digital

MARKETING
for Retailers
 Table
of contents:

Introduction ............................................................................................................................................... 03

01. Why should you invest in digital marketing? ..................................... 04

02. Key benefits of digital marketing for retailers ............................... 07

03. Content is the starting point .................................................................................. 11

04. How to set up a successful digital

marketing campaign? ........................................................................................................ 13

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 02

 Digital marketing provides
agility to retailers, allowing
them to connect with their
consumers in innovative ways.
Digital marketing is a powerful tool for retailers
to reach their target audience, communicate
their offers and enable them to measure the
effectiveness of their campaigns.
The retail industry is evolving and reinventing
itself constantly. New consumer demands
shape retail strategies and require retailers to
adapt to these new consumer behaviours.
This is where digital marketing steps in.
Digital marketing provides agility to retailers,
DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021
allowing them to connect with their consumers
in innovative ways. Digital marketing permits
retailers to rethink how to deliver an excellent
customer experience.
In this e-book, you will discover why digital
marketing is important for retailers
nowadays, the benefits of implementing
a digital marketing campaign and how
to set up a successful campaign.
03
01
Why should
you invest
in digital
marketing ?
 New consumer habits that will prevail
Consumers have acquired new shopping 38%
habits, some of which will remain for the long
run. This shift in behaviour and preferences is In-stock
challenging retailers and making them look for availability
new formats and channels to engage with their
consumers to stay relevant.

The shift to digital consumption has resulted in

consumers looking for fast and reliable
services (42%), in-stock availability (38%) and
42%
quick website navigation (36%)¹. Fast and
reliable services
Mobile shopping has been growing steadily.
According to a study by PwC², 33% of
consumers use their mobile devices as a
shopping channel weekly or daily. Consumers
are using their mobile phones to plan and do
their shopping. Retailers need to rethink how 36%
they communicate with their consumers
Quick website
across different channels seamlessly.
navigation
Consumers have shown retailers that they can
quickly adapt to change, but the question is
can retailers adapt as quickly as their
consumers?
Omnichannel provides seamless
shopping experiences

41% of An omnichannel strategy is crucial for retailers

to be present along the customer journey
throughout different touchpoints. There is a

consumers still need to implement digital channels as

consumers acquire new habits, without leaving
behind the physical store as 41% of consumers
prefer in-store still prefer in-store shopping3.

shopping Yes, it’s true that consumers are shopping

through online channels more every day, but
it is also true that the lack of interactions has
them craving the physical stores.

Online and offline channels need to

complement each other. For retailers to remain
competitive and relevant, they must connect
with their consumers fast and easily, giving
them various channels as options to connect.
As a result, retailers will deliver an excellent
shopping experience from online to offline.

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 05

1 · 2 · 3 PwC | Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey
 Key Digital Marketing insights in the retail industry
The acceleration of the digital transformation is having an effect on the evolution of the retail
industry. Everyday activities are not held the same way and new habits are descending upon
consumers. According to a study held by McKinsey4, these are the main changes that affect the
evolution of the retail industry:

Surge in Increase Preference for

e-commerce in online delivery trusted brands

Larger baskets Reduced Shopping in

shopping stores closer to
frequency home

Polarization of Price sensitivity Decline in

sustainability customer loyalty

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 06

4 McKinsey & Company | How COVID-19 is changing consumer behavior - now and forever
02
Key benefits
of digital
marketing
for retailers
 The dramatic acceleration of digital adoption,
the surge of new shopping channels and a
consumer guided by immediacy, availability
and price has had an immense impact on the
retail industry. But how can digital marketing
help retailers overcome these challenges?
Targeting the right consumer
Digital marketing can help you target the right
person, through the right channels at the right
time. This means that you can direct your
efforts on the platforms where you will be able
to meet your consumers and get the results
you expect.
With digital marketing, retailers can target
consumers with high purchase intent. This
can be done by placing their content on
platforms with highly qualified audiences,
where customers are planning their shopping.
Another way for retailers to reach their target
audience is through a hypersegmented
audience, using Google and Facebook ads. By
doing so, retailers can target a similar audience
to theirs, an audience that is consulting their
competitors’ products and offers online.
Geolocation can also be used in digital
marketing campaigns. Retailers can target
active shoppers who have purchase intent and
are near their physical stores.
URBAN
MOBILITY
DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021
5 PwC | Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey
41% 42%
39%
Personalised messages at the right
moment of the buyer journey
Personalisation is what consumers expect.
Every experience in the shopping journey
must be tailored to the consumer. The
message you convey and the products and
offers you’re advertising must be relevant to
your consumer.
According to PwC’s 2021 Global Consumer
Insights, 39% of consumers interact with ads
that are relevant to them on Google, 41% on
Facebook and 42% on Instagram⁵. This shows
that more than 1/3 of consumers actively
click on social media ads that are relevant to
their wants and needs; hence personalised.
Communicating these messages at the right
moment of the customer journey will allow
retailers to influence purchase decisions
effectively. Omnichannel also plays an
important role. Retailers need to communicate
these personalised messages across their
channel ecosystem and engage with their
consumers throughout their customer journey.
08
 Design flawless omnichannel
experiences to engage with your
consumers
The shopping journey of the new consumer is
non-linear, offering seamless experiences
across all touchpoints is essential for retailers
to stay top of mind. According to a study by

