Mastering the Art of Retail Sales Management: Strategies for Success
Unlock the Secrets to Elevating Your Retail Sales Game for Big Box CPG.
Summary
In today’s competitive market, where the lifespan of a brand on a major retail shelf is limited, effective sales management is essential. The rise of retail marketing, driven by advanced strategies and data utilization, emphasizes the need for a skilled retail management team with access to syndicated data and retailer customer marketing platforms. Crafting modern presentations involves collaboration across teams to leverage customer data and marketing insights, focusing on personalized strategies and a clear impact measurement framework.
Key Takeaways
Know Your Consumer: Understand both retailer-specific demographics and individual consumer preferences to tailor product offerings and marketing messages effectively.
Retail Marketing Revolution: Embrace advanced marketing and data strategies, incorporating personalized approaches, artificial intelligence, and omnichannel integration for enhanced customer engagement.
Sales and Marketing Enablement: Craft presentations collaboratively, leveraging customer data and marketing insights to showcase value propositions, personalized marketing strategies, and measurable impact.
Merchandising and Execution: Recognize the pivotal role of effective merchandising in big box retailers, creating visually appealing displays to differentiate products and drive purchasing decisions.
Post Program Analysis: Conduct thorough post-program analysis to measure the effectiveness of advertising spend, justify resource allocation, and foster ongoing collaboration with retail partners for sustained success.
In today’s dynamic retail landscape, the key to sustained success lies in effective sales management. If you are lucky enough to have reached distribution with a major retail company, the work has only just began. In a hyper-competitive market, your success on the shelf could be short lived.
According to Nielsen data, 85% of new items don't last longer than 2 years on shelf. The average lifespan of a brand on a major retail shelf can vary widely depending on various factors such as industry, product category, competition, consumer trends, and the brand’s ability to develop meaningful retail execution. your go-to resource for mastering the art of retail sales management.
Dive deep into proven strategies, insightful tips, and industry best practices that will not only boost your sales figures but also enhance the overall shopping experience for your customers.
Know Your Consumer (KYCo)
Different retailers may cater to distinct demographics or have unique selling propositions. Knowing your Consumer before gaining distribution can save you on costly execution and decrease your chances of overall success.
Know Your Customer (KYCu)
Just like any great sales leader, understanding the individual needs Retailer enables you to adapt your product offerings, marketing messages, and sales execution to align with the preferences and trends of the retailer.
Retailers all operate in their own ecosystems. Different retailers often have unique requirements, ranging from packaging specifications to labeling standards. Understanding these requirements ensures that your products meet the standards set by each retailer, avoiding potential issues or delays. As an example, Walmart has a SQEP (Supplier Quality Excellence Program) that penalizes suppliers and hold accountable for details like delivery times and complete orders.
The Rise of Retail Marketing
Major retailers are revolutionizing customer outreach through advanced marketing and data strategies. Personalized marketing is prioritized, tailoring messages using customer data. Artificial intelligence and machine learning analyze vast datasets to predict and optimize consumer behavior. Omnichannel marketing integrates online and offline channels for a seamless customer experience. Augmented and virtual reality enhance shopping interactions. Loyalty programs, informed by data insights, offer personalized rewards. Social media and influencer marketing remain influential, fostering authentic connections. These cutting-edge approaches define the modern retail marketing landscape, boosting customer engagement and driving business success.
Because of this, it is critical that your retail management team has the skill-sets and access to syndicated data such as Nielsen, Circana and SPINs, or has access to the Retailer Customer Marketing (RCM) platforms such as Krogers 84.51 Precision Marketing, Walmart Luminate and Alberston’s Media Collective.
Within each of these retailers and tools, sales needs to be able to craft category assessment, leverage for trade planning and understand the brand optimizations available to craft their execution strategy.
Sales and Marketing Enablement
A modern presentation involves a nuanced approach centered on leveraging customer data and marketing insights. Because of this, presentations need to be crafted leveraging and collaborating across your marketing, creative, analytics and finance teams to develop a strategy the not only drives velocity but makes a case for strong Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS). For a more detailed presentation strategy, check out “Crafting the perfect Retail Sales presentation”.
There are a few core components that need to be presented
Value proposition: showcasing how proposed products fulfill specific needs and align with the retailer’s brand. The integration of data-driven insights is crucial, showcasing a deep understanding of customer trends, preferences, and behaviors to inform marketing strategies.
Proposition: Personalized marketing strategies derived from customer data, such as targeted promotions or loyalty programs, aims to demonstrate the potential impact on engagement and sales.
Marketing & Advertising Spend: Emphasizing omnichannel integration ensures a cohesive customer experience across online and offline channels. Collaborative efforts, including joint promotions leveraging marketing resources, enhance the partnership and drive sales.
Impact:The presentation should provide a clear framework for measuring impact, defining key performance indicators like merchandising & execution goals, incremental sales value and other incremental sales driven by basket size.
Merchandising and Execution
The execution layer plays one of the most pivotal roles in the success or brands at retail and can be the most challenging given the multi-state, multi-unit footprint and the manpower needed to provide merchandising services.
Merchandising is the visual and strategic presentation of products within the retail space. In big box retailers, where the competition for consumer attention is intense, effective merchandising is a critical differentiator. It involves creating a visually appealing and customer-centric display that not only showcases products but also tells a compelling story. The arrangement of products, use of signage, and overall aesthetic appeal contribute to an immersive shopping experience. Merchandising in big box retailers is about more than just product placement; it’s about creating an environment that resonates with the target audience, encourages exploration, and ultimately drives purchasing decisions.
Because of this, teams need to know well in advance what the retailers in-store expectations. Which Point of Sale elements are available, approved and align with brand standards. Forecast expected sales and volume lifts to optimize stock levels, minimize overstock or stockouts, and ensure a steady flow of products to meet consumer demand, and meet the pricing and margin requirements to achieve target shelf price for and during promotional activity. Establish accountable KPI’s with your merchandising team and create a feedback look to monitor and track feedback from the field regarding compliance, successes and to document your efforts.
Post Program Analysis
A critically overlooked step in closing the Retail Management cycle is using the results of your sales and marketing programming to promote ongoing optimization, collaboration and the reasons that retailers should continue to select your brands over your competition. Communicate wins, be honest about misses and turn them into opportunities for further marketing and collaboration with your retail partners.
Internally, the post-program analysis can be used to measure the effectiveness of your advertising spend, justify or recruit further resources for future programs and help drive more predictable sales and volume revenues against the broader company goals.
