Brand marketers now compete for attention in a unified marketplace, one where in-store and digital are increasingly interconnected. Take the grocery category, for example — once an exclusively in-person experience, grocery is now the second-leading e-commerce marketplace, according to eMarketer. The same research shows us almost half of grocery shoppers have used an online delivery option in the past month.
To reconcile merging customer attention across brick-and-mortar and digital shopping environments, brands need effective 360-degree marketing that sticks the landing — and at Quad, we’ve found that the work done before going to market makes all the difference.
Brands that shift away from in-market testing and toward state-of-the-art pre-market testing solutions will stay ahead of the pack. Here’s how:
The shift toward pre-market testing for connected commerce
Campaigns that miss engaging a consumer come with both financial and reputational risks. Traditional in-market campaign tests depend on evaluating digital ads, in-store displays, direct mail and packaging once assets have already been launched and the costs of creative, print, and distribution are incurred.
Plus, waiting for in-market test results can take weeks or months while a campaign continues to potentially underperform in front of a customer base.
We need a better, faster way to ensure connected commerce success through pre-market testing. Utilizing our decades of experience working with marketers, combined with our unique customer-centric data strategy, Quad built a pre-market testing model to apply to virtual, online and in-store environments.
Not only can we work closely with brands to ensure digital media assets engage customers through virtual and online pre-market testing, but we can also analyze the performance of physical assets — including direct mail pieces and packaging prototypes — before launch, potentially saving brands thousands of dollars in costs related to in-market changes.
Today, Quad’s Accelerated Marketing Insights is a comprehensive suite of solutions that directly addresses evolving consumer complexities. By giving our clients a pre-market testing platform to analyze and apply customer data across creative activations, we’re empowering brands with critical insights that help them stand out among competitors.
The benefits: What makes Accelerated Marketing Insights different?
Prior to working with Quad, many of our clients were waiting weeks or even months for in-market test data from customer panels, ad revenue reports, email click-through-rate summaries and more. All the while, they were spending sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars annually to fix mistakes or low performers after-the-fact.
With our unified pre-market testing platform, clients get real customer feedback almost immediately, keeping budgets in check and putting time to the best use before launch.
Take direct mail, for example. Traditionally, marketers would send variations of challenger packages to test against a control. This process incurs significant costs for paper, postage and delays in receiving results, often taking weeks or months to assess performance.
Today we can evaluate thousands of variables such as audience segment, offer, creative and format with rapid direct mail marketing tests in virtual and online test settings. In just a matter of weeks, clients receive statistically relevant data on which combination of variables is most likely to drive conversion, avoiding the costs of print and postage so they can go to market with customer-preferred concepts.
Heat map data showcases the intensity of visual interest from a real customer in one of Quad’s Marketing Experience Innovation Centers.
Quad also brings state-of-the-art sophistication to in-store testing by utilizing unique behavioral evaluation tools and custom-built simulated shopping facilities in our Marketing Experience Innovation Center.
With eye-tracking technology, for example, brands can test non-conscious customer preferences with real customers. Through heatmapping and gaze sequencing measured on eyewear, brands can discern both the intensity of visual interest as well as the ranking order of attention on the shelf.
Behavioral tests give us and our clients real-time and often unexpected data that strengthens and unifies brand marketing before assets hit the mailbox, inbox or store shelf.
Leverage better testing for connected commerce
At Quad, we developed Accelerated Marketing Insights to give marketers a faster, more efficient way to ensure market success before launch in an end-to-end marketplace. Want to learn more? Get in touch.
