The emergence of big data has taken many industries by storm. The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry has been at the forefront of big data technology. The success of any CPG company is dependent on the ability to take advantage of changing consumer trends better than the competition. Below are ways in which CPG companies are using big data and analytics in order to drive growth and understand their customers.
Grocery Store Decisions
While shoppers walk through grocery aisle’s looking for the product that best meets their needs, many people are unaware of the logistical and strategic methods behind shelving products in the grocery store. The ability to analyze and leverage massive datasets is important for CPG companies when they’re competing for shelf-space and customer awareness. Retailers and distributors gather consumer insights and measure actual point-of-sale (POS) data for strategic decision making related to production, distribution, and promotion.
Marketing Strategies
Staying up to date with point of sale data allows CPG companies to reconcile inventory after each transaction and adjust inventory numbers based on high or low sales. Additionally, actual point of sale data gives a company an opportunity to make a general customer profile. Valuable information such as names, addresses, phone numbers, past purchases and order history are recorded to make a personalized product recommendation based on a customer profile.
Social Media
The growth of social media and digital technology has given consumers a larger platform to express their opinions on brands. This has helped CPG brands to continually evolve and change based on direct feedback from their customers. The gathering of information from social media platforms, known as social intelligence, can help CPG companies understand their different customer segments. Sentiment analysis tools can be used by extracting data from Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram to get an in depth understanding of what customers care about.
Practical Value
In 2012, L’Oréal, used social media analytics to understand their brand perception in the digital world. By mining and filtering social media data, L’Oréal analysts were able to track their customer “Voice of Beauty” program. This data was highly useful as L’Oréal USA was able to use consumer insights to engage with their customers. Social media analytics used by L’Oréal enabled the company to develop a stronger bond with their customers and uncover customer sentiments in real time to improve the product development process.
With Synaptik’s social listening tools, companies have the advantage to track conversations around specific phrases, words, or brands. Sign up for a 30 minute consultation and we can show you what customers are saying about your products and services across multiple social media channels online (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest).
