Increasing the Impact of Your Point of Sale Marketing

Post-campaign Measurement: You need to do it.

Since you are reading this, I will assume that you would agree that making your products more noticeable than your competitor’s products is a proven method for increasing sales. Point-of-Sale (POS) marketing is perhaps the best means of informing shoppers that your product deserves their consideration. 

POS — when measured — is a competitive advantage.

My question of you, as a user and believer in the benefits of POS marketing, is this:

“Do you measure and evaluate the effectiveness of your POS campaigns after the campaign has ended?” If not, consider making post-campaign evaluation a key component of all of your POS promotions.

Here’s why.

Without post-campaign measurement, you won’t know what POS type is most effective for the products advertised at-retail using POS. You won’t have any data that will help you determine the best placement for your POS; and, you won’t have any idea what didn’t work. Finally, without measurement, it will be impossible for you to know the return-on-investment (ROI) of your POS advertising. We’ll talk more about this in a moment.

Look at post-campaign measurement this way:

If after measuring your POS campaign’s ROI, you have knowledge of what has been successful in the past; you will then be much more likely to recreate successful campaigns in the future. Measuring your POS’s impact allows you to drive more value into your POS spending.

On the other hand, failing to measure the impact of your POS campaigns means you will be relying on luck or guessing for future campaigns.

Simply put: Measuring the impact of your POS initiatives is a competitive advantage. Not measuring puts your products, your brand and you at a disadvantage.

ROI on POS: You need to know it.

Another question you should ask yourself, after your POS campaign has run its course is this:

Did your POS campaign provide an acceptable ROI? Although somewhat unlikely, it is possible that the #1 goal of your POS campaign may not have been an increase in sales for your product or brand. It is important to correlate sales information (such as revenue, units sold, etc.) to the cost of the POS campaign, because ROI is a good barometer to measure the market’s awareness of your product or brand.

An easy to implement method of determining ROI is to divide the revenue or units sold during the time the POS was in place by the cost of the POS and multiplying the quotient by 100 to arrive at a percentage.

For example, if your costs for a two-week POS campaign promoting your product were $1,000 and the sales during this period of time were $20,000, the ROI would be 2,000%. This result should be compared to your pre-campaign ROI goal to determine if the ROI measured met or missed your target.  You could also determine that the POS cost of each dollar of revenue was $.05 by dividing the POS cost by revenue. Whatever method you come up with, be sure to apply the same method to all of your campaigns in order to provide consistent, meaningful measurements.

You will, over time, determine that some of your POS returns an ROI that meets or exceeds your expectations, while others disappoint. As you hopefully can see, not until you understand the ROI of your various POS campaigns can you determine which POS provides the highest value for your product or brand.

Data that gives you an understanding of what works and what doesn’t and knowing the ROI of your various POS initiatives allows you to understand the value certain POS provides in certain circumstances. This too gives you a competitive advantage.

About OnTrak Software

OnTrak Software is a technology company that develops software solutions for beverage suppliers and wholesalers as well as consumer goods companies. Our software products help improve sales and business performance through the tracking, measurement and management of Point-of-Sale Marketing campaigns and materials including custom and permanent point-of-sale (POS) signs, custom beverage menus and beverage samples.

To understand how OnTrak Software solutions improve the impact and profitability of your POS marketing campaigns, please click this button: