Source: Kroger
MarketingCharts staff
Through a special arrangement, presented here for discussion is a summary of articles from MarketingCharts, which provides up-to-the-minute data and research to marketers.
A whopping 85 percent of households use print circulars delivered to the home and 79 percent use those distributed in stores, according to recent data released by Nielsen. While some think of print circulars as part of yesterday’s marketing, consumer use of these communications has dipped by only three to four percentage points since 2014.
Circulars are not only popular, but also broadly effective in consumers’ eyes. Survey results released late last year found that store circulars were the most influential types of ads encouraging consumers to shop in-store rather than online. Consumers also have pointed to different types of circulars as being their most influential types of local media advertising.
Nonetheless, digital channels are rising quickly. In particular, at least three-quarters of households now use store websites (77 percent) and store emails (75 percent) for product information, with these trending in the opposite direction to print circulars.
By 2019, Nielsen forecasts that these digital touchpoints will have wider reach than print circulars.
Social media and various apps are seeing the strongest growth, breaking into the mainstream in the past few years.
For example, the use of store apps and money-saving apps has ballooned by more than 20 percent points since 2014, up to 56 percent and 52 percent of households, respectively. Meanwhile, more than half (52 percent) now use social media to look at information about products and sales available at stores. As expected, Millennials are the generation most likely to engage with digital touchpoints, per the report
Overall, the survey found that almost half of U.S. households engage with at least eight different print and digital sources of information about products and sales.
“Given these dynamics, retailers can best reach their shoppers by leveraging multiple touchpoints for marketing,” wrote Nielsen in the report. “They should maintain and optimize spending on traditional circulars, since these will continue to be shoppers’ main source of information for the near term. And as consumers seek more information digitally, it’s critical that retailers develop and enhance their digital marketing touchpoints.”