At this moment, the food delivery industry is a living, breathing case study in consumer habit formation and motivation, writes, Collette Eccleston, senior VP at LRW.
Food delivery has become a major industry. From 2018 to 2019, meal delivery service sales grew by 41%Opens a new window . Beyond that, the meal-kits market alone is forecasted to reach $11.6 billionOpens a new window in 2022 – more than doubling its 2017 value.
In light of the social isolation measures designed to protect against the spread of COVID-19Opens a new window , food delivery services are more crucial than ever. Blue Apron’s stock recently soaredOpens a new window by roughly 500%, for instance, as grocery stores struggle to keep shelves stocked and restaurants close dine-in services. The company says it’s seen a significant increase in demand and is hiring more workers in response.
Beyond the increased demand for meal-kit delivery services, food delivery companies like Uber Eats, Postmates, DoorDash, and GrubHub are under a special spotlight due to people ordering food while staying home instead of venturing outside. These companies are fighting to build and reinforce loyalty with the customers and the restaurants that use their services.
In essence, these businesses have a unique and almost unprecedented opportunity to influence a change in consumer habits on a massive scale. The entire industry at this moment is a living, breathing case study in consumer habit formation and motivation.
Learn More: Gartner’s Consumer Sentiment About COVID-19 Report Analyzed: 8 Tips for MarketersOpens a new window
Harnessing the Power of Habit
By nature, it’s very difficult for people to establish new routines. This means it’s not so easy for marketers to entice them with major changes. But if sweeping changes are already causing us to make major adjustments to our lives, companies can benefit from those opportunities.
That’s exactly what marketers in the food delivery business have done. By seizing on habits that were already in place – or habits that are shifting in real time – they have been able to establish and reinforce new food delivery behaviors. There are a few ways they’ve done this:
- Offering solutions to new problems: First and foremost, these businesses are offering common-sense solutions to a problem that many people suddenly face.
- Automating new behaviors: It’s a well-known concept in social psychology that too many choices overload our cognitive resources. A meal-kit subscription removes that choice and gives people one less thing to think about, which is a welcome relief in times of uncertainty.
- Following the phones: Consumers are always connected to their phones, so a quick-tap food delivery service fits right into their normal routines.
- Relying on strategic partnerships: It’s much easier to form a new habit by piggybacking on one that is already established. Few habits are stronger than a daily Starbucks coffee or a Saturday morning McDonald’s run. Food delivery services will surely benefit from partnering with restaurants whose customers have well-ingrained habits – especially if the service helps consumers maintain their habits in the face of severe disruptions.
- Providing an easier option: Meal-kit services are especially adept at capitalizing on the fact that many people are tired of all the decisions and work involved in making dinner at home. They offer relief at a time when anxieties are running high.
All of these moves inspire high levels of consumer adoption in this industry, allowing it to take off quickly and grow even more as people practice self-isolation. This doesn’t guarantee long-term success, but this industry has never seen such a tremendous opportunity to win over customers at a massive scale — and it may never get the same opportunity again.
Learn More: Driving Marketing Precision with Customer SuccessOpens a new window
4 Marketing Hacks to Create New Habits
So what do these insights mean for your campaigns? There are four ways you can apply the same tactics to your marketing efforts:
1. Identify people’s pain points
More often than not, people get stuck in the status quo. Even when their usual way of doing something isn’t perfect, they can be slow to make a change. People are often so used to a habit that they’re not fully aware of what they find aggravating about their existing routines.
Your role as a marketer is to bring their attention to those pain points and then nudge them toward change by highlighting how your brand, product, or service is a better solution. A meal-kit service marketer at this moment, in time, might draw attention to empty supermarket shelves. This could prompt people to consider just how beneficial it could be to get fresh ingredients delivered to their doorsteps – especially if they’ve struggled to find the food essentials they need in their local grocery stores.
2. Build on existing habits
Customers might feel like you’re asking a lot of them if the product you’re marketing requires them to start something new. Instead, look for habits people already have that might dovetail nicely with what you’re selling. Currently, we’re all consuming a lot of news. What is your target consumer’s daily news habit? Can you build or become part of that pattern?
If your product is a new app, for example, you can set it up so that users don’t have to create a new account to use it. Allow them to log in using Google or Facebook. When they can access your offering by taking just a few quick steps, they’re much more likely to give you a chance.
3. Make the process as automatic as possible
Choices can create too much friction. Given too many choices, some people will simply freeze up and buy nothing. When you’re trying to change a customer’s behavior, you need to remove every overwhelming decision possible from the transaction.
Subscription services solve this problem perfectly by minimizing the number of customer decisions. Once customers opt in, the only decision left is when to opt out. This method works for everything from repeatedly shipping products in online retail, to employee 401(k) decisions. If the default is set to “yes,†then it’s more work to say “no.†I speak from experience: I signed up for physical therapy with a subscription-based healthcare service three years ago, and I never used it. Why didn’t I cancel? It was that much easier to keep it.
4. Reinforce new behaviors
New behaviors are likely to be repeated if they are reinforced. You can help your customers stick with them by giving them rewards, especially early on. These rewards can be financial, emotional, or social. For example:
- Financial: “After your first five orders, your next one is free.â€
- Emotional: Remind them of what they’re getting out of the service. Think of the feeling you get after sharing something to Facebook and receiving significant likes – it makes you want to feel the same way again, so you keep posting.
- Social: Use social media or other tools to connect people with other friends who are using your product. Nobody wants to be the odd man out.
Learn More: 3 Ways to Improve Your Attribution Efforts in 2020Opens a new window
The new value placed on food delivery services during this pandemic offers lessons for marketers in every industry. It has shown how brands can position themselves to offer critical short-term solutions with hopes of building long-term loyalties. Marketers across other industries should pay close attention and use it as inspiration to power their own success.