One Blog |February 13, 2012 | POS Tracking Software

Measuring the Impact of Point-of-Sale Marketing - The Holy Grail

Mark Fullerton

A prospective OnTrak customer said to me recently, “I don’t believe the impact of POS can be measured, so why should I adopt a system that claims to be able to tell me what graphics and messages are the most effective?”

He continued, “I know I have to produce and place a ton of POS materials, but the main reason I do that is to prevent my competitors from dominating the retail space with their signs and messages.”

In prior blogs, we’ve discussed a number of opposing views on POS Marketing:

POS marketing is defensive - to prevent the competition from dominating the retail “white space” with their graphics and message
POS Marketing must be an offensive weapon - to inform, influence and convert shoppers to buyers

Our view is that POS marketing materials do influence buying behavior — usually very positively.

If you believe the current Industry thinking - more than 70% of buying decisions are made by shoppers while they are in the store - you might be more willing to accept that tracking and measuring produces data that shows the actual performance of your at-retail marketing campaigns. Armed with this information, you would be able to determine which graphic displays and messages were most effective in converting shoppers into buyers.

On the other hand, if you believe that buying decisions are primarily made because of pre-store marketing, then no amount research and results to the contrary will convince you to find merit in a product that helps track, measure and manage marketing at-retail campaigns.

Regarding our prospective customer’s doubts, they are understandable. His beliefs are based on his experiences. Until recently, the marketing data that could be used to measure the performance of at-retail campaigns was generally unavailable, very expensive to acquire or hard to come by.

Today, there are numerous resources which confirm that at-retail marketing is very effective in converting shoppers to buyers. Evidence supporting this conclusion has recently increased considerably thanks to the efforts of organizations like POPAI (Point of Purchase Association International) that collect and compile news stories, articles and research, and then make them readily available on their website.

In addition, there are now powerful, on-line tools that can help, not only determine the impact of point-of-sale marketing campaigns on sales, but also compare the cost of the point-of-sale campaigns versus the incremental sales generated. These web-based systems calculate the return-on-investment (ROI) for these same POS marketing initiatives.

The Result

Once you know the most effective displays, signs or placement, and the most effective message, you can begin to focus your marketing budget for the greatest impact. With complete POS life-cycle tracking and cost reporting, distributors now have all the data they need to receive the maximum, allowable bill-back recovery from their suppliers.

I guess my next step is to introduce our prospective customer to POPAI’s website so that he can tap into nearly 75 years of at-retail marketing experience.