How packaged goods firms in Singapore can embrace digital opportunities

Singaporeans are active social media users - 3 million of them are on Facebook and 900,000 on Twitter[1]. The country’s household broadband and mobile phone penetration rates exceed 100 per cent[2]while smartphone penetration is among the highest in the world[3].

With a proliferation of devices and a consumer base increasingly enamoured to social media, Consumer Packaged Goods (CPG) companies have an unprecedented opportunity to connect with their existing and potential customers.

Given what we know about consumers and their use of digital channels, how should companies prioritise their investments to attract, engage, sell to and retain digital consumers?

Accenture’s experience indicates that winning digital consumers is not just the role of sales, brand or marketing teams. It is an enterprise-wide responsibility, requiring contributions from functions and areas across the company.

Companies that succeed in bridging the digital divide are those that combine talent, assets and insights using new organisational structures and operating models geared towards making the most of their investments in serving digital consumers.

Consumers use a variety of channels as they move along the path towards purchase. To meet them where they are, swiftly and fluidly, companies will need to tear down stove-piped marketing channels, and devise a multichannel strategy that integrates, leverages, measures and optimises the unique properties and advantages of each channel.

CPG companies frequently have more data than they know what to do with. While adept at using it to assess financial performance or evaluate supply chain interaction, they could save money on the costs of data acquisition and increase revenue, by redirecting some of their analytic firepower to marketing and sales commercial processes such as deriving shopper insights, brand marketing analytics, or price, promotion and assortment analytics[4].

Delivering personalised performance-based messages have never been easier given the access digital channels provide. From voting on new product flavours to participating in video competitions supporting the brand, social media can increase the flow of conversation and consumers’ brand engagement, making it a cost-effective way to generate inputs and influence new products, offers and marketing approaches.

Active social listening and responding is also critical for CPG companies. Consumers who go online to talk about or recommend a product can have enormous influence, making them your best friends or worst enemies. An end-to-end closed-loop process to continuously monitor social media and policies to respond to social content with targeted communication are needed.

While websites are no longer perceived as “hot” digital channels as mobile and social platforms have taken priority, Accenture’s research confirms the importance of compelling websites in driving sales. We found that over 30 per cent of offline sales were influenced by online content, with website visitors spending 37 per cent more on average than non-visitors[5].

Websites serve also as a direct sales channel. Consumers expect brand sites to facilitate where to buy or provide a “click to buy now” capability. CPG companies can drive sales by enhancing their websites, optimising content to make it easier for consumers to find products, streamlining navigation and incorporating e-commerce capabilities.

As we approach the point where there will be more mobile-connected devices than people on the planet[6], the digital consumer will be an increasingly important source of sales, and CPG companies must rise to the challenge and embrace the opportunity.