By Shane T Williams at the LMG conference Dublin
Data continues to play a key role at Liquor Marketing Group (LMG) by providing insights at a store, state and national level. LMG Data and Insights Manager Ben Kizny Gordon addressed delegates at the 2018 conference in Dublin on how LMG use top line data to better understand their business.
“Using data to make decisions leads to better outcomes. The better information we can get internally, the better decisions we make. We can go back and see what has worked and what hasn’t
In a rapidly changing retail environment Kizny Gordon says the world is ‘changed by your example, not by your opinion’. This encapsulates the data insights program at LMG, “your example, the data, the proof we can get out of it. We need examples of what works and what doesn’t; it’s no good having an opinion on why it will or won’t work. We want to prove it, evaluate it and make sure it works,” he said.
LMG Category Managers in each state have access to this information to help better plan promotions, Kizny Gordon told the Conference.
“They are able to see how well a promotion is working, understand when products sell, what time of day and what day of the week they sell. We can start to get a feel for the core metrics, what’s driving growth. Was it more shoppers coming through the door or was it an increase in spend?” he said.
Kizny Gordon uses the premium wine program as an example of the way data can be used to see how a program is performing. With the introduction of the premium wine program, data shows a significant increase in the basket spend per shopper when they make a wine purchase from the program.
Kizny Gordon added: “Clearly they are buying more than just one bottle of wine; they’re buying a few other things. We know when we bring a more valued shopper in they want more than that one ranged product.”
Using data to analyse the premium wine program, LMG continues to experience an increase on the average wine spend, this went up 17.4 per cent on last year.
“We are premiumising our wine consumers. When a shopper comes in to buy a bottle of wine we are doing a good job of moving them up the scale and encouraging them to buy a more premium bottle of wine,” he said.
The use of data on a national scale allows LMG to build a profile of what a premium wine shopper looks like, what products they are more likely to buy and what products they are less likely to buy.
“The shoppers we bring in-store to buy from the premium wine program are a more valued shopper and when they send additional dollars in-store, it’s spent on buying other premium products from other categories,” conference delegates heard.
Insights can also be gained from other LMG programs like spirits and craft beer, “when we look across all these programs, not only are they bringing more valued shoppers in-store, their basket sizes are getting bigger, they spend more, buy additional products and are more likely to buy premium products from other categories”, he said.
Kizny Gordon also said that data and analysis is used to support individual LMG members with their sales performance, stock holdings and promotional effectiveness. Getting these national and store level insights from across the country allows LMG to better plan its promotional activity and support members.