CPG

CPG marketing has taken over online shopping and ecommerce

CPG marketing is essential for both online shopping, ecommerce startups, and enterprise brands.

Although 54 percent of people in the U.S. prefer to physically shop in brick-and-mortar stores and supermarkets, online shopping is becoming more and more popular with each passing day.

This ecommerce trend spans more than just the clothing business; in fact, in 2016, online grocery sales reached approximately $20.5 billion, and these sales are predicted to grow to $100 billion by 2025.

With stats like these, it’s obvious that ecommerce is becoming a significant part of our everyday lives, with digital grocery predicted to be one of the biggest drivers of ecommerce sales over the next five years.

As consumer preferences shift from pushcarts to online shopping carts, marketers in the CPG industry must shift with them.

What is CPG marketing?

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) is an industry term for merchandise that customers use up and replace frequently. Examples of consumer packaged goods include food, beverages, cosmetics, and cleaning products.

What steps should you take to ensure you’re ready for this digital transformation? In today’s post, we’ll touch on a few areas of your CPG marketing strategy that may need a touch-up for the increasing popularity of online shopping. 

Product Display in Marketing

Think about when you go shopping in a store: you may pick up the item, smell it, shake it, and inspect it from all angles to ensure it’s exactly what you need.

Your product display says a lot about your CPG marketing style and effectiveness.

On the other hand, when you go shopping online, your routine receives major editing, limiting you to clicking a couple of buttons and viewing a few images. If the store hasn’t provided you with the resources you need to view the item, it can be a little frustrating.

To make sure you’re customers are able to inspect your product to their hearts’ desire, make sure you include the essentials of online product display:

High-Quality Thumbnail

The thumbnail image is what will allow shoppers to view your product among the list of competitor products.

Make sure it is a quality photo that clearly displays your product and your logo – especially if you have a recognizable brand. You’ve got to grab your customers’ attention as they quickly scroll through the page – make your thumbnail count! 

Multiple Product Images

Like we stated before, it’s not uncommon for shoppers to want to see your product from all sides before they make their purchase.

Ensure a great user experience by providing customers with multiple images that show your product in different positions and from varying angles.

Using multi-product images helps build strong CPG marketing. How are your photos looking?

You should also provide a zoom feature that allows your customers to get up close and personal with your products.

Detailed Product Descriptions

While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a helpful product description may be just what you need to close the deal. Your product description is your replacement for a sales associate, so make sure your copy sells the product.

Provide customers with the specific details they need to make a confident purchase – like dimensions, sizing chart, nutritional value, various uses, unique selling points, etc.

Product Packaging and Branding

Competition is fierce in the world of online shopping. You’re no longer just charged with the challenge of attracting eyes to your product on the shelf, your product must stick out on-screen as well.

Devoting time and attention to your online product packaging and branding will provide your customers with a unique experience that keeps them coming back for more. 

Package Design

Did you know that 40 percent of people said they’d share an image of a product with their social media community if the packaging was unique? That’s free advertising!

More than half (52 percent) also said they were more likely to make a repeat purchase from an online store that provided premium packaging.

Your products’ packaging is a critical factor in getting your product a one-way trip to the shopping cart and possibly even the social media feeds of your ideal customers.

Wondering how you can upgrade your packaging? Work with talented designers to create a brand experience that extends from your website to your customer’s front door.

Professional designers can help you upgrade logo designs and other aspects of your packaging to reflect your brand’s personality while also highlighting your product’s best features.

Investing time, in the beginning, will ensure it makes a memorable impression on your audience, while also increasing your brand’s presence online.  

Shipping

Beautiful product packaging is great, but don’t forget about your packaging’s number one purpose: to keep your products safe and sound during transit. Packaging should blend practicality with a bit of creative flair.

Your packaging should be strong enough to adequately protect your products and ensure little to no damage during the shipping process.

Furthermore, to increase customer loyalty, you should also consider adding a special touch to packages, such as a sweet treat or a handwritten thank you note. Little details like this can help you improve your customers’ experience and enable you to stand out in your market.

Check out these great ecommerce packaging samples for a few ideas.

Brand Experience

Everything your customer interacts with during the purchasing process  – your website, your packaging design, your customer service, etc. – will combine to create your brand identity, or how your customers perceive your brand.

Keep your customers’ interests top-of-mind to create a memorable customer experience and build up brand loyalty among your fans. 

Take the time to determine how you want to be perceived as a company and then craft a pleasant customer experience that matches your brand’s one-of-a-kind personality.

Digital Marketing and Deliver the Goods with CPG Marketing

Online shopping intensifies competition in the CPG sector because you’re no longer just competing against products based on your consumers’ geographic region.

Ecommerce shopping opens up an entire world of products, making it more important than ever that you gain consumers’ attention at the right time.

Digital marketing can help you increase your brand’s presence online and get your products in front of consumers when they’re ready to buy. Some specific tactics we recommend to get your product sales up include pay-per-click (PPC) and retargeting ads, omnichannel marketing, and data monitoring and analysis.

PPC and Retargeting Ads

PPC advertising is a quick, relatively easy way to get your products to the top of the search engine results page (SERP), by enabling you to bid on keywords related to your product.

When you win the ad auction, your content will appear at the top of the results page for your specified audience.

With PPC ads, you only pay when customers click on your ad, which then leads them to your product page or landing page. For a more in-depth introduction, check out our Beginner’s Guide to Pay Per Click Advertising blog post.

Retargeting, also known as remarketing, allows you to place product ads in front of customers that have previously visited your site by placing “cookies” in their browser.

As these customers visit other websites, your products will show up in the display advertising at the side and top of their screen. This advertising method typically has a high click-through-rate and can help you remain top-of-mind and increase brand recognition.

Omnichannel Strategy and CPG Marketing

HubSpot defines omnichannel marketing as, “The ability to deliver a seamless and consistent experience across channels while factoring in the different devices that consumers are using to interact with your business.” Essentially, it’s about creating a unified experience during all customer touchpoints (both off and online).

Knowing that customers interact with your brand in numerous ways – online/in-store, various devices (tablets, smartphones, computers, etc.), your marketing strategy should enable you to interact with them through multiple mediums at any given time. This is where an omnichannel marketing strategy comes in. 

The key to a successful omnichannel marketing strategy is to learn about your target audience and become an active part of their world. Ask yourself: What are their interests? When, where, and how do they consume information? Demographics? Psychographics?

Once you have this information, you can then build your presence in a variety of channels, like your company website and apps, social media channels, forums. These channels should all work together to provide a connected, effortless experience for your customers. 

Here some examples of consumer packaged goods include food, beverages, cosmetics and cleaning products. What brand comes to your mind?

Data Analysis

Online shopping allows you to track your customer’s journey from the time they enter your website all the way through the sales process until they finally hit the “submit payment” button.

And, with marketing tactics like remarketing and email marketing, you can continue to track their actions even after they’ve left your store. That’s a lot of data! Use it to your advantage to create a customized customer experience.

Analyzing data will allow you to better understand what content and designs best resonate with your audience and lead to conversions.

When you know what works, you can continue to implement those factors and personalize the customer experience in future campaigns to realize great success.

Deliver the Goods with CPG Marketing

The CPG industry must learn to innovate both online and in stores to provide their customers with an incredible experience while also delivering the goods – literally. Make sure you take the necessary steps to differentiate your brand online to keep up with growing ecommerce trends.

Looking for more tips on how to ensure success for your CPG products?

Check out our product launch checklist to get the skinny on all the steps you need to take before bringing your product to market.

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