Shopper Relationship Management -
Predicting Consumer Behavior

Data is everywhere. Scroll down this week's headlines from the news wires and you'll see the results of more consumer studies than you can possibly process. But as anyone familiar with this PR exercise knows, it's all in the interpretation. Skilled analysts can spin data to suit their purposes.

When brand marketers look for insights in consumer data and transaction logs, however, it's not about the spin -- it's about deriving information that can drive real action at retail.

This is what the newly developing discipline of Shopper Relationship Management (SRM) is all about. Technology now allows for the study of consumer trends and behaviors on a granular level. In recent years, marketers and retailers have become skilled at using this data for market measurement, but that tends to be limited to rear-view mirror views. What is needed is market management, not just measurement -- and that requires forward-looking insights.

Thanks to systems that can serve up granular market data at near real time speeds -- coupled with a new generation of predictive analytics tools that can derive category-winning insights from that data -- practitioners can now truly start to manage the market. They can clearly visualize performance trends and opportunities that get lost when wallowing in aggregate data.

In its recently released Marketing Point of View, Shopper Relationship Management Delivers the Winning Hand, SymphonyIRI Group's Ed See and Jeanne Livelsberger discuss the innovative predictive analytics that elevate current practices to SRM levels.

For marketers to be able to understand and act competitively on shopper behavior, they must be able to answer three critical questions -- quickly and with great precision:

What was it due to?
Why did the shift in market dynamics or performance occur? What caused the change? Did we plan for this?

What if we were to do this?
What happens if we change pricing? Change the marketing mix? Bring in new products or new flavours for existing products? Change what we're promoting when? What if the competition does the same?

How do we do it?
How do we achieve our goals? What needs to change to make our goals? How do we course-correct mid-plan? How can we counter our competitors' actions?

SOURCE: RetailWire