How well do you really know your customers?

It's a question you're likely always asking, answering, and revisiting to stay ahead. But in today's hyper-personalized retail landscape, if you haven't updated your personas based on real customer data, you could be missing out on the next-level insights needed to deliver truly exceptional shopping experiences.

“Shoppers are looking for retailers to provide a more personalized shopping experience, customized to their local demands and trends,” said Grant Gustafson, Retail Consultant at Sensormatic Solutions. "It’s really important for retailers to understand who their customers are and their shopping patterns.”

With the right collection tools and approach, you'll be able to more accurately identify who your customers are, what they want, how they shop, and how to deliver it to drive engagement and increase sales.

You probably have personas based on focus group testing, surveys, or an engagement with a consulting firm. All those data points are valid and useful — but they're also likely out of date. Today, shopping preferences can change overnight, so retailers may want to consider building personas off of data that's collected persistently, not data that's based on a single moment in time.

One way to achieve that is with video technology with object-detection capabilities, like Computer Vision analytics. By tapping into a store’s existing camera network and using AI-powered analytics, Computer Vision monitors shopping activity to help retailers understand customers' ages, genders, and even sentiment to build more detailed shopper profiles. Everything from when a customer enters the store, to the paths they take to how long they linger in front of promotional displays can be tracked, collected, and analyzed to inform brand messaging.

An accurate shopper persona, based off details like these can help you anticipate the needs of shoppers in the future, creating the kind of helpful, personalized shopping experience that drives engagement.

Shelf-level insights can then be combined with aggregate traffic data to compare buying behaviors and customer trends between locations.

“ShopperTrak analytics provides the ability to add store attributes such as store type, or even location type to more easily compare business segments,” said Stan Hopkins, Associate Director, Retail Consulting at Sensormatic Solutions.

These details can help you identify a dominant persona for each location, allowing you to more effectively tailor store layout, hours, and amenities to align with each area’s target profile.

For an even broader perspective on traffic patterns and performance, retailers can also access the Sensormatic Solutions Market Intelligence Index.

“This unique solution comprises over 200,000 devices that we have deployed counting footsteps every single day globally,” said Jeanne Ingersoll, Subject Matter Expert, Shopper Insights at Sensormatic Solutions. “This aggregated data is utilized to compare store and retailer performance to that of the market. So if you’re a retailer and you have access to this information, you can benchmark your performance to that of what’s happening around you.”

Understanding where your customers go before and even after the store, is critical to crafting more accurate personas. Consider it background character work. It may never make it to the page, but without it, your personas will never come to life in the way you need.

Tools exist today to help you track which stores customers frequent in the same shopping trips that also take them to yours. Knowing where else they like to shop in your area can lead to new cross-promotional marketing opportunities or help you better anticipate their headspace when they enter your store based on where they're coming from (or where they're going next).

Closer to your store, yet still outside its bounds, parking lot data can help you fill out customer profiles that prefer buy online, pick up at curbside (BOPAC), for instance, or track vehicle frequency to enrich your loyal shopper profiles.

“Having insightful analytics into your customer can help a retailer make more informed decisions across their entire organization,” said Gustafson, “Driving a more strategic approach to store design, product allocation and placement, labor optimization, and even targeted marketing campaigns.”

Personalization is the name of the game. Being able to accurately anticipate the needs of your customers and deliver exceptional customized shopping experiences is critical to staying competitive.

Traffic data is an invaluable source of information that, when fully fleshed out with object-detection video, can contextualize your shopper personas in new and exciting ways. With a more detailed portrait of who your customers are, you’ll be better able to address their needs and deliver the kind of personalized shopping experience they crave.

Contact us today to learn more about all the ways traffic data can help elevate your customer personas.