Commerce is everywhere we look in the modern world and any moment can become shoppable. For brands to beat the competition, they must identify and reach out to growth audiences in new and imaginative ways. Overcoming commerce audience challenges is the main hurdle to growth.
Welcome to the Blind Spots Series, an examination of shopper behavior that zeroes in on the most significant drivers of incremental revenue growth for brands.
In this first installment, Overcoming Audience Blind Spots, we explore the relationship between traffic and media with a particular focus on ‘audience blind spots’ – serendipitous shoppable moments that materialize outside of the traditional funnel model of shopper behavior.
Successful brands will seek out their audience blind spots and begin to reach prospective customers before they have even started their search for a product.
This deep dive into audience blind spots offers insight into both direct-to-consumer (DTC) and marketplace strategies, how to anticipate new and emerging paths inspired by tech and media trends, and how to tap into growth audiences.
Our 5-step approach to driving revenue growth is as follows:
Brands must delve deep into why, how and where their customers shop, exploring motivators, detractors, life moments, media consumption, the types of products they purchase, search behaviors and average spend. This work should sit within specialist Research and Insights teams, drawing on tools such as market research databases, social listening platforms, search analytics tools and more.
Businesses frequently operate in siloes, which restricts the flow of vital information between teams. By combining product development insights with audience analysis, brands can serve the right product, to the right person, at the right time.
Activation teams are now armed with more insights than ever before, but many brands have fallen into the trap of briefing activation teams too soon – before sufficient research and insights have taken place. Creative targeting can spark a moment of connection between the audience and the product before the customer even knew they needed it.
Brands should expect customers’ need states to change continuously. By using fluid budgets that can be moved between search, social, display, video and all places in between, brands set themselves up to be agile and reactive. The brands that win are those that can quickly move budget toward the best-performing areas, finding sweet spots in blind spots before the competition.
This is a break away from their tried and tested approach where they hold channels to a strict ROI target. Instead, addressing blind spots with new activations requires brands to be bold. It requires them to trust in their data and to experiment with new audiences, platforms and content to uncover what works best. This gives brands the best possible chance of finding the blind spots their competitors are yet to discover.
For examples of DTC and marketplace best practices, download the full Blind Spots whitepaper to learn more about overcoming commerce audience challenges.
