Let’s start with a couple of data points. According to research from Aimia, some 80% of us are willing to share our name, email address and nationality with brands – but only when we receive some sort of “shopping advantage” in return. Meanwhile, a one second improvement in page loading times led to a 2% increase in conversion for retail giant Walmart.
As shopper marketers, it’s our job to change behaviour. As both these points show, providing improved experiences (often in quite small ways) is the surest route to creating that change – especially when the experiences are directly beneficial to shopper missions.
Mission-based experiences
Most of the time, shopping is a struggle to reduce friction: minimising wasted time or effort and avoiding unnecessary spend. Friction, of course, is not a constant. It is always a function of the specific mission on which the shopper is engaged. My mission when shopping for a bottle of wine on the way home from work on a Wednesday is likely to be different to my mission when buying for Saturday’s party.
When a mission is met with minimum friction and maximum satisfaction, the shopper’s response is deeply positive. This response goes beyond the purely rational. Instinct draws us to repeat the act.
Creating muscle memory
Amazon’s business model is laser-focused on shaping shoppers’ collective muscle memory. Its Recommendation Engine, One Click Payment, Prime Now, Dash and Echo are all designed to minimise friction and thus engrain repetition. Here’s the commercial magic: precisely because Amazon does such a superb job in resolving our missions, we become willing accomplices in providing the data that feeds the machine. It’s a virtuous circle that leads towards ever more powerful, and profitable, personalisation.
Starbucks provides another excellent example. In the USA, the company now generates 20% of its revenues from mobile (about 7m transactions a week). By bundling payment functionality into the app used by its 13m loyalty members, it delivers true speed and convenience.
Mobile pre-ordering adds another strong link to the chain: over one million American Starbucks customers now use Mobile Order & Pay, averaging five orders a month each. As CEO Kevin Johnson pointed out recently, the short-term results are great, but the long-term potential of this one-to-one capability is phenomenal.
Crack the mission, crack personalisation
Research study after research study shows how attuned modern shoppers are to the value exchange. They’re prepared to share their scarcest resources – their money, attention, data, and recommendation - but only when they’re confident they’ll get enough in return.
One of the most fundamental ways in which brands can deliver value is to remove friction from the shopping mission. By doing so, we can turn unknown shoppers into known buyers and unlock the door to true personalisation.
Phil Gault is director of strategy at M&C Saatchi Shop
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