The supply chain may be slow this holiday season, but marketers canโt afford to be. Hereโs how marketers can move quickly to stay top of mind for consumers despite supply and shipping complications.
Marketers must always be agile in their holiday campaign planning, as they juggle consumer demand with their brandโs ability to fulfill orders. Though this balancing act has become even more difficult amid global supply chain disruptions. Low product inventory and uncertain shipping timelines have put limits on which products marketers can promote, since consumers donโt want to be advertised a product that is sold out or that they canโt get in time for the holidays.
The holiday season is vital for many brands that benefit from consumersโ eagerness to shop. The last thing marketers want to do is lose share of voice by holding or pulling ads to manage shoppersโ expectations. So how should marketers and advertisers approach campaign planning for the upcoming weeks despite low inventory or shipping constraints?
Focus on long-term brand building versus short-term sales
While marketers should typically nurture customers and prospects across the entire shopping journey, focusing on brand-building efforts that secure consumersโ business in the long term alleviates some of the inventory pressure until the supply chain steadies. This might be a change of pace for brands that, during the pandemic, prioritized marketing efforts that produced quick sales. But for brands with inventory pressure, attracting new prospects and keeping them engaged until stock replenishes is important for locking in a pipeline of future sales. Moreover, continuing to execute conversion-oriented tactics when supply is low risks turning off customers who, upon realizing the product they were advertised isnโt available for purchase, lose trust in the brand.
Emphasizing upper-funnel activities not only buys brands time until inventory levels resume, it widens the brandโs audience. This strategy can also make lower-funnel activations more effective in the future, as those strategies will then be applied to a greater volume of consumers. As evidence, a recent Nielsen study of the personal electronics industry found that the ROI on a brandโs incremental spend would be 78% higher than the baseline if the brand took a long-term approach. By contrast, the ROI would be 8% lower than the baseline if the brand pursued short-term driven opportunities.
Switching to a long-term approach doesnโt need to be a dramatic change. For instance, marketers can swap activations designed to deliver immediate ROI with ones that show delayed returns; an example would be replacing a โBuy Nowโ call to action button with a โSign Up for the Waitlistโ one. By adding customers to an email database, marketers can automatically provide updates when sought-after products are back in stockโas well as keep customers in the loop about future promotions. In the meantime, consumers will still be attracted by upper-funnel efforts to shop from available stock, which produces sales until the supply chain steadies.
Even if there is a slight chance that all inventory is delayed, brands should continue advertising to stay top of mind for customers. In response to the prevalence of choice and accessโU.S. consumers say that 12.1% of their online purchases involve a brand they had not purchased beforeโbrands donโt want to lose future business by spurning any customers with false promises this season.
Be nimble in mapping media buys to inventory
Plenty of brands up the ante on holiday marketing spend, adding campaigns like local TV ads to target people who are home for the holidays. However bigger-budget placements like these might work against marketers while supply chain disruptions are at play. Brands cannot easily pull TV or magazine ads if inventory runs lowโnor would they want to, given the spend behind them.
To avoid this, marketers must select media channels that offer more agility in editing or removing an ad if they run out of product. For example, if a brand knows thereโs a chance it canโt get product to consumers by Christmas, they should prioritize campaigns on their owned channels or place media buys on social mediaโwhere itโs easier to change or halt a campaign in-flightโinstead of on traditional platforms.
Smaller brands should seize the moment
With larger corporations struggling with supply, thereโs an opportunity for smaller brands (who may have inventory) to intervene and take over larger competitorsโ market share. As bigger brands peel back on advertisingโor continue to promote ads that donโt align with inventory, which could frustrate customersโsmaller businesses should double down on advertising to reach their consumer bases.
By identifying the seasonsโ most sought after products and showing how their own products deliver on consumersโ wishes, marketers can redirect shoppersโ attention to their business. Over one-10th of consumersโ online purchases involve a new brand, so how can marketers make those purchases their brand? Then, once marketers make that initial connection with new buyers, they can apply their remaining tactics to sustain the relationship and encourage sales over time.
Marketers shouldnโt just rush to land placements, though. They should make buying decisions based on data-driven insights, such as which platforms their target customers are gathering on and when. With digital-forward media planning tools, marketers can secure both audience insights like shopping patterns and media behaviors along with competitive intelligence on the overall media landscape, giving them the necessary knowledge to differentiate themselves and drive optimization.
The holiday season regularly tests the strength and stamina of the supply chain; however, the impact of the pandemic is complicating matters further. Supply chain disruptions shortchange many arms of a brand, but marketers can do their part in alleviating the burden by redirecting shoppersโ attention and encouraging long-term engagement. By being agile in what is being advertisedโas well as when and whereโmarketers can mitigate consumer frustrations and in turn lock in their business for months to come.
This article originally appeared on Destination CRM.
