Measuring the ROI of at-Retail Marketing - Does Anyone Care?

Does Anyone Care?

We Do!

Countless studies show that at-retail marketing and point-of-purchase promotion materials are critical to stimulating and increasing sales, especially in the alcohol beverage industry.

But if they’re so critical to distributors and suppliers, why don’t the companies who produce and place the marketing materials at retailers and restaurants have a system to measure and manage the impact of their marketing efforts?

More importantly, why don’t they have an easy way to quantify the return-on-investment (ROI) that they get from their at-retail marketing campaigns and materials? Why they are unable to answer the key question: How much of an increase in sales results was achieved by making a specific investment in point-of-sale marketing?

Alcohol beverage distributors and suppliers spend hundreds of millions of dollars each year on point-of-sale signage, menus and samples. At certain times, retailers and restaurants might be able to tell distributors that more money ended up in the till, but where’s the real connection between the marketing campaign and the sales lift? Right now, alcohol distributors, suppliers and retailers are only measuring success based on the cash register - what was sold or purchased. But that’s like steering a boat by looking at the wake.

Do they know what motivated the buyer to buy? More specifically, did a marketing campaign and its associated materials that were placed at the point-of-purchase cause an increase in sales, or not? If it did then continuing the campaign might be beneficial; but if it didn’t, then perhaps the campaign should be stopped or modified, immediately. Without measurements how would you know how to manage this process?

The primary reason such measurement and management has not taken place is because the tools to perform such an activity previously didn’t exist, or required time consuming, manual effort.

There's good news.

Today, beverage distributors and perhaps suppliers, have access to new software tools that take away the guess work and precisely measure the impact of at-retail marketing campaigns and materials. These types of solutions actually correlate the effect that point-of-sale marketing or point-of-purchase promotion has on sales. They tell the beverage distributors, and ultimately their suppliers, if they are getting the maximum ROI from their point-of-sales (POS) marketing dollars for:

• Custom and Temporary Signs - Gauge the performance of your signage, sales teams, suppliers, brands, and locations and then correlate those factors to your POS investment
• Permanent Signs and Displays - Securely manage and control permanent POS inventory
• Beverage Menus - Ensure full maximum performance from your sales team and compensation from suppliers
• Beverage Samples - Total control of your sampling programs -  what beverage was sampled and where; who sampled it and the customer’s tasting response