In Order to Succeed, Brands Need to Reclaim Their Retail Customers
If there is one thing that the last few years served as a reminder of, it’s the fact that the business ecosystem can change overnight. Between the aftermath of a global pandemic and supply chain issues, there is a lot to be said about what this year will look like for brands as they work to reclaim their retail customers.
With input costs rising, retailers struggling to move inventory and inflation affecting consumer habits, marketers are more focused than ever on performance and driving direct-to-consumer sales. Much of the private chatter amongst media buyers at CES and throughout the marketing industry is that 2023 is the year of performance.
Well, if that’s the case, 2023 is likely to be the year of direct-to-consumer sales.
Is it more work to execute DTC sales off popular retail platforms such as Amazon and Target? You bet it is.
However, the benefit to brands is the point of sale data capture that informs future media buys and enables tight attribution models.
Of course, there’s the added bonus of reclaiming a 1:1 relationship with customers to better nurture moving forward. Better brand loyalty and better performance? Sounds too good to be true, right? Well, it isn’t. Let’s explore.
What does reclaiming a retail customer look like?
In short, reclaiming a retail customer involves a brand shifting sales from third-party retailers (Amazon, Walmart, Target, etc) to an owned and operated approach to sales on its own website.
Next, the brand finds innovative, modern advertising strategies to incentivize their customers to shop directly with them.
It is the difference between a traveler booking a hotel room on a third-party agency site versus the same traveler booking the room directly from the hotel instead.
In the latter half of the story, the traveler knows that the experience working with the hotel directly is innately better than working with the agency. It is the hotel brand’s job to market that experience and uphold it.
The same applies across any sector and industry of business.
The power of Shopify to catapult DTC
The most common ecommerce platform DTC companies use to power their on-site transactions in Shopify.
DTC competition reached an all-time high in the latter half of 2022. In fact, Relo reported that the number of Shopify stores alone grew 200 percent (meaning 2.5 million new online stores entered the web) between March 2020 and July 2022.
That said, it is no longer good enough to establish an online presence and add in an e-commerce feature to your brand’s site.
Brands must be competitive, creative and agile in producing video advertisements that drive consumers in.
Into the weeds of direct-to-consumer sales
Let’s follow the example of the hotel industry.
When online travel agents like Expedia and Priceline first came to market, hoteliers were thrilled to reach a wider audience and drive a huge volume of room sales. But in return, they gave away a massive commission and the ability to continue the conversation through emails and rewards programs.
The same pros and cons are paralleled in every industry. Whether you’re a sporting goods company selling products in physical retail stores, or a restaurant reliant on sales through third-party delivery sites. While each brand is making sales, they are missing out on valuable point of sale data.
On the other hand, brands that sell directly can capture extensive data on their audience. Today, high-performing DTC brands offer subscriptions, memberships, DTC exclusive products and benefits for direct buyers. The data captured from these buys allows brands to conduct an analysis of consumer trends.
This analysis can be used to further reach those consumers through email, specialized offers and customized ad placement across platforms like YouTube and TikTok.
Taking it an innovative step further
The consumer data insights obtained by DTC brands fuel Precise TV’s strategy and game-changing results
At Precise TV, we help brands reach new customers through targeted video advertising on YouTube, connected TV and TikTok. From video product pages to social content and advertising, video is the most powerful way to influence and connect with an audience.
Our proprietary technology is able to use point of sale data to ascertain which video-level moments are likely to deliver the best return on ad spend (ROAS). As a result, we execute video-level media buys and can help develop custom media mix models to develop attribution insights to fine-tune media buying strategies as we go.
Today, we’re helping brands reclaim their retail customers. There’s no exact playbook to ‘winning’ – although, there is only one contextual intelligence platform built for the cookie-less contextual targeting future, and that’s us. Let’s talk: https://www.precise.tv/contact-us
