#digital activity

So dark and so deep, all from AI.

Ask AI to create horror. Okay, so I have messed about with DALL-E again. Here are a few more AI pic based on the horror idea. So hold on as I prompt AI to give me some cool scary digital art. The way this works is… You prompt DALL-E with written input. As much or as little detail as you like per digital creation and AI takes over. In my case, it was something along the lines of, trees, people,…

Is communication killing us?

Is communication killing us? Are text messages driving you crazy? Good morning, Goodnight, and what I am having for breakfast? This is now normal. Postings on social media may as well be the new way of communication.  I am telling you I had breakfast because I posted about it.  Yet it is information that we use to see where people are and what people are doing. Is it way too much? Is it…

Do you run social for a sports team, sports league or perhaps a media outlet focus on sports? If the answer is yes then there is something we need to talk about:

The Off-Season.

With the season coming to an end, almost all of the major professional sports teams will be on hiatus. (Have fun, International Cricket!)

For players and coaches, that’s great—time to relax, rejuvenate, and get ready for next year. For you and your social media team, it means engagement on your social channels is likely going to drop. No games means no jaw-dropping goals to Tweet about or Kabaddi games to hype on Facebook.

You could resign yourself to the fact that numbers will be low and content sparse during the next few months or you could take the time to master social listening to help increase off-season engagement and gain practice in important strategies that can be leveraged year-round for positive results.

The key to staying relevant is taking advantage of what is happening on social and making it work for you. Below are a few listening tips to help you stay hot this summer on social.

Listen To Your Followers

Your fans aren’t going silent on social media just because it’s the off-season. Perhaps they are sharing less content about your team and talking about your sport less but they are still actively engaging on all the usual social networks.

Regularly checking in on what your fans are talking about not only helps you understand what matters to your audience, but the data can also give you ideas on how to get involved in the conversation.

Understanding trends among your own followers (instead of simply national or local trends) will help you prioritize your content creation strategy.

You are no longer guessing if your fans care about something, you actually know they are engaged and thus it would be worth your team’s time and effort to create assets specific to these trends.

Use Last Year as a Guide

As the saying goes “Those who cannot remember the past are doomed to repeat it” You’ve lived through the off-season before and you are going to do it again, year after year. Making the effort to learn from your past mistakes and your past hits will help you be more prepared for success for the next season.

Additionally you can conduct searches to see what your top content was during the off-season last year. Knowing what worked well for you in the past will help you find easier social wins this time around.

Monitor your Competitors and Peers

You are not alone in navigating the silence of the off-season. Any social team that covers or touches sports will be looking to generate content and keep engagement high.

That is why it’s important to keep track of what your competitors and peers are sharing on social.

The reason to monitor competitors and peers is to be aware of their social playbook as well as what is and isn’t working with their fan base. There will likely be takeaways that can directly impact the content you are planning.

Keep Track of what Athletes are Sharing

Just like listening to your fans is important during the offseason so is keeping tabs on what athletes, of all sports, are sharing and talking about on social.

A Twitter list will be able to surface the most engaging content from any athlete or set of athletes during a specific time frame. During the off-season this can help inspire your own content ideas.

Mastering Twitter List topics will also impact your success in-season. During a game, whether you are a team, league, or broadcaster, this type of topic will help you find any athletes tweeting about what matters to you. Whether you are retweeting it, featuring that content in an article or on your website or responding directly to that athlete on social, you’ll be able to leverage content faster with Twitter lists.

Just like athletes use the summer to get back into top form, you should be using the summer to master techniques that make you an all-star next season.

Intelligence can give you an edge in the off-season. Want to learn how you can increase your team’s agility with instant access to smart social insights? Get in touch with [email protected]

Beverages currently make up 6 percent of drug store sales

Although consumers tend to be loyal to their preferred drug stores, 30 percent are more likely to patronize a drug store if it has a loyalty card that offers savings, thus increasing shopper loyalty. This presents opportunities for the channel to leverage this consumer perk to promote grocery items, including beverages, to shoppers.

Beverage sales make up about 6 percent of total drug store sales, compared with 9 percent on average across all channels. Most consumers visit the channel to instead purchase over-the-counter medication (45 percent of surveyed consumers), beauty and personal care items (44 percent), prescription medications (42 percent), and vitamins and supplements (38 percent).

To help beverages better compete with other product categories in the stores, the drug store channel can turn to the technology behind loyalty and rewards programs. For example, Woonsocket, R.I.-based CVS Caremark’s ExtraCare consumer loyalty program gives its members a personalized myWeekly Ad that highlights products and special offers that are in line with what that particular consumer usually purchases. In addition, the program offers customized coupons that are shared online or printed on the shopper’s receipt to use on his or her next visit. This can be expanded to share special offers that are exclusively available to that specific shopper to redeem on grocery items. In turn, this can offer consumers customized shopping experiences while also highlighting beverage products that they might not always think to pick up on their drug-store run.

Sparkling and enhanced waters can be paired with cold-and-flu or stomach-remedy medications to help consumers garner more health and wellness benefits from their beverages

To target smartphone-savvy shoppers, drug stores can utilize push notifications through apps like Blue Unicorn to remind consumers to pick up a drink while they’re in the store.

