Written by Subarna Maitra
Overview :
Indian
consumers are changing at a faster pace than expected. Today, FMCG
manufacturers rely on consumers ‘pulling’ products through the supply chain;
thus, they require a better understanding of consumer behaviour and choices.
Consumers are well-informed about product information—in particular, promotions
and price comparisons via the Internet—which makes predicting behaviour very
complex.
Some statistics
· India’s 28 million
affluent and elite households will contribute to 40% of overall online FMCG
consumption translating to a value of $45 billion by 2020, of which 60-65% will
be digitally influenced.
· The population of online users, buyers and influencers is steadily
shifting from well-off adult males in large cities to women, digitally savvy
Generation Zers and residents of smaller cities
· There is a growing mobile
Internet revolution in India, with some analysts predicting that at least 50%
of online buying will take place on a mobile device by 2020
· Online consumers spend
2X more on FMCG purchases than offline consumers.
If FMCG
companies in India are to win the race for the digital consumer, we believe
they must move quickly to gain mindshare—and wallet share—in the growing online
community.
Those who
do not could face material opportunity costs, not only in terms of revenues and
profits, but also in digital shelf space, scarce ecosystem resources and
connections to digitally savvy shoppers.
While
digital is a high priority for most FMCG companies, many are still hesitant to engage.
The
main barriers block the way: Lack of experience in digital space, lack of clarity on measuring the returns
on digital, a data privacy concern, quality of data, insufficient KPI and
measuring metrics, Inertia with traditional media and finally lack of appropriate talent and
poor infrastructure support
To
compete in the digital era, the FMCGs shift through the 5“gears”:
è Stop and rethink the role of digital in their categories, brands
and portfolios
è Choose where to focus among consumer and product segments
è Perfect the online and
offline consumer experience
è Reallocate resources in marketing, promotion and research
è Build the capabilities and partnerships necessary to get Results
and sustain growths
This
is where business/ Web analytics plays a very important role, as it allows
organisations to derive predictive insights to enable competitive fact based
decisions ,armed with deeper insights into consumer behaviour, FMCG
manufacturers will be able to direct brand investment, marketing campaigns ,
promotions , Ad tones and messages , consumer freebies & promotions overall
improving the effectiveness of digital activities.
Key FMCG Insights necessary possible with FMCG
Web analytics
Gear 1: Uncover categories’ digital truths
FMCG
Companies need to understand how does their categories fit into the digital
world, how does their consumer interact with them , consumer them and talk
about them , what are the potential profit pools, , marketing and sales efforts
in line with their existing brand
strategies .
Analytics
solution and results
è How Category’s digital involvement and digital
density—and trend analytics on- how are they likely to evolve?
è Industry benchmarks for target goals to acquire
and engage consumers?
è Which products/ offering are creating more
value for the consumer and hence impacting the profit pools changing in the
digital world—e.g., which product are becoming commoditized, and which are
starting to command a premium?
Gear 2: Choose where to focus
Next, Companies need to get a granular perspective on their portfolio,
including a nuanced understanding detailed consumer behaviour analysis to gain
a perspective of most
relevant opportunities , in current and future scenario – taking an
omnichannel view to decide how to integrate their e-commerce approach with
their offline retailing, in each case thinking through the margin structure for
intermediaries and channel partners, the appropriate promotion formats and how
best to utilize consumer data and insights.
Analytics
solution and results
è Segment and prioritise consumers , products ,
Portfolios
è Capture and analyse consumer feedback across
social media by using their behaviours
è Gain competitive insights by analysis consumer
interactions with competition brands
è Create a seamless online and offline
experience
è Uncover new micro markets or consumer segments
Gear 3: Deliver a perfect online experience
Creating and
reinforcing a strong brand image, with memorable brand stories across various
digital media to engage effectively, with existing and potential new consumers.
This would require actionable insights on consumer behaviours, engagements,
message impacts, promotion impacts, via various different media source.
Analytics
solution and results
The Impact can be easily assessed by
using the Google analytics à
to understand consumer engagements/ CTRs/ page bounce rates
Gear 4: Reallocate resources
Its important to plan the reallocation
of resources in line with the effectiveness of medium, channels, campaigns, on
a regular basis, keeping track of consumers behaviour, their evolving
media-consumption interaction and engagement habits, and dynamically adjusting
advertising spending to match.
This is most effectively managed by
judiciously use of web analytics to run sophisticated analyses for millions of data points about consumer behaviour and generate actionable insights which can
help in timely interventions thus saving cost and resources.
Analytics
solution and results
The
solution involves three broad activities:
a)
Attribution: Quantifying the contribution of each element of advertising
b)
Optimisation: Use of predictive analytics tools to run scenarios for business
planning
c)
Allocation: Real-time redistribution of resources across channels/ ad campaigns
to optimisation scenarios
Gear 5: Deliver results and sustain Growth
Ongoing investments in analytics, and incorporating analytics as a part
of strategy is essential to deliver and sustain the results and benefits of consumer
focused initiatives.
Analytics
solution and results
è A robust web analytics – makes it possible to
compare present campaign results over a period of time- thus helping to fine
tune
è The web analytics tools helps in understanding
changing trends
è Anticipate consumer intent from past behaviour , competition
activities and environment
è It helps in getting insights from monitoring associated
consumption categories
Some of the key Web Analytics tools
1. Comprehensive Tagging of
Critical Site Events and Activities
On-site event
tracking is important to understand the information their users are looking for
on their websites, and the specific activities that they’re engaging in. For an
example By implementing comprehensive tagging of the “Where to Buy” – tab on their websites, its possible to get the answers to key questions :
è
Which products
are consumers trying to find the most?
