301. Look for & Close Category Gaps to Win at Retail

0:00Welcome to day 29. Begin with the market basket and work backwards. Make it easy for shoppers to find and buy your products wherever they shop. If you've been following this series, then you're already thinking differently than the average brand. You now understand your consumer, your retailer, your story, and your execution and the competitive landscape at a much deeper level. And that leads us perfectly to today's topic, one of the most powerful, highest leveraged strategies in the entire challenge. Close category gaps by making the shopper's journey effortless. Most brands think that they understand their competitors.

0:34They keep an eye on innovation. They watch price points. they scan promotions calendars at a high level, but that's surface level thinking. What I'm talking about is developing intimate competitive knowledge, the kind that lets you anticipate their moves, sees category patterns before anyone else, and positions your brand where the growth is inevitable. And the best part, doing this also helps you uncover the gaps, opportunities, and blind spots inside every category you compete in. This is where your brand begins to stand apart. Why category gaps matter? Retailers don't care about your product.

1:10They care about how you solve a shopper's problem, how easily shoppers can find what they want and what they need, how the category performs overall, how efficiently their shelves convert traffic into profit. When you're the brand that brings forward these insights, especially gaps in the category, retailers listen. Why? Because you're helping them win. Today's lesson is about showing you exactly how to uncover those gaps and position your brand as the missing link customers are searching for. Start with the shopper needs states. A need state is the real reason a shopper enters a store. It's the problem they're trying to solve.

1:46It's the mindset that drives their decisions, and every category has multiple need states attached to it. For example, the cold and flu need state is remedies, tissue, hydration, comfort foods. A healthy lunchbox is clean snacks, drinks, healthy portable meal solutions. Post-workout is recovery, protein, hydration, electrolytes, and functional foods. When you understand the need state behind a shopper trip, you can unlock the most valuable question you could ask. How do I make it easy for this shopper to find everything they need, including my product? This is the heart of closing category gaps, and it's where your creativity begins to matter.

2:25Reverse engineer the shopper journey. Now it's your time for the strategy that separates elite brands from everyone else. Start at the checkout line and work backwards. Look inside the shopper's market basket. List every complimentary product they purchase along with yours. Then ask, where did they pick up each item? What path did they take? How many departments did they have to walk through? Where were they focused to hunt for something? What slowed them down? What confused or frustrated them? Confusion kills conversion. Clarity drives sales. Your job is to map out the entire journey and remove any friction point.

3:02This is where category gaps become obvious. Items that should be merchandised together but aren't. Categories that lack solution-based signage. Stores that separate complementary products. Departments that don't reflect how shoppers actually think. Promotions that ignore the full basket and focus on a single skew. Wherever the retailer is making the shopper work harder, you found your opportunity. Create collaborative basket building solutions. Once you identify all complimentary items, there are endless ways to collaborate with other brands and retailers to close gaps and drive category growth.

3:37Here are a few high performance examples. Number one, cross-brand promotional flyers. Create a one-page flyer featuring every item in the basket, each brand offering a small incentive. Shoppers instantly see the complete solution. Retailers love the category lift. Each brand gets exposed to new, highly qualified customers. Number two, themed end caps or solution displays. Not the generic holiday displays retailers do, but something original. Healthy mornings made easy. Immune support aisle. Fast, clean family dinners. Your brand becomes the anchor of a larger shopper solution. Number three, multi-brand digital or social campaigns.

4:17Drive traffic into the retailer by By collaborating with basket friendly brands, share audiences, share storytelling, shared education, shared offers. Retailers crave this level of partnership. Number four, in-store navigation support. You and the complimentary brands create aisle violators, wayfinding science, shelf talkers, QR codes for recipes or usage ideas. All reinforce one thing. We make this easy for you and shoppers respond instantly. Why the solution works so well? Because this strategy accomplishes everything retailers want. More foot traffic, higher basket size, a competitive advantage, better shopper experiences, simple execution with a big upside.

