POS Managers Belong on Your Company Management Team

Graphics or “Sign Shop” managers typically don’t make beverage wholesaler’s short list of key managers helping run their sales and marketing distribution companies.

The reasoning may go something like this:

“Why include the graphics manager, an often creatively gifted graphics technology and artistic type who spends his or her days in the sign shop — way over on the other side of the building — whose job it is to produce menus and signs and mostly remain quiet and virtually invisible?” “After all,” the reasoning continues, “Couldn’t we just outsource this function and get rid of the headache and cost of having a sign shop?”

It’s too bad for those wholesalers who think like this. Those beverage executives who think their graphics design and sign shop management pros are important players in their companies are about to be proven to be visionaries.

Here’s why:

Just as the “sign” has morphed into: POS, POP, Marketing at-Retail and now Shopper Marketing, the importance of marketing at-retail promotional materials has been elevated from a defensive-play after-thought, to an offensive-play driver of sales gains. Beverage suppliers and distributors alike have come to recognize both the tactical and strategic competitive advantage of Point-of-Purchase marketing in gaining market share and achieving sales goals. (See Notes)

Many beverage suppliers and distributors, plus other consumer goods companies have been paying attention to how sales are impacted by point-of-sale campaigns as compared to broadcast and print media buys. These same companies have taken a long hard look at the return on investment (ROI) of traditional marketing and compared to POS promotions — ROI is measured by comparing POS spending to sales lift.

Time and again, POS has been shown to increase sales at a cost and within a time frame that is significantly lower and shorter, respectively, than traditional marketing campaigns. (See Notes)

As the published data and their own experiences have supported the power of at-retail marketing, many companies have elevated the traditional role of the Graphics or Sign Shop Manager into a key role supporting both sales and marketing management. Many of these Graphics Managers have demonstrated that they understand their role in increasing their company’s top line; and that they can use technology to help their department cut costs, stimulate sales and provide actionable sales-driver information.

At a time when point of sale advertising and promotions at-retail have never been more critical to the survival, growth and prosperity of many companies, it is time for these companies to invite their Point-of-Sale Marketing managers to the Company Management team or at least to the Sales and Marketing Management team. 

The “sign shop guy or gal” may not be the most obvious candidate for joining your management team; but, the time is right to take a new view of POS and those who produce it.

To learn more about how OnTrak Software Solutions can help POS marketing manager go a better job, click this button:

    

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Notes:

”Shoppers’ Promotional Experience Study: What Shoppers Think About Promotions,” Consumer Goods Technology (2011);

“Shopper Marketing: Capturing a Shopper’s Mind, Heart and Wallet,” Grocery Manufacturers Association/Deloitte (2007);

“Delivering the Promise of Shopper Marketing: Mastering Execution for Competitive Advantage,” Grocery Manufacturers Association/Deloitte (2008).