How To Appeal To The Lucrative Disloyal Shopper

Loyalty will always be at the center of most marketing programs, but is there room for disloyalty strategies, too?

Loyalty stories are a dime a dozen in today’s marketing world. And rightfully so. It’s common knowledge that 80% of a company’s future profits comes from just 20% of its current customers. As a result, U.S. marketers will make greater investment in loyalty programs in the years to come.

However, have marketers gotten too caught up in loyalty?

Yes and no. Loyalty is certainly a worthy investment and is key to long-term success. Low-funnel buyers are a steady source of income, and targeting them through tactics such as retargeted display ads has proved to work. However, companies miss out on other revenue streams when they focus too heavily on loyalty-based outreach.

This is more relevant for certain industries. Take automotive, for example. Many car shoppers have no loyalty to one original equipment manufacturer or another. Loyalty does not guide their behavior; factors like price or convenience do. The same goes for office supplies. For most shoppers, a pen is a pen. Immediate needs and price often trump brand loyalty when making a purchase.

In these cases, “disloyalty” is actually a major and often missed opportunity for brands. To engage a consumer demographic with very little brand loyalty, marketers must do the following.

Put The Right Information Front And Center

Marketers should create campaigns that feature information like price or availability to engage shoppers without loyalty to a specific retailer.

Back to our automotive example. An advertisement on Facebook for a Ford Focus that highlights a discounted price in large font will do well to catch a shopper’s attention. Factor in price and availability that can get shoppers interested in the first place, and these key differentiators from competitors should drive content.

Marketers should structure campaigns this way across all components of their digital marketing strategies. From video and social to paid advertisements, if this information is not easy to find, shoppers may move on to the next alternative as they browse online. Details like color and trim may come into play for final purchasing decisions or for low-funnel shoppers who are looking for specific products, not just the best or easiest deal.

Target On-The-Go Shoppers

On-the-go shoppers are prime candidates for a disloyalty strategy, as they are looking for the best, most convenient deal in the moment. Marketers must invest in mobile-first campaigns, social media ads, and location-based technologies like beacons to capitalize on on-the-go behaviors.

Continuing the auto example from above, many car owners do not care which company performs fixed operations on their cars, such as an oil change. Knowing this, dealers can use real-time advertisements to entice drivers. For instance, geolocation technologies can deploy an advertisement for an oil change as a car owner passes by a dealership. If the ad copy emphasizes drop-in oil changes with no wait, the driver may stop in, his desire for convenience overpowering any sense of brand loyalty.

Keep Content Relevant

Shoppers without loyalty may be open to persuasion, but that doesn’t mean they want irrelevant ads. Although marketers know less about these high-funnel shoppers, they can leverage consumer details through browsing history to create customized digital copy.

Similar to retargeting, marketers can use documented purchase and research behaviors to support a more useful and enjoyable digital experience. Returning to cars once more, a retargeted ad for a low-funnel buyer would heavily feature information about the exact make and model that shopper has searched for most.

Conversely, high-funnel ads would center on more generic details. Perhaps a shopper has searched exclusively for cars under $5,000. Marketers can then layer in more personalized search interest as appropriate.

While many marketers consider disloyal shoppers a demographic to ignore, this untapped market is a major revenue opportunity for companies moving forward. Sure, it makes sense to focus on shoppers who are at-market and ready to buy. However, this is just a small percentage of shoppers overall.

Loyalty will always be at the center of most marketing programs, but is there room for disloyalty strategies, too?