Leverage more sales by addressing the ROPO trend.
ROPO is a growing trend as consumers become savvier with their purchasing methods.
Today’s consumer is much savvier than past consumers thanks to the internet. This is because consumers today can do tons of research online before they make their purchasing decisions. With access to the internet anytime anywhere, a new trend that is taking off is “research online, purchase offline” or ROPO.
Understanding ROPO marketing will allow you to leverage sales of customers who begin their shopping journey online. It is important to understand how to leverage ROPO for the benefit of your company because statistics show that 88% of consumers will research online before deciding to make a purchase. Consumers use the internet to not only find local businesses to purchase products from or to learn more about a product they wish to purchase, they also research online to read reviews with some 62% of shoppers reading online reviews before making their purchase.
ROPO Marketing Strategies & Tactics
Personalize Touchpoints Based on In-Store Actions
Many companies have a problem where a customer will shop online, place an item or items in their cart, then abandon the purchase. At this point, many companies will send out cart abandonment emails to try and convert those shoppers into buyers. If you instead personalize digital touchpoints with the information you gather from your stores, you will be able to see if these customers, who have abandoned their online purchase, decided to make their purchase at your physical store instead. This will allow your company to be able to send out post-purchase email campaigns instead to follow up on your customer’s purchase.
Offer Research Aids
You know your customers are researching online before they decide to buy your products so why not offer value for them to continue that purchase on the same platform they started their search. Offering free express shipping, returns and fit guarantees are excellent ways to invite your customer to avoid a busy store and make their purchase right then and there. You could also offer discounts that are only available for online purchases. Keep in mind that you might be unsuccessful at converting your online researcher into an online buyer, but that is your chance to send them to your local store or even stores near them that sell your products.
Connect CRM and POS
A simple way to track your customers across all channels is with customer loyalty cards. Have your customers use these cards anytime they make a purchase, whether online or in-store, and you’ll be able to better understand the actions they take before committing to a purchase. By connecting the steps your customer takes throughout their buying journey, you’ll be able to create more personal, relevant campaigns to target customer segments better.
Measure the ROPO Effect
Thanks to the new research online, buy offline trend, Facebook has recently launched a new feature that will allow your marketing team to measure the effect of their ads on your customers’ in-store purchases. With this new feature, Facebook has made it possible for you to track when transactions occur in your physical store, and other offline channels, after a customer interacts with one of your Facebook ads.
ROPO, research online purchase offline, is a growing trend because not every customer likes to make their purchase online, but most customers like to do research on products before they decide to buy them. This is because many customers prefer to try things on before they buy them or see the product in person to get a better feel for it. Also, many customers hate to have to wait for shipping, which is why Amazon’s Prime feature has gotten immensely popular in the past decade.
If your company isn’t leveraging sales with the current ROPO trend, you are surely missing out on a lot of purchases. Take this new trend into consideration and implement these strategies into your marketing efforts to make sure you’re covering all your bases.
