CPG Marketing: Trends, Challenges, and Top Brand Strategies

Consumer packaged goods (CPG) marketing is at the core of many business endeavors. CPG products are a big part of everyday life, and CPG companies must be able to reach their target audiences effectively in order to drive sales and increase brand awareness. 

The CPG space can offer unique challenges and opportunities that other industries don’t have, often requiring specialized tactics to reach your target audience. CPG marketing is essential for any brand in the industry that wants to stand out in a competitive market. 

Next, we’re going to cover what exactly CPG is, what CPG marketing is, and tactics that marketers should leverage.

What Is CPG?

Before we dive into CPG marketing, let’s start from the beginning. CPG stands for consumer packaged goods. These are all the retail goods that we consume daily, such as food, drinks, and household items.

Examples of CPG Brands

Think Pepsico, Tide, Walmart, Kraft-Heinz, L'Oreal, Kelloggs, Unilever, Clorox, Kimberly Clark  — these are all examples of CPG brands. To break it down even more, CPG brands are found wherever you buy fresh fruits and vegetables, cereal, canned beverages, sanitizer and disinfectant sprays, laundry detergent, deodorant, mascara, etc.

All of the above CPG brand examples have established a successful CPG content marketing strategy.

What Is CPG Marketing?

CPG marketing focuses on selling CPG products to consumers in a way that is memorable and engaging. CPG marketers often use tactics such as promotions, coupons, and visual merchandising to draw in potential customers and understand consumer behavior. 

CPG brands also have a unique challenge of needing to market to a wide variety of customers, as CPG products are found in many different types of stores, like Walmart or CVS for example, and have a diverse customer base. That's why they are all fighting to stand out from the crowd.

CPG marketing is needed to help promote CPG products and reach a wider consumer audience. CPG marketers often use a variety of marketing techniques, including digital advertising, in-store displays, and interactive experiences. CPG campaigns often have short lifespans, so it's important that they are creative, engaging, and focused on driving conversions.

When it comes to choosing CPG marketing strategies, you can use either B2C or DTC methods. B2C stands for business to consumer. These kinds of tactics involve more traditional CPG marketing, where you work with the retailers and vendors who sell your products.

For example, if your product is sold in brick-and-mortar stores, like grocery chains and big-box retailers, you might place signage and branded end-cap displays within the stores. In this way, you’re using the retailer’s business to help market your products.

The downside to B2C marketing is that you don’t have full control over the marketing and won’t receive real-time data from your efforts.

So what is DTC marketing? DTC stands for direct to consumer. It’s a way for CPG brands to reach customers directly, without going through traditional retail channels. When you are marketing to consumers directly, you have more control over the tactics you use and often gather more data and receive it more quickly.

What Are Examples of DTC Marketing?

Some brands are considered DTC brands, meaning they only sell directly to consumers through their e-commerce website. But even if you sell your goods through a third-party retailer (or use a combination of both methods), you can use DTC marketing tactics to drive awareness for your brand, engage with consumers, and build a loyal following.

So what are some of the DTC tactics that CPG brands can use? One example of DTC marketing is offering subscription boxes filled with products tailored to your customers' needs. This tactic can help you build an emotional connection with the customer. 

As a CPG marketer, you can also consider utilizing influencers to help spread the word about your CPG products and promotions through social channels. This has been a popular marketing trend in recent years.

One of the most effective CPG marketing strategies is content marketing, which involves creating educational or entertaining content around the CPG brand. Content marketing is often used to draw attention to CPG products and create an emotional connection between consumers and the CPG brand. You can distribute your content via your website, your email list, or on social media.

6 Tactics That CPG Marketers Should Leverage

As a consumer, think about how often you purchase CPG products. They are practically everywhere, so brands must find creative ways to stand out and connect with their target audiences.

One way that CPG marketers can do this is through the power of interactive experiences. (It’s content marketing taken to the next level.) By creating imaginative and engaging experiences, you’ll not only bring awareness to your brand and serve your customers in unique ways, but you’ll also collect consumer data, such as demographics and personal preferences.

Even though CPG brands face challenges everyday, it does not have to be hard for brands in the CPG industry to collect zero- and first-party data and develop brand loyalty. The six interactive tactics listed below can help.

First off, each and every one of these experiences collect zero-party data, which is the most valuable form of data any marketer can get their hands on since it comes straight from your most reliable source — your users. 

With these interactive experiences, you learn your customers’ demographics, likes, dislikes, and exactly what they are shopping for. This leads you to be able to recommend a product that fits their exact needs. 

Here are the six interactive tactics you should consider as a CPG marketer:

1. Product Match Quiz: Product Match quizzes are the go-to choice, helping customers find the right product without the hassle. With this, you become their personal guide, unlocking the reason behind their purchase for your brand.
2. Personality Quiz: Personality Quizzes provide an entertaining way for people to discover themselves. Ask about subjects related to your brand and those that give insights into the individual to form strong connections. Here’s an example of a Jebbit personality quiz created for DraftKings.
3. Interactive Lookbook: Digital Lookbooks transform static catalogs into stunning visuals that show off your products, present ideas, etc. These then lead buyers to appropriate web pages based on their interests. Here’s an example of a Jebbit lookbook crafted by Free People. 
4. Live Poll: Live Polls gather consumer insights and opinions, empowering customers to share their ideas.
5. Trivia Quiz: Use Trivia Quizzes to tap into people’s competitive instincts, exchange contact info for results, or build brand awareness as results are shared across social media.
6. Landing Page: The trusted marketing workhorse can be a hindrance due to technical requirements, but Jebbit simplifies the process. Create stunning landing pages in minutes — no coding needed — and launch quickly without support from other teams.

No matter which CPG tactic you consider, as a CPG marketer, you need to think about how you can stand out in a very crowded space. In fact, try them all! Optimize as you go and A/B test as much as you’d like.

Plus, these experiences can be launched anywhere you can place a URL, and there is NO CODE REQUIRED! That’s right. Implementing these experiences is quick, easy, and immediately allows you to know your customers on a deeper level. Launch them on all of your marketing channels or wherever you have the most customer foot traffic. You can even launch these experiences via QR Code.

Why Is the CPG Space Different?

The CPG space is different from other industries  as they have an incredibly wide range of products and a diverse customer base. CPG marketing teams need to be able to target customers from all walks of life in order to reach their desired results. 

CPG marketing also needs to focus on creating an experience for the customer, as CPG products are often seen as a necessity and not an indulgence. CPG marketers need to be creative and engaging in order to draw attention to their products, create loyalty among customers, and see data-driven results.

Digital Interactive Experiences Are the Wave of the Future … Especially for CPG Brands

Get ahead of the competition by implementing the above marketing tactics, developing a digital marketing strategy, and staying up to speed on consumer demand.  

Taking initiative and implementing an interactive digital experience on your e-commerce site will help your conversion rates skyrocket, will give you data in real time, and will keep your shoppers coming back. Get started on your journey today, and schedule a call to speak with a Jebbit expert!