On November 13, Popai France has released the results of a study on the impact and the interaction of the points of contact on the buying decision by a consumer. This study has been performed in cooperation with the French SNCD. Main lesson: retail outlets and direct marketing should be emphasized. They are the top-selling sources.
This study has been performed jointly by Popai France (the French Institute of Communication and Advertisement in Retail Outlets) and the SNCD (Syndicat National de la Communication Directe - National Association of Direct Communication). It came first with a qualitative step (April 2011) to identify the points of contact and the path to buying of several consumer products, followed by a quantitative step, based on on-line questionnaires, treated between June 18 and July 2, 2012 (1007 responses per purchasing mode).
This study allows for the detailing of the following points:
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be it a necessary buy, a whim, pleasant or reflex buy, the consumer, always sought-after, comes through numerous contact points (retail outlet, direct marketing, ads in media, public relations, word-of-mouth, events, the Internet …). Many are the means of contact: samples, promotion in the retail outlets, advertisement, recommendations by family/friends, shelf-displays markings, catalogs, mails, Internet sites, blogs, e-mails, leaflets …all in all, more than 40 have been considered for the study.
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The winning combinations between these selling points and their phasing have been identified. Therefore, key and useful pieces of information become available to decide how to assign the marketing budgets.
