One Blog |December 18, 2017 | POS Tracking Software

Connecting With Today’s Shoppers Through Targeted POS Marketing Campaigns

Mark Fullerton

Connecting with Today’s Shoppers

Connecting With Today’s Shoppers Through Targeted POS Marketing Campaigns Here’s something I find very difficult to understand:

Why do some people, who when dining-out, care less about the food and beverage quality, than finding a friendly or novel place to eat, regardless of quality?

Who cares more about the atmosphere of the restaurant, and less about the food and drink consumed at the restaurant?

Who indeed!

Apparently, several “chain” restaurants, not including fast-food restaurants, are having problems with declining sales due to, you guessed it, Millennials.

The Changing Paradigm — Non-Millennials vs. Millennials

When dining out, non-Millennials, will typically seek food quality over atmosphere.

Most of these folks will often complain that the restaurant where they dined spent too much money on the “ambiance”, and served food not worthy of a repeat visit.

But, apparently to some Millennials, food quality counts, but just not as much as the “atmosphere” of the restaurant. It seems to be that for them the approach that works best has little to do with how the product tastes, but how the experience makes them feel.

According to recent studies, when Millennials decide to dine out, they want to be excited by a new approach. Consumers between the ages of 18-34 will prioritize the experience, such as seeking a trendy or friendly place to eat, over variety or really great-tasting food and drink when selecting a restaurant.

Similar preferences are playing out across “off-premise” food and beverage categories. Millennials tend to reward brands with a new, fresh or novel positioning. Today’s consumers are constantly searching for items such as the latest artisanal coffee, imported bourbon or organic wine.

This means, of course, that Millennials prefer the experience of drinking beer from a local and/or small-batch brewery to big beer brands.

Indeed, Goldman Sachs expects the overall U.S. beer market to decline by 0.7% in 2017 and likely continue to do so in 2018.

Recently, I went into a tavern known primarily as a sports bar. Other than Stella and Yuengling, there were no beers on-tap that I had ever even heard of.

So, while the sales of small beers may be in little danger, clearly big beer could be — for the near future, at least — facing some tough times.

One of OnTrak’s customers — a big beer distributor — said:

“’Brand-name-here’ is dead, in the long run; It just doesn’t know it yet.”

Adapting to Change

Not so fast!

When a product, especially a beverage-alcohol product, somehow becomes a commodity, or simply doesn’t work well with consumers’ current perspectives, it is mandatory for the beverage marketer to instill that product with a new and different feature or benefit or to adopt a new package — a new look.

We’re seeing this right now in the packaging and point-of-sale marketing (POS) for several big beers.

Bud Light, for instance, has a new can that “moves the brand forward.”

Become Data-Centric About POS Marketing

Yet, even with new packaging and targeted POS, there remains one more piece of the puzzle if you’re looking to complete the picture of success:

It’s time to take a look at new Digital Toolsâ„¢ that will enable you to track, measure and manage your investment in POS campaigns.

Although this POS tracking technology is important for its ability to automate the ordering and production of your POS materials, the technology quickly becomes a competitive advantage due to its creation of a significant amounts of POS marketing data.

Beverage alcohol POS marketers — the middle-tier — have, over the past few years, become accustomed to leveraging data and technology as part of their best practices.

With POS tracking technology in place, distributors can focus on understanding what POS marketing investment is most effective and efficient in identifying trends, and in creating opportunities to understand and predict shopper behaviors.

This creates the circumstances that result in connecting with and converting shoppers into buyers more often, and in an increasing number of ways.

Now you can connect with those Millennials through targeted POS marketing.

But in addition, you can now track and measure your POS investments to make sure you identify the campaigns that are helping you achieve your goals.

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