Why Your Shoppers’ Values Should Matter to Your Brand

As individuals, we each have a “story” that defines us as a person, guides our decision-making and helps us navigate our lives. Stories are also powerful, important tools for brands. They help define their role with their constituents and customers, determine their place in the greater marketplace, and guide the way they present themselves to…

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Steps Your Brand Can Take to Win Over Competitors’ Customers

Expanding your brand’s market share isn’t easy. If you’re trying to win new customers while keeping your own, you need customized marketing strategies for different shopper personas to be effective. At Alter Agents, we start to sort consumers in a given category using the Shopper DIAL: Defectors – start with a brand in mind but…

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Four Things You Need to Know About Your Customers

Recently, our CEO and Founder Rebecca Brooks joined the “Getting to Aha!” podcast with Darshan Mehta to discuss “Why Customers Act the Way They Do.” During the episode, they discussed our new book, Influencing Shopper Decisions: Unleash the Power of Your Brand to Win Customers, and some of the themes that we’ve uncovered that have…

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Why Brand Narcissism is a Threat to Your Business

The most reliable consumer insights that propel a business forward are those based on rigorous, well-planned market research. It makes sense: In order to get reliable results, your research needs to be conducted with a reliable methodology. There’s a lot that goes into that, and there are a lot of pitfalls that can lead otherwise…

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Why Your Brand Needs to Constantly Innovate to Win Customers

Shopper Promiscuity is a defining characteristic of the shopping landscape, and one of the driving factors behind it is that today’s shoppers expect brands to constantly innovate. Your customers are trained to believe that there will always be something new, so they’re naturally always on the hunt for something better than what they bought last…

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Balancing Personalization & Privacy for Shoppers on Social Media

Social media platforms have taken a prominent place in the information ecosystem, offering users the benefits of personal connection in exchange for behavioral data and attention for advertising. Our research found that most shoppers also use it to gather information about their potential purchases, so the commodification of the space and its content goes both…

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Who Uses Social Media on Their Path to Purchase?

Social media’s part in the economic system has accelerated over the past decade, and shoppers are driving the shift. The rise of ecommerce coincided with the rise of social networking platforms, and consumer behavior has married the two to the point where social media isn’t just another place to advertise and integrate storefronts: it’s a…

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How Shoppers Choose CPG Products

The following article was first published in the January issue of CPG Matters online magazine, and is reprinted here in its entirety.   From cosmetics to kleenex and snacks to soda, we already know that the consumer’s purchase journey can vary widely. But just how much? Our research found that the way in which shoppers…

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How Dog Owners Buy Treats & Supplements

Alter Agents shopper research on dog treats featured image

Shopper behavior has changed immensely over the past decade. The rise of ecommerce and omnichannel sales transformed how shoppers get information about their purchases and how brands advertise and sell to them. Over this time period, the value of the U.S. petcare sector doubled. That was before the pandemic set in and over 13 million…

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Why Adaptability Is Crucial For Meeting Shopper Expectations

Being adaptive is one of our company’s core values. It’s also a vital part of remaining successful and relevant in today’s economy, where shopper expectations creep ever higher and their priorities shift. We learned a lot about what shoppers expect of brands as part of our Shopper Influence Research program. Alter Agents CEO Rebecca Brooks…

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