How Innovative Grocers Are Using Digital Circulars to Boost Loyalty

Although grocery shoppers haven’t fully embraced transacting online, digital still plays a major role in informing their purchase decisions.

A study from Deloitte found that 80 percent of shoppers have used a digital device to browse or research grocery products.

To align with consumers’ preferences for digital, marketers are converting their print mailers into digital circulars. These digital catalogs are often hosted on grocer websites or third-party platforms, and they enable shoppers to do things like clip digital coupons or view product details.

While this is a start, most grocery marketers aren’t creating engaging circular experiences on the platforms consumers frequent (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest) to drive sales and loyalty. Until recently, there haven’t been effective ways to build social campaigns that drive in-store sales and measure the results.

Innovative grocers have started creating interactive campaigns on Facebook and Instagram that are personalized and localized to individual users and stores. And they're doing this at scale.

As a result, loyalty shoppers are engaging more with their preferred grocers and increasing their purchase activity.

Here’s how grocery marketers are making it happen on Facebook and Instagram.

Creating Tailored-to-User Circulars

More than half of grocery shoppers want to receive personalized promotions via digital, according to an IDC study.

By transforming their flyers into digital experiences on Facebook and Instagram, grocers can create personalized ads based on language, gender, location, age, purchase behavior, and more. For example, a 24-year-old man who typically buys protein bars, shaving cream, and ground beef would see a digital circular with promotions for items like those at the forefront. Once he opens Facebook or Instagram, he would see a circular that immediately features special offers that are timely and relevant.

Not only does this approach boost loyalty among current shoppers, it can make a difference with new customers, too. The Retail Feedback Group found that millennials are most inclined to alter their shopping behavior with grocery stores after seeing recommendations on social media.

Highlighting Local Inventory and Pricing in Real Time Within Ads

One of the advantages digital has over print is real-time automation. For example, we’re helping retailers use the data and creative from their print circulars to power their digital ads. This enables them to automatically highlight store-level offers, prices and product availability across thousands of stores without having to generate thousands of ads.

Complex underlying infrastructure means that marketers can simply generate campaigns that target customers with store-specific offers based on their proximity to any given store. This is achieved by leveraging customers’ locations through the grocer’s app and saved store locations on Facebook. Software is also used to generate store-specific images for every location that incorporates pricing/offer details for its products.

Sharing Personalized Rewards Content

The IDC study found that 57 percent of grocery shoppers who belong to a loyalty program want to be rewarded with product recommendations.

While this is difficult and expensive to execute via print, it’s easy and efficient on Facebook and Instagram.

Our team worked with a nationwide retailer that automated personalized rewards content to their loyalty customers. The retailer provided a list of people who had available points to redeem, and we targeted those customers with a carousel of relevant products they could redeem for free with their points balance. The copy included how many points each individual shopper had, and the recommendations were personalized based on audience and product segmentation.

Align With the Consumers of Today

Grocery shoppers are craving digital experiences that are convenient and personalized. By transforming print circulars into tailored, shoppable digital experiences on mobile, marketers can meet consumers where they are.

Conor Ryan is the co-founder and CIO at StitcherAds. StitcherAds is a Facebook and Instagram marketing partner helping retailers and agencies scale full-funnel O2O marketing campaigns.