5:00And it does one thing your competitors rarely do. It puts the shopper first. And perhaps one of the greatest benefits of a strategy like this is it multiplies the lift exponentially. When you think like this, holistically, creatively, strategically, you separate yourself from brands that are just pushing units. You become a problem solver, a category builder, a retailer's secret advantage, the brand that makes their job easier, and retailers reward brands that make them look good. Here's a quick example why this works and the impact it can make. Working with a brand recently, we developed a strategy that followed this exact playbook.

5:38We merchandise products based on shopper needs states within the same category. The result was that category that retailer outperformed every other retailer nationally, and we grew category sales without using the pricing promotion lever. This is what being a category leader looks like. We delivered a creative strategy that gave the retailer a significant competitive advantage by leveraging the strength of our brand. It also highlighted how we used the strength of the brand to drive more traffic, larger baskets, and greater conversion than the number of shoppers converted to category buyers. This is where all your training comes together.

6:14Everything you've learned in the 30-day series. Your story, data, customers, execution, competition, community, KPIs now feed into this. Become the brand that identifies opportunity, closes gaps, enlists the entire category. That's what a true category leader does. And once you show up this way consistently, retailers will never see you as just another brand again. They'll see you as an indispensable partner. Some final thoughts. Look for gaps. Fill the gaps. Help the shopper win. help the retailer win, and you'll win every time. Next up, we're nearing the final sessions of this challenge. The strategies ahead will tie everything together so you can execute with confidence, clarity, and consistency no matter the retailer or the category.

6:59Let's keep going. For additional inspiration, listen to the following podcast episodes. Episode 89, Solid Digital Brand Building Strategies for Success with Madeline Hayden of Nutpods. the importance of having a solid digital brand building strategy. Digital strategies give brands an equal voice against the largest competitors, leveling the playing field. The ability to create a connected community united around common needs, beliefs, and values is the most powerful way to amplify your brand's voice. And then listen to episode 93, Bridging the Gap Between Perimeter and Center Store Equals Sales Success with Doug Brent with NatureMade.

7:37Profitly Bridging the Gap Between Perimeter and Center Store Snacking has changed the way people think about meals, sometimes as a meal replacement. Shoppers want healthy options that they can trust from authentic brands. Produce is the bridge in the center store. Success favors brands positioned to meet shoppers needs. And then listen to episode 258, Proven Strategies to Drive Sales Growth at Retail with Scott with Enzymatica. Want a significant sustainable competitive advantage? Retailers want and need actionable insights that they can't get from other brands. Savvy retailers might even reward those brands with incremental opportunities.

8:16Become an invaluable retail partner. Tip of the day. Begin with the market basket and work backward. How can you make it easier for shoppers to find and buy your products wherever they shop? Thank you for listening. This episode has accompanied video with illustrations and additional information that I can't share in an audio podcast. You can watch it at retailsolved.com slash 30-day challenge. You can get the show notes for this episode by going to retailsolved.com slash section 301. Tomorrow's episode is your retail's partner, Key Trends to Know. This episode will build on today's conversation.

8:52Want more sales? How to profitably scale a food business today, tomorrow, and beyond. Here's this week's free downloadable guide. The 30-Day to Prosperity Workbook is a companion to the 30-Day Challenge. This Retail Solve Blueprint will teach you what you need to know to confidently grow and scale your brand, build a connected community of loyal evangelists, and multiply your brand's impact, sales, and profits. Every slight improvement means more runway for sales growth, higher brand evaluations, better terms when negotiating with investors, fuel for more innovation, greater support for mission-based causes, and much more.

9:25Thanks for joining us today. Please reach out and share your most pressing questions, and I'll do my best to get you the answers that you need on future episodes, including expert advice from CEOs and industry thought leaders. Comment, leave your questions, and get this week's free downloadable guide and the show notes at retailsolved.com session 301.