77% of consumers
E&Y6, 77% of consumers have changed how
they shop. This means that the channels
through which retailers can reach their
customers have increased and or changed.
According to PwC, the number of consumers have changed how
who shop more or exclusively online has
increased. An example of this is the fashion they shop
industry, where currently 53% of the
purchases are being done online7.

This brings to the table a new challenge:

retailers must deliver outstanding customer
experiences across these channels. To do so, it
is essential that they use tools and platforms
that are adaptable to all devices and provide a
design that leads to purchase.

Retailers’ content must be able to adapt to all

the digital channels their consumers are using
such as mobile, apps, social media, to mention
a few. A study from Deloitte8 shows that 66%
of consumers say that their appreciation for
well-designed technologies has increased.
Retailers must present a flawless design
where consumers can navigate easily and
find all the information they need to make a
The shopping
purchase, either online or at the physical store. journey of the new
Customers have high expectations when it consumer is
comes to engaging with retailers online.
Retailers can’t risk being ignored or going non-linear, offering
unnoticed by their consumers. Well designed
omnichannel experiences can ensure retailers seamless experiences
capture the attention of their target audience
and increase customer loyalty.
across all touchpoints
is essential for
retailers to stay top
of mind.

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 09

6 E&Y | The CEO Imperative: Accelerate to get ahead of the changing consumer
7 PwC | Global Consumer Insights Pulse Survey
8 Deloitte | 2021 Global Marketing Trends
 Sustainability and responsible
communication
Sustainability is gaining more importance as
consumers are changing their habits towards
a more eco-friendly approach. Consumers are
now more aware of the type of products they
Collaborating with
consume and what retailers and brands are companies that can
doing to deliver sustainability. A study from
IBM9 found that 77% of consumers are looking offer sustainable
for companies that are sustainable and/or
environmentally responsible. solutions can help
Retailers need to demonstrate they are retailers fulfil their
committed to socially responsible practices
and that sustainability is one of their core
needs of developing
values. Digital marketing solutions help an eco-friendly
retailers to reduce their environmental impact
by reducing actions like print. strategy.
Collaborating with companies that can offer
sustainable solutions can help retailers fulfil
their needs of developing
an eco-friendly strategy.

Optimisation and budget allocation

Investing in a digital marketing strategy will
help retailers identify their strong and weak
points. By using the data that digital provides,
retailers can gather compelling insights which
will enable them to make the right changes, if
needed, in their strategies to meet their goals.

Through digital marketing, campaign

performance is monitored constantly.
Retailers can evaluate their campaign by
having a 360º overview with real-time data.
Through this analysis, retailers can evaluate if
the channels they are using are the
appropriate ones and which type of ads work
better on their target audience.

Making consumer based decisions through the

data obtained from digital will drive the
retailer’s profitability by distributing daily
budgets efficiently.

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 10

9 IBM | Meet the 2020 consumers driving change
03
Content
is the
starting
point
 Implementing a content aggregation
strategy
According to McKinsey, an ecosystem strategy
is needed for successfully competing and
winning in the retail industry. An important
piece in this strategy are content aggregator
sites. Through this type of site, retailers can
distribute their content, reaching new
customers and making their content easy
to find.

A content aggregation strategy will increase

the retailer’s brand awareness
and reach consumers that are truly interested
in the type of content the retailer is offering.