This promotion medium is especially pertinent, considering that the younger consumers that are most likely to use mobile apps also are the beverage category’s biggest consumers in the drug store channel. In general, younger adults are more likely than older consumers to purchase food or beverages for immediate or later consumption at drug stores.

Thirty-one percent of adults aged 18-34 purchase non-alcohol beverages in drug stores, compared with 24 percent of all consumers aged 18 and older on average, and 17 percent of adults aged 25-34 purchase alcohol beverages here, compared with 11 percent of legal-drinking-age consumers on average.

However, mature adults also tend to indulge in impulse purchases in this channel. Adults aged 55 and older are the most likely to visit the channel, with 90 percent of the age group doing so, mostly to fill prescriptions or pick up over-the-counter medications.

While they are waiting for their prescriptions to be filled, these consumers are likely to walk around the store and shop other product categories featured on the shelves, she adds. Occasions like these pose opportunities for consumer packaged goods brands and drug stores to use cross-category promotions to lead consumers around the store to pick up beverage products in addition to their medication needs.

For example, because more emphasis is being put on the health benefits of various beverages, stores can cross-promote beverages with other health and wellness items in the store, continuing to allow consumers to get the most out of their beverages, says Anup Deshmukh, CEO, Blue Unicorn. However, brands and stores should be careful when pairing competing items, as some beverage items claim to improve immune systems, boost digestion or offer other health benefits, making medications less necessary, he notes.

Tea is an option for ill consumers, pairing it with over-the-counter medications as at-home cold-and-flu remedies, but sparkling and enhanced waters also can play a role in this cross-promotional space, Blue Unicorn‘s Deshmukh suggests.

“For example, people drink Gatorade when sick for the electrolytes, water for hydration, and clear sodas for stomach settling, but a sparkling [or] enhanced water combines all three into one,” he explains. “Thus, there is an opportunity to cross-promote waters with cold-and-flu or stomach-remedy medications.”

Cross-promotions in general will be valuable tools to keep the drug store channel evolving to compete with other channels. “[The] increased competition will continue to motivate drug stores to undergo transformations into more than just places for medication but service providers for overall health and wellness needs, [making it a] ‘health’ store vs. a ‘drug’ store,” Blue Unicorn‘s Deshmukh says. “Retailers will continue testing and adopting new technologies, which will make shopping easier, including improving shopping options … and [continuing] to provide more health and wellness products and services.”

Total-store impact

Although it makes sense within the drug store channel to utilize cross-promotions that highlight the health-and-wellness benefits of beverages, other types of pairings can appeal to shoppers in this channel as well, industry experts note.

For example, to highlight the grab-and-go nature of beverages sold within the channel, drug stores can cross-promote such beverages with grab-and-go food items, suggests Anup Deshmukh, CEO, Blue Unicorn. “Drug stores are increasingly offering more quick, grab-and-go options and at the same time expanding their grocery options,” he explains. “It could make sense to pair with other foods used similarly. For example, it would be logical to pair a grab-and-go breakfast or food item with a single-serve, refrigerated drink or to place them near each other.”

Other cross-promotion tactics can be geared toward specific audiences, Deshmukh suggests. “For example, men aged 18-34 are heavy purchasers of non-alcoholic drinks,” he notes. “Messages about other items that young men may be interested in, such as food or even household supplies, [also] could be promoted on [the] pack. These messages could also be themed, such as providing a coupon for beverages on items such as snack foods and other sport event favorites, reminding them not to forget the sodas.”

For consumers who are less likely to purchase beverages in this channel, such as women aged 55 and older, drug stores and consumer packaged goods manufacturers can place on-pack beverage promotions on items they do commonly buy, like medications and beauty products, Deshmukh adds. This can encourage them to venture into the beverage aisle and pick up a drink.

TO LEARN MORE, GET IN TOUCH WITH BLUE UNICORN 

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Customers love loyalty points

There’s no mess or forgotten cards

It creates positive buzz around your business

You can keep track of which of your customers use it

And you can reach them directly using push technology

It puts your brand where your customers are – on their smartphone

Rewards can incentivise further spend – e.g. an in-store voucher

Your rewards are flexible and can be changed at any time

It gives your customers another reason to choose you, every time

Because it shows customers that you value them

It gives you a chance to connect with the customer

And it appeals to our nature – people love rewards!

Members of a loyalty program spend more

And they spend more often

Loyal customers are less price-sensitive

And have a higher average spend

You can give points to customers wherever they are

With whichever method you choose

You can reward any action – purchase, retweet, share etc.

And it’s an incentive for new customers too

More loyal customers increase revenue by up to 70%

And it saves money on advertising

Because it gives you free word-of-mouth marketing

Loyal customers will bring their friends

And tell everyone about it

It doesn’t clutter your customers wallets and purses

A good loyalty program will strengthen you brand

And makes customers more engaged –

They become your brand advocates

It is easy to maintain – it’s all in one place

You can track results and see how your customers use it

Unlike traditional paper cards, it cannot be abused

You can tailor your rewards to your marketing efforts or vice versa

It is affordable and easy – it takes minutes to set up

If you want to find out more about how you can create your digital loyalty program with Blue Unicorn, have a look at what you can do with our loyalty app here.