One Blog |February 28, 2012 | POS Tracking Software

Point-of-Sale Marketing Promotions - A Means To An End

Mark Fullerton

The primary goal of any Point-of-Sale (POS) marketing promotion should be to generate mores sales, period.

Why else would you invest the money you do in POS Marketing?

Why POS?

Ask any sales manager or owner of an alcohol beverage distributor if they would be willing to stop producing and providing “free” POS materials to their retail customers.

We’ve asked this question many times over the last few years, and no one has ever said “Yes”.

Sometimes we’ll get the answer, “I wish I could stop, but if I did, the other guys would eat my lunch — They’d take my share of the cooler or floor space.” Often we’ll get the answer, “Hell no!” Several times, we’ve even received emails outlining the distributor’s belief that while POS is necessary to promote sales, it is a “necessary evil”.

When you dig deeper into why some wish they could stop giving away free POS, or why they see POS as a “necessary evil", we typically get the response, “The cost of POS is going through the roof”, or “I don’t know what’s going on out there, or what sales return I’m getting for the POS investment”.

Most of these comments are said with a tone of frustration and here’s why:

POS is often a distributor's second largest expense and has continued to increase over the years
While total POS expenses may be known, the impact on sales results is rarely, if ever, measured
POS expenses seem to be highly resistant to management and cost containment

Changing Relationship with Suppliers

Historically, distributors didn’t have to be that accountable to suppliers, or to themselves about POS expenses. For years, all a distributor had to do was to ask the supplier for a POS allowance and it was usually given. This attitude toward POS seemed to work well until a few years ago when suppliers decided it was time to shift more and more of the costs for creating and printing POS to the distributors. This has been described as the supplier’s need to “source cash downstream”.

This year, suppliers have again pushed more cost to the distributors for POS promotional materials. At the same time, many suppliers have initiated lucrative recovery or bill-back programs. In order for the distributors to participate in these recovery programs, they must conform to the supplier’s POS accountability requirements.

Any distributor who is unable to track and measure POS campaign data, would not be able to accurately report that data back to the supplier, and therefore claim all the available supplier recovery dollars. Without documented proof, the distributors may find themselves receiving only limited recovery amount, or no recovery at all. Those distributors who try to manually document and submit POS bill-back claims may find it can take up to four or five days to compile the information needed for the claim. A very costly activity.

There is a Solution

Here’s the best part. We have a solution!

Through the use of OnTrak's POS Marketing Management tools, distributors can not only improve the impact and profitability of POS Marketing initiatives, but also increase the amount of supplier bill-back recovery.

While your list might differ, here are a few reasons for using POS Tracking Software: