If the first quarter of 2025 has taught us one thing, it’s how consumers and brands can agree: budgets are important.
Market volatility going from bullish to bearish fast has shown up at the supermarket, and with many unknowns, budgets are becoming conservative. Delivering in the Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) space in a swiftly shifting landscape is going to take strategic vision, planning, and responsive (not reactive!) actions that are data driven.
You may be new to CPG, but Cliffedge Marketing is not. Our lessons learned over a 20-year span include some of the biggest pivots and challenges the U.S. has experienced in recent history, from the Great Recession in 2008, to major pivots when lockdown in 2020 touched all of us.
We are offering lessons we use with clients that you can adapt, meet your bottom line, and stay within budget while boosting customer satisfaction and loyalty all along the way.
But first, a brief budget pep talk:
Marketing budgets come and they may constrict but a good CPG company won’t cut marketing dollars completely even in the hardest times. Why? Marketing is what moves a product from shelf to sold. Whether you’re a single-person team or a whole department, we strongly advise the need to not just have a marketing strategy for your approved budget, but also have plans B and C in the works right now. Each of these should keep two things in mind:
- How can you appeal to consumers who are making hard choices at the counter? And
- How can you capitalize on consumer creativity and turn it into a win?
Case in point: Taking a hard choice and making a creative workaround people are dyeing potatoes pastel colors this spring rather than decorating traditional hard boiled eggs. That’s who you’re trying to win and keep.
Low Bar:
Owned Media – $
Not to be too obvious, but one way to keep your budget in the black is to perfect and leverage the assets you have before you turn towards additional costs. That means paying careful attention to all of the channels you already have and control like:
- Social media
- Email Marketing
- Website/Landing pages
Have you tested site speeds? Used your chat bot? Fixed broken links? Made sure your e-blast signup works? Surveys send out promotions as promised? Is your social media responsive to user generated content and comments? Remove all points disappointment and friction you have before launching bigger, flashier, more costly campaigns. It’s good stewardship and ensures your customers will not bail because of a simple frustration.
Packaging – $
In terms of budget, reimagined packaging is very doable. Your product is already in a package, so how can you approach it in a new way that boosts customer enjoyment, satisfaction, and loyalty? Your brand could go the way of “dopamine design,” like Fishwife, with colors and fonts that take maximalism to the max. Or you can reconsider the real estate your packaging offers. A pack-on or pack-in coupon, QR code to loyalty program, or another offer may incentivize a first purchase and get you one step closer to a brand-loyal customer.
Retail Media Networks (RMNs) – $
E-commerce sites for bigger chain grocery stores like Kroger and online merchants like Amazon offer budget friendly ad placements at tiered pricing that marketers can purchase to get more visibility for online shoppers. One of the most cost effective entry points is sponsored search, so when a consumer puts a query into Walmart, your ad buy in Walmart’s RMN helps you out, offering up your product. Since clicks signal interest and a purchase intent, cost-per-click pricing model is an easy way to influence customers as they fill their carts.
Raise the Bar:
Digital-to-Retail – $$
Arguably consumers live two lives – one online and the other in real life. Both lives influence each other, which gives marketers access to their attention, consideration, and data about them to continue to stay top of mind. Staying relevant can mean working with an influencer to mention where in your area to buy a product they are endorsing. Or it can become more data-driven looking at geographic data from phone use and pairing it with one or more rich metric like shopper data for hyper-targeted paid ads. If you’re going hyper-local with Google, Meta, or RMN (see above) ads, these strategies may require partnering with an outside company familiar with the tactics. However you want to approach, you’re nudging consumers with intelligent messaging that cues them to buy when in store (or even prompts them to drive there!).
Co-Op Sampling – $$
Cooperating with another brand for a joint sampling event can help both products reach new customers if they are a good brand fit. These partnerships can be an idea your team pursues and pitches or a vendor can help navigate putting you in touch for an in-store activation. Sampling can be pricy, so sharing the cost is a way to make scaling up within reach.
Set a High Bar:
In-store Signage – $$$
To get items to pop from on the shelf, you can add eye-catching design elements to draw attention and curate more of a brand experience. While wobblers, shelf talkers, and floor decals can add cues to give your brand more consideration from even the most distracted shopper, it is a big investment. Design, installation, and the cost for the boosted presence in store, are a pricey way to boost awareness, and aren’t a guarantee for purchase, so if your budget is sparse we wouldn’t recommend this unless the retailer is offering you a deeply reduced cost.
Sampling: The Try then Buy Approach- $$$
Maybe it’s the little toothpicks, the tiny paper cups, or just the joy of getting something for free, but consumers love in-store sampling. Strategy that includes sampling can look budget friendly, a single event is roughly $300, but for impact, it has a much higher price tag. 100 stores, 100 sampling events, that budget balloons quickly. If you allocate the funds to make a real splash in person, make sure the story doesn’t end there. Extend the experience by including a future offer, a manufacturer coupon or something similar.
Priceless:
Retailer Relationships
It’s hard to put a price tag on a relationship, but we know when sales team members build strong ties with retailers, it offers them a lot more than a friendly interaction. The in-store trust between sales and retailer point of contact can open up new possibilities for a product, even ones that aren’t “on the menu.”
Opportunities like the ability to negotiate for better placement or the chance to lengthen “buy-in” time on shelf can be mutually beneficial. Make sure the sales team has the data they need to tell that compelling story: mainly what your product is bringing consumers in store. Dialogue with the retailer can lead to more access to more information for refining marketing efforts.
Level Set
No matter what your budget you have for marketing, low, raised, high, or a mixture of all, data analysis is key to making it work effectively. Through tracking in real time from the launch of a tactic or campaign, you can:
- Link more information like consumer behavior in store and online,
- Capture user generated content (UGC) through social listening,
- Flag positive reviews for future messaging, and
- Get point-of-sales data to take back to the retailer to continue nurturing those relationships.
The benefits go on and on. Plus you can parallel path promotion efforts with A/B testing for further refinement. All of those efforts enable your team to answer: did it work? If it did, super! You can discover ways to lean into that more and increase the success. And if it didn’t? Valuable! Now you know what didn’t work, can look into why, and can course correct.
Ready to Accelerate Your Retail Growth?
No matter what amount you’re working with, building a budget-optimized marketing strategy takes a lot of effort. Knowing where to invest, how much, and with which partners is an expertise that is developed over time.
This spring, Cliffedge Marketing is launching a Retail Accelerator Program to share our over 20 years of expertise so you can make those decisions with confidence.
Designed specifically for new or emerging retail brands, our Retail Accelerator Program is designed to help you make informed investment decisions, move products off the shelf, and strategically track performance. Like any new business after launch, the early weeks, months, and years are critical to long-term success. Leverage our Retail Accelerator Program to make it count.