A piece of content which is fundamental for

the retailer’s promotional plan is their
catalogue. It is considered as the starting point
as it permits retailers to break up its content
into different formats such as ads and
distribute them through different channels.
For retailers, sites that aggregate catalogues
and offers are a great source for reaching
interested and ready-to-buy consumers.

To include the retailer’s catalogue in these

content aggregator sites, different types of
catalogue formats can be used. An easy and
fast to create format is the PDF catalogue,
which retailers can create based on its print
version. This catalogue can also include links to
the retailer’s e-commerce and functionalities
that will drive consumers to the physical store.
A content aggregation
Nevertheless, the PDF catalogue lacks
interaction. Instead, a digital catalogue
strategy will increase
provides more engaging functionalities. These the retailer’s brand
types of catalogues are more responsive and
add dynamism to the retailer’s content. awareness and reach
Another advantage of the digital catalogue is
that it will gather more consumer insights than consumers that are
the PDF catalogue, as it allows the consumer
to interact with it in more ways.
truly interested in the
type of content the
retailer is offering.

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 12

04
How to set up
a successful
digital
marketing
campaign
 Which campaign is right for you?
First of all, you must define your strategy. What do you want to obtain from the digital marketing
campaign? Depending on your objective, be it brand awareness, reaching a broader audience,
increasing engagement with potential customers, maximising store visits, or any other, it must be
clear what you want to achieve.

Depending on what challenges you are facing and the results you want to achieve, there are different
digital marketing solutions that can be applied:

Reach campaign

The objective of a reach campaign is to

increase the visibility of your offers and
promotions. To do so, the retailer’s content
must be positioned in platforms with high
conversion audiences. This means that your
content, like for example your digital
catalogue, is viewed by consumers that are
planning their shopping and have a high
purchase intent.

The content must be responsive so that they

can adapt to all the different devices from
which a consumer can consult them. To obtain
more visibility, the content can be placed
strategically when a consumer is doing a
category, product or competitor search.

Engage campaign

An engage campaign is a programmatic

campaign that has a unique audience
segmentation based on the online and offline
behaviour of the user. With an engage
campaign, the goal is to increment the visits to
the physical store, impacting users that visit
similar stores as the retailer’s.

The online behaviour is determined by the type

of content the user is consuming. The offline
behaviour is determined by the type of stores
they visit using geotracking technology.

Through data collection, retailers can do

personalised targeting showing the
consumer products and offers that are of
their interest.

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 14

 Hyperlocal campaign

In a hyperlocal campaign, the goal is to extend

your reach and increase the visibility of your
promotions by impacting a lookalike audience
through Google and Facebook.

Using the retailer’s content as a starting point,

ads are generated and adapted to Google and
Facebook formats. These ads can be
personalised store by store, and optimised
continuously, depending on their performance,
using machine learning. These ads are also
optimised by channel, to generate higher
returns at a lower cost.

With a hyperlocal campaign, retailers can

increase the volume of readings of their
catalogues, optimise their print and digital mix
and personalise their promotions to bring more
customers to their stores in specific
geographical areas.

The value of online and offline metrics

Powerful analytics can improve retailers’ decision making by being insight driven. Digital marketing
campaigns can offer a number of metrics that will allow you to know your consumer more in-depth
and define your customer journey. In this way, you can optimise your campaigns according to the
insights you obtain.

The following online metrics will help you track Geotracking technology will help you gather
your campaign’s performance and gather the following metrics:
consumer insights such as:

· Store visits
· Devices your consumer is using to view · Time spent in-store
your content · Day with the highest affluence
· Content saved by your consumer · Time with the highest affluence
· What are the products and offers with · Visits per user
most clicks
· Incremental visits
· Zooms that show product interest
· Uplift
· Unique users interacting with
your content · Top visited stores
· Time spent interacting with your content
· Email alerts sent and opened
· Push notifications sent and opened
· Number of impressions and CTR By combining online data with geotracking
data retailers can create powerful digital
marketing campaigns.

DIGITAL MARKETING FOR RETAILERS | 2021 15

Start your
digital marketing
campaign today
Consumer’s priorities and behaviours have
changed, with an emphasis on the increased
use of digital channels. Digital marketing is an
opportunity for retailers to embrace these
changes and meet their consumer’s
expectations by offering them personalised
omnichannel experiences.

If you are ready to start an effective and

successful digital marketing campaign, reach
out to us and we will be happy to help you!