Driving Success with Data and Rethinking the eCommerce Strategy Post-Covid-19
COVID-19 has disrupted food and beverage supply chains globally. However, the vaccine roll out and the gradual return to economic recovery has provided food and beverage brands opportunities to innovate their processes to build lasting relationships with their new digital customers, and to improve their eCommerce and advertising.
In Q2 of 2021, WBR surveyed 100 Directors of Marketing and eCommerce from food and beverage brands across Europe to discover how they have adapted their strategies and tried to keep up with the eCommerce demands and changing consumer behaviour post-COVID-19.
Discover our unique survey findings in our report: Rethinking eCommerce Strategies and Driving Success with Data Post-COVID-19.
In recent years, food and beverage organisations have seen an increase in client demand at a time of continued digital transformation and growth across the industry. Heads of marketing and eCommerce have been embracing the implementation of new technology to help drive and redefine the digital customer experience, as well as investing in new digital advertising tools.
However, investing in new eCommerce and digital marketing technology has its challenges. 51% of our survey respondents said that the lack of engagement and understanding how new digital solutions will benefit their organisation is the biggest challenge they face when implementing new technology.
It is vital for the food and beverage industry to overcome these internal challenges regarding digital solutions, to avoid falling behind their more agile competitors and to reduce the risk of losing out on revenue from younger customers.
Reviewing this survey result, Tom Webber, Conference Director, Digital Food & Beverage 2021, said “Food and beverage organisations are almost completely persuaded of the value and benefits of investing in new technology for their advertising and eCommerce. Whilst not shocking it is maybe a little surprising. However, these results show that there is still a long way to go in terms of solution providers collaborating to design better integration processes to speed up engagement and adoption.”
Utilising first-party data assets can help food and beverage brands to develop a more engaging user experience. Analysing product/customer data using AI (62%), predicting consumer demand (50%) and analysing product or customer usage data (46%) came out on top for how heads of marketing and eCommerce are using data-driven models within their marketing strategies.
According to our event speaker, Omer Waysman, Global eCommerce & Business Development, Danone, said “…with the availability of new technologies, analysing customer data to evaluate user journeys has never been easier. This is important for customer personalisation, especially in a world that will soon be a cookieless environment; even if it is now postponed by a couple of years, it will still arrive.”
There is no doubt that first-party data and data quality, especially in the post-cookie landscape, will be more important than ever for heads of marketing and eCommerce in the food and beverage industry. Adopting digital transformation will become imperative if they hope to remain competitive.
In today's world, consumers are increasingly ordering and receiving goods digitally. This is forcing food and beverage companies to optimise their eCommerce and digital tools to deliver quality products. However, given the length of time it takes for marketing and advertising campaigns to reach their target audiences, food and beverage firms have faced challenges in generating ROI from eCommerce strategies.
50% of our respondents have a very complex or somewhat complex customer journey. Due to COVID-19, it can be challenging to determine ROI for eCommerce channels by relying on customer retention, loyalty points, and profitability metrics alone.
With consumer preferences evolving at a faster pace than ever before, digitisation is changing how consumers behave and the customer journey. Every touchpoint can now be a point of sale, and your digital capabilities and agility can either be an asset or a liability. Catarina Molin Österlund, Head of eCommerce, Arla Foods Sweden told us, “It is essential for us to understand the increasingly complex and continuously evolving customer journey, discover what generates sales, identify trigger points, etc.”
Digitising and rethinking the eCommerce strategy can allow retailers to map the customer journey to determine product suggestions and recommendations, emphasise personalisation, and analyse how customers are navigating through their online platforms. This has proven crucial for retaining customers and maximising ROI.
Final Thoughts
Since emerging from the pandemic, food and beverage organisations are re-evaluating their eCommerce strategies to keep up with their consumer demands, changing customer behaviour and the accelerated digital transformation.
From using marketing and advertising tools, such as AI, ML, and voice recognition technology, to implementing data-driven use cases, such as predicting consumer demand and smart packaging, there are many new opportunities that heads of marketing and eCommerce can innovate and leverage for future success.
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