Getting Maximum Benefit for your Point-of-Sale Marketing Investment

Through the deployment of Point-of-Sale (POS) Marketing Management Software, consumer goods companies, as well as beverage distributors and suppliers, can begin to track, measure and manage their Second Largest Business Expense  - i.e. shopper marketing, trade-promotions, at-retail advertising (See Note 1); and begin to enjoy the benefits of the investment in these type of solutions, immediately.

Benefit #1 — Financial Control

The first benefit companies realize is financial control through the massive reduction in production errors and the elimination of material waste. Companies are able to produce more point-of-sale marketing materials without adding staff, overtime and equipment.

With POS marketing management software, your marketing materials are produced more efficiently and your ability to recover available manufacturer’s rebates and allowances is transformed from a time consuming manual activity to a quick, automated process. Bottom-line: Better control of POS spending produces improved cash-flow management.

Benefit #2 — Sales Impact Analysis

Once POS Marketing Management Software is implemented, the next benefit to be realized is Sales Impact Analysis (SIA). For some companies, the previously mentioned financial benefits are so compelling they fail to move to this next level.

What would be the value to your company to be able to understand the effectiveness of your at-Retail promotional spending? Or the benefits you would realize if you could measure the impact of a point-of-sale marketing campaign on sales results? 

Sales Impact Analysis is the most important benefit to focus on once you have achieved the financial controls benefits provided by these solutions. Without SIA it is virtually impossible to measure your promotion’s effectiveness and its sales impact.  As a supplier, if you don’t know what you’re getting for your second largest business expense, you can’t achieve the substantial benefits that come when you are able to forecast the probable sales impact of your upcoming at-Retail promotions. (See Note 2)

Final Thoughts

Since this blog happens to be published on the OnTrak Software site, you would naturally expect us to blow our own horn and encourage you to contact us to help you select one of our POS Marketing Management Software products. And you would be right.

One of the reasons we conclude most of our posts with self-promotion is that we have been unable to find other tools that perform the same functions and offer the same potential benefits.

When organizations like Consumer Goods Technology, IDS and Booz & Co., survey the top consumer good companies (and many of them are beverage companies), they list the following as one of their top 10 promotion challenges:

>> The lack of a good management tool to measure spend effectiveness and promotion return on investment (ROI)

Apparently our tools and solutions need greater exposure. These blog posts are one way for us to get our message out. I hope you will help us spread the message.

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Check out the following references:

#1 - Consumer Goods Technology and IDC

#2 - Booz & Co.