Who is the Audience for Grocery Store Advertising?

Planning a marketing strategy without understanding your audience is no different than taking a shot in the dark. Without a target, how will you hit your goals? If you don’t focus your messaging and place your advertisements strategically, how will you drive business growth? 

Sure, some folks might react well to your advertisements and patronize your business. That said, you absolutely must gain an understanding of your audience before you pay to run ads.

The focus of this article is precisely how to understand the audience of a particular traditional advertising channel: grocery store advertising. Look out for other similar pieces about different channels in the future.

IndoorMedia also has resources to help you understand your buyer persona, which is part of understanding the audiences for specific advertising channels.

Grocery Store Advertising

Before you spend any money on Cartvertising or receipt tape advertising, you’ll want to understand what you’re buying. Who goes to the grocery store? How much money are they spending? How often are they going? The answers to these questions will naturally vary from location to location, but luckily for you, general statistics are readily available. For more location-specific answers, you can work with your Cartvertising representative or RTUI representative to find out more.

What follows are some up-to-date, as of 2021, statistics about grocery shopping, specifically in the United States. As a whole, in 2019, Americans spent more than $650 billion at grocery stores across the nation. The average household spent about $120 a week. 

Recently, there’s been an uptick in online grocery shopping — this might worry you. Why spend money on shopping cart advertising if nobody is even visiting the grocery store? Well, in 2020, the online grocery market was about $89.22 billion. That’s roughly 13 percent of the total market; there’s nothing to worry about.

So, you know how much money people are spending at the grocery store. But how much time are they spending there, and who are these shoppers? Long-held gender norms still prevail: 76 percent of female consumers claimed to be the primary shopper in their household, compared to 58 percent of male consumers. Regardless of gender, these shoppers spend about 41 minutes in the grocery store per trip. Most shoppers are there on Saturdays (41 million Americans grocery shop on Saturdays), and the least amount of shoppers are there on Mondays and Tuesdays (29 million shoppers).

Here’s what you need to take away from these statistics, especially if you’re debating whether or not to run ads with Cartvertising or receipt tape. First, you don’t need to worry too much about gender in your messaging. While it seems that more women grocery shop than men, the difference isn’t too huge.

Second, it’s safe to assume that many people are indeed using shopping carts; they’re constantly seeing shopping cart advertisements. Think about it: $120 worth of groceries collected over 41 minutes, and that’s just the average. Unless all of these people buy costly items, that’s a little more than could comfortably fit in a basket, especially if you’re carrying it for nearly an hour.

Understanding Local Grocery Store Audiences

If the above statistics aren’t enough to help you decide whether or not you want to try Cartvertising, here are some tips on how to think about your specific local grocery stores and who shops them.

There are five different types of food retailers: conventional supermarkets, limited assortment supermarkets, supercenters, warehouse clubs, and convenience stores. Here are examples of each, respectively: Whole Foods; Aldi; Walmart; Costco; 7-Eleven. The stores most relevant for advertising purposes fall under the first two categories. These are the shops where people are spending those 41 minutes and $120. Focus on those stores.

Once you understand the differences between the five types of grocery stores, all you need to do is visit your local stores. Whether your town hosts a Whole Foods, Safeway, Rouses, Pioneer, HEB — whatever the regional chain is, drive on over there and take a walk inside.

Bring a notebook, or use the notes app on your phone. Take a look: what kind of people are here? Go a few times, on different days of the week, at different times of the day. Who is using shopping carts? How full are those carts? Do you see expensive items in those carts? Don’t be too nosy, and don’t invade anyone’s privacy, but achieve an overview understanding of what’s going on.

After you’ve run a few research sessions out in the field, as it were, you should have a very clear understanding of what’s going on at your local grocery stores. By then, you should be able to decide whether or not Cartvertising is suitable for your business marketing strategy.

One last thing to remember: shopping cart advertising rates are affordable and cost-effective. If your ads don’t seem to be working, change them slightly! Marketing is all about iterating.