è
Which
cities/locales are most in-need of specific products?
è
Which
product/size variants are the most needed or in-demand?
Utilizing this
type of information can help to make decisions about supply chain investments
and strategies.
2. Configuration of Conversion
Activities for Key Site Objectives
To have
clearly defined goals—to be disseminated via the brand’s websites, and could
cover topics such as:
- A new
launch or initiative
- Regular,
ongoing updates about product launches and new featues
- Contact resources
for consumers to use to directly engage with the organization
By configuring
the viewing and engagement with this type of content as “conversions” in
analytics tool (Google Analytics, for instance has the “Goals” functionality
that allows this), its possible to gage the reach and impact of these key
content pieces
3. Optimization of On-Site
Messaging and Offers
Using Google
Optimize, digital
teams can quickly deploy different variants of important corporate messaging,
then split-test those different variants in real-time without any on-site code
changes necessary. This allows the organization to see which variants of a
message are resonating the most with their audience—ensuring that they can
quickly pivot their content delivery strategy to have the most impact for their
consumers.
Additionally,
a tool like Google Optimize also allows for the personalization of website
content based on the specific characteristics of a user who is visiting the
site. For instance, if an organization knows that their products are currently
in high demand in a state, then they can feature specific messaging on their
site (through Google Optimize) that will ONLY show to particular users while
ther state users may see other targeted, more personalized content.
4. Establishing Audiences to
Re-Target Consumers with Important Messages
Creating
audience lists in order to remarket product or service offerings differently to
first time users and by sending different specific promotional or useful
message to retarget concerned consumers with relevant messaging. They can then
be informed about the promotions and offers via ads on other websites and
social media platforms, rather than them having to continuously return to the
site .This ongoing messaging strategy can greatly enhance the information that
customers have about the availability of products and services.
5. Deploying Comprehensive
Dashboards for Real-Time Impacts
Its possible
to create more real-time, agile reporting dashboards , for quick action and
turnarounds , for this its important to create and utilizing comprehensive
dashboards which will show real-time snapshots of their digital KPIs, rather
than relying solely on “deep-dive” reports. A tool like Google
Data Studio is
perfect for a quick transition to the dashboarding-world. It’s completely free
to use and has an easy-to-learn user interface which can quickly surface
powerful insights about the key events, conversion goals, and optimization
variants that an organization has deployed (as discussed above).
Identify the best analytical
approaches
To establish the right
marketing mix, organizations need to evaluate the pros and cons of each of the
many available tools and methods to determine which best support their
strategy.
Advanced analytics approaches such as marketing-mix modeling (MMM)
MMM uses big data to
determine the effectiveness of spending by channel. This approach statistically
links marketing investments to other drivers of sales and often includes
external variables such as seasonality and competitor and promotional
activities to uncover both longitudinal effects (changes in individuals and
segments over time) and interaction effects (differences among offline, online,
and—in the most advanced models—social-media activities).
Heuristics such as reach, cost, quality (RCQ)
RCQ disaggregates each
touchpoint into its component parts—the number of target consumers reached,
cost per unique touch, the quality of the engagement—using both data and
structured judgment.
It is often used when MMM
is not feasible, such as when there is limited data; when the rate of spending
is relatively constant throughout the year, as is the case with sponsorships;
and with persistent, always-on media where the marginal investment effects are
harder to isolate. RCQ brings all touchpoints back to the same unit of
measurement so they can be more easily compared. It is relatively
straightforward to execute, often with little more than an Excel model.
Emerging approaches such as attribution modeling
As
advertising monies move online, attribution becomes increasingly important for
online media buying and marketing execution. Attribution modeling refers to the
set of rules or algorithms that govern how credit for converting traffic to sales is assigned to online touch
points, such as an e-mail campaign, online ad, social-networking feed, or
website.
The huge data of consumers currently
available to make smarter decisions using various analytical tools is the
biggest game-changing opportunity , taking
an integrated analytics approach is the key to uncovering meaningful insights
and driving above-market growth for brands.
è
Using analytics to
identify valuable business opportunities from the data to drive decisions and
improve marketing return on investment (MROI)
è
Turning those insights
into well-designed products and offers that delight customers
è
Delivering those products
and offers effectively to the marketplace both online as well as offline
è
Helps in moving the
consumer across the sales channel.
Companies that inject big data and
analytics into their operation show productivity rates and profitability that
are 5 percent to 6 percent hight than those of their peers.
The pressure on business leaders
to demonstrate return on investment from a diverse portfolio of marketing
programs is only increasing making , hence this goldmine of data and its
analysis represents a pivot-point moment for marketing and sales leaders.
References
https://www.bain.com/insights/adding-to-cart/
https://www.mckinsey.com/~/media/McKinsey/Business%20Functions/Marketing%20and%20Sales/Our%20Insights/EBook%20Big%20data%20analytics%20and%20the%20future%20of%20marketing%20sales/Big-Data-eBook.ashx
https://infotrust.com/articles/5-analytics-tactics-for-cpg-fmcg-companies-in-crisis-periods/
