Do you know the Detoll No Touch kits? This is a fantastic device, created from a non-existent need* to make you buy ... soap at full price. But not just any soap, Detoll soap of course, since it's the only one compatible. In fact, it's an excellent principle that a number of FMCG players have happily embraced. The best known example being Nestlé with its Nespresso. Or how a coffee seller chains his customers to a need they did not have (the revolutionary machine) in order to make them dependent.
(* Don't touch the soap dispenser before washing your hands... so that you don't get germs on the dispenser itself, so that others don't get germs on their hands... when they are going to wash their hands right afterwards...)
But let's not be unkind. If these marketing techniques (yes, a Nespresso machine is essentially marketing) are effective, it's because consumers seem to appreciate being guided. FMCG players, who by essence cannot possess purchase data, transactions linked to a point of contact, have found with these mechanisms at least a way to generate recurrent purchases, at best to create communities that can be addressed directly, without depending on distribution networks or mass media.
What about your eCRM thinking?
What? The title of this article is aimed at retailers? While some of the big names in FMCG are trying to pass themselves off as retailers (or at least trying to cross the boundaries of their business), it seems that retailers (and especially e-retailers) are not taking enough notice of the opportunities offered by consumables.
I'll skip the inevitable ink cartridges that every human needs when it's far too late, but it goes from the cartridges in your son's "Nerf" gun, to the sandpaper in your sander, to just about every item in your bathroom.
Unfortunately, eCRM teams rarely have the opportunity to influence the way your products are sold/proposed/marketed, yet this is a mistake.
When one of your customers places an order for a consumable, what should you do?
So yes, you have to say thank you! But even more important, you have to try to get an authorization linked to this type of product, an optin. This authorization can be explicit (especially if you don't have an opt-in for the rest of your communication with this customer), or implicit, for example by asking a question about the frequency of purchase of this type of product (you see me coming).
Not only can you ask the question directly on the purchase confirmation page of your website, but also in a confirmation email, or in a specific email (in the form of a reminder if you did not get an answer for example).
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Beyond the simple optin or a request on a purchase frequency, you may try to deduct (or ask (see our article on one-click email surveys) what is the context of use of the consumable: What is the device (if relevant) with which you use it? Are you addicted to a particular brand, or are there other brands you can try? And many more depending on your context.
Okay, I have data... now what?
Often, the exploitation of the collected data... will be done according to the obtained results... but we don't want to leave you hungry, it is possible to react from the beginning and to adjust later. The most obvious is the generation of alerts by email, mainly based on the purchase made in the past and on a declared or observed frequency. This is the basis.
But it's possible to go even further, by personalizing your website according to the same criteria, personalizing your newsletters, personalizing your mobile application, ... It's also an opportunity to hyper-personalize part of your communications by highlighting replacement products, pushing non-commercial content linked to the purchase, or the ultimate goal, if there ever was one, by proposing a subscription strategy to your customers. Your razor blades (a well-known example) in your mailbox every month, without you having to lift a finger.
In an eCRM strategy, the importance here is to create a disruptive strategy consisting of reducing "standardized" marketing pressure in favor of a hyper-targeted and automated notification strategy.
(To think that soon it'll be fridges that have the most information on your consumption, but we've been talking about it for a long time without it actually entering the home).
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