Marketing at-Retail Analytics - Everything You Know Is Wrong

Do you have the Marketing at-Retail analytics you need to better reach your targeted customers and measure and influence sales of your brands and products?

Not too long ago, information and advertising technology almost always favored big corporations, big brands and big advertisers. Because the technology favored a small number of well known products, the standard message approach was “one-to-many”. In the ‘60s, ‘70s or ‘80s, you had a good chance of reaching all of your target market if you placed one advertisement per night on ABC, CBS and NBC.

The explosion from three TV channels to hundreds has made reaching your intended market more difficult and much more expensive. As we neared the end of the 20^th century we were rapidly becoming aware that information technology had shifted from a “one-to-many” model to a “many-to-many” approach, and had the potential to become “one-to-one”.  

Everything we had learned the previous fifty years had become, fundamentally wrong!

So what does this have to do with what we call Point-of-Sale (POS), at-Retail, or Shopper Marketing? First, let me ask you to look at the broadest view of “advertising” that you possibly can.

If the brands and products you supply or distribute are sold at-retail, then the chances are good that they are marketed using a combination of traditional broadcast and print advertising. But, if you are like some suppliers, you probably have been shifting your marketing budgets away from these traditional buys to better alternatives, including POS.

Is this is a good thing? Are you astute and smart to do so?

Yes, it is good, and yes you are smart for making the shift. However, just as advertisers started to demand more impact and ROI measurement of traditional media buys, they are now demanding more measurement of Marketing at-Retail. Placing displays and signage in the aisle, and hoping for the best doesn’t cut it anymore. Advertisers want proof that “whatever advertising is being used” really works.

Previously, POS advertising was, at best, a shot-gun approach — aim down the aisle where your brands and products are displayed and fire. Hopefully you came close enough to your target customers that you might hit them. Today, advertisers want their message to hit the desired target with the accuracy of a sharpshooter’s bullet.

The shift away from traditional broadcast and print media and to point-of-decision placements also means a shift away from a cost per thousand impressions measurement (CPM) to a requirement to measure the actual cause and effect (impact) as well as the return-on-investment (ROI).What is needed to measure and determine the impact of POS is data such as the type of POS promotion, campaign duration, its “per piece” cost, incremental brand and product sales, margin dollars or percentages and a formula to calculate ROI.

So I’ll ask the question again:

Do you have the Marketing at-Retail analytics you need to better reach your targeted customers and measure and influence sales of your brands and products?

If you answered “no or I don’t know", please give us a call.

— Mark Fullerton

For more information, visit www.ontraksoftware.com/products or call 513-936-4037.