Good field marketing strategies are the backbone of any modern retail brand. Field marketing is an ever-evolving discipline, seamlessly blending innovative technological advances with traditional strategies, creating more engaging and effective marketing campaigns.
Keeping up with modern field marketing advances is an essential factor for your retail success, and we’re here to show you how to do it! As a sister company to the premier field marketing agency Dee Set, the Reapp team is ready to prime you for retail glory with our top field marketing tactics of 2024.
Let’s get started!
Field marketing: What exactly is it?
Essentially, field marketing is a form of modern marketing that aims to improve customer relationships with brands in the field, also generating leads and conversions for your brand. There’s a big focus on building up awareness and engagement with brands and their products, ensuring your items and promotions are streamlined for success.
In most cases, your field marketing efforts will be put into action in the field (e.g. at a retail store or a field marketing event). However, whilst our field teams are extremely important, a lot of our work is carried out behind the scenes, using the very latest data analytics technology. To find out more, check out our Insight and Spotlight tools to see how our software can boost your brand.
Sound good? We think so!
Our top field marketing tactics for 2024
Now that you’ve decided you’d like to integrate a dedicated field marketing strategy into your marketing efforts, it’s time to work out where to start. There is a vast range of disciplines and tactics that can be incorporated into this type of campaign, so it’s worth taking some time to think about where your money and time is best placed.
Here, we’ve made the choice easy for you, giving you four field marketing techniques to focus your efforts on.
Make the most of your tech capabilities
Modern technology is one of our most important assets, so it’s crucial that your brand makes the most of your tech capabilities. Over the last couple of years, AI (artificial intelligence), automation, and machine learning have risen to the top of the pack, bringing ample opportunities for fulfilling your KPIs (key performance indicators) and much, much more.
These tools can be used to personalise the customer experience and streamline processes within your brand in the following ways:
- Chatbots and virtual assistants – AI-driven chatbots have risen in popularity over the past year or so, and for good reason! With the help of chatbots and virtual assistants, you can deliver instant customer support, answer consumer queries, and assist with purchases, without having to pay someone to do the job for you.A great example of a chatbot can be found within the social media platform, Snapchat with their ‘My AI’ feature (an AI driven chatbot) which is available to those who have an active account. My AI can have conversations, be added to group chats, write poems, plan trips, suggest gift ideas and even offer advice. With continued use, this tool becomes more personalised as users interact with it over time, allowing it to learn more about them – creating the illusion that users are engaging with a friend. This however did raise ethical concerns with how young children interact with the tool as young users may not understand the implications of data collection.
- Automated workflows and stock fulfilment – By introducing automation into your business, you can easily streamline repetitive tasks like data entry or email marketing. But the fun doesn’t stop there – dynamic pricing strategies and automatic stock fulfilment processes can be introduced, catering to the needs of your customers across the board.
- Personalised marketing campaigns – Another prominent area in which you can use retail technology for your benefit is through the instigation of personalised marketing campaigns. Long gone are the days of implementing a generic field marketing strategy and hoping for the best. Now, you can target your promotions and marketing efforts toward the people more likely to engage with your brand, delivering personalised recommendations as part of the process.
A standout example of a personalised marketing campaign is Tesco’s recent launch of its Clubcard Challenges, which cleverly leverages customer data and AI to transform the shopping experience into a gamified journey. These individually tailored challenges, designed around each Clubcard holder’s shopping habits, give customers the chance to earn up to £50 in Clubcard points. By personalising the challenges to match spending patterns, Tesco not only enhances customer engagement but also adds a fun, rewarding element to their loyalty program.
If implemented correctly, these tools should help you to improve brand awareness and engagement, as well as pushing sales and conversions.
Data analytics is your friend
As one of the premier field marketing agencies in the UK, it’s safe to say that we know a fair thing or two about data analytics. Data analytics is our bread and butter, enabling us to gain key insights into market trends, customer behaviour, and our own marketing efforts.
Customer data can be harvested to unlock an array of powerful actionable data insights, such as purchasing patterns, customer preferences, and shopper behaviour. Once the data has been gathered, it can be analysed to discover a treasure trove of data, giving you important information that can really make your products fly off the shelves.
When using retail analytics, your marketing strategies can be tailored to better meet customer needs and your KPIs, using the data gained to refine your future marketing campaigns.
Make your brand the centrepiece of an immersive event
Retail events are a major part of any modern field marketing campaign, enabling keen shoppers to directly get involved with your brand and your products. People love being able to try out new items in person, and this factor is something you can really capitalise on with an events-based approach.
Whilst events aren’t the be-all and end-all of shopper engagement, they can go a long way if curated properly, enabling you to create an immersive experience where your brand takes centre stage. You can use events to draw in potential customers by telling them a story about your brand, using the event to reflect your values, history, and mission statement.
As we said previously, people love having the opportunity to test products out for themselves. It’s not just about trying something on though – it’s about creating a multi-sensory experience for potential customers, making your brand unforgettable to any shoppers who stop by your stall. By taking this approach, you can cultivate an unforgettable event that fosters strong connections with your audience for many years to come.
Build a customer community
As any good brand knows, your customers are the foundation of your business. Without them, you’d go out of business in record time, so it’s important to do whatever you can to please them. Another benefit of using field marketing is that you can build a customer community around your brand, making your shoppers feel valued and important.
A vibrant community can help to create a palpable sense of belonging among your customer base, turning them into eager brand advocates who act as part of your field marketing strategy by promoting your products. This form of marketing is a powerful way to build up brand awareness, customer loyalty and engagement, also driving your brand through word-of-mouth marketing.
There are a number of ways in which you can build a customer community. The choice of how you do it is yours, although we recommend building an online platform. Web forums and social media groups can be put into practice, allowing your customers to connect and share experiences relating to your brand, building up your online presence in style.
You can create an online meeting place where shoppers can feel heard and understood, which will go a long way in building up confidence in your brand. Another idea is to host events and webinars that cover topics surrounding your brand, strengthening your customer community and portraying your business in a positive light.
Field marketing: The future of the retail industry
Staying ahead in the world of retail requires dynamic field marketing strategies and the effective use of advanced technology, enhancing performance in no time.
By adopting our innovative tactics and our cutting-edge field marketing software products into your campaigns, you can create immersive brand-centric events, maximise your tech capabilities, and build a strong community for your customers. By embracing these approaches in 2024, you can ensure that your brand not only survives, but thrives in the competitive retail environment.
However, if you feel like you need a little help getting started, we’ll be happy to help – book a demo today and we’ll show you how Reapp works!
