Marketing at-Retail - Working Better, Not Harder - Part 2

Part 2

Immediate Access to Sales Information (Revenue, Case-equivalents or Margin)  

In Part 2 of this blog, we’ll look at the first of two demand generation team requirements within a typical alcohol beverage distributor; and how Internet access to the needed information brings benefits to all team members.

Current Situation — Ask your self the following questions:

• What are the current point-of-sale or menu programs that the distributor or suppliers are promoting?

• What products offer or require the most distributor support?

• Should we consider a larger Marketing at-Retail commitment, financially, for this customer?

• How do we know that the signage the customer is requesting will likely increase sales of our products or our brands?

Without access to vital promotional and sales information alcohol beverage sales representative are flying blind. New product launches are happening all the time. Advertising themes are introduced regularly and new graphics are made available to distributors every week. Distributors may incent their representative to sell new products and brands at an almost dizzying rate.

Without access to sale, marketing and product information it is nearly impossible for the sales reps to keep up to date. Keeping the demand generation team current is one of the biggest time consumers and headaches from one day to the next.

The Solution

As OnTrak customers have discovered, Internet access to sales and promotional information is a competitive advantage if for no other reason than it keeps the demand generation team members all on the same page. Having promotional materials information centralized and available on-line via OnTrak applications allows the team to work together more effectively and efficiently.

From a sales perspective, order errors are eliminated; time-to-market is compressed; more time is spent selling; and less time is spent in order taking. From the graphics department’s perspective, on-line promotional materials ordering helps them make sense of their daily work priorities and work-flow; and they can be more responsive as a result. Using an automated and integrated system gives you the current status of every important Marketing at-Retail customer or product initiative.

Because OnTrak applications are secured, management controls access and grants permission to those users who need to work with specific functions and information. Supplier chargeback reporting, for example, would not even be an option for an outside sales rep, who deals almost exclusively with customers, not suppliers.

Using OnTrak applications, it's easy to set up collaborative sales teams who share an up-to-date version of a new product’s sign template. The result - The message in your market remains consistent. This way you can measure the impact of a market-wide message to determine the resulting bump in sales. In other words, you can more easily and effectively manage what you measure. You have the data at your fingertips.

In Part 3 of this blog, we’ll look at another information requirement, and see how Internet access to this information provides benefits to all team members.

Go to Part 3.