POS Marketing - Focus on What Works to Achieve Your Business Goals

POS Marketing in the beverage industry means so much more than discounting and loyalty programs. It means managing, controlling and measuring the marketing at-retail process for ordering, producing and placing custom and permanent signs, beverage menus and beverage samples.

The decision to buy a beverage is made within seconds of entering a grocery aisle, or shortly after sitting down at a restaurant table. Only then is the effect of outstanding marketing at-retail clearly understood and appreciated.

If you are a supplier or distributor of beverages, for our purposes and our target prospects and customers, I urge you to write down at least one or two of the goals you have for your company. Looking over these goals of most beverage companies it is not surprising to see “growth” at or near the top of the list.

I’m going to assume growth means “more revenue”, and any elaboration on that theme would include the condition that top-line growth “will not come at the expense of the bottom line,” or would simply be stated as “improved revenue or profit.”

What POS Works?

In this blog we won’t come close to exhausting the subject of the importance of putting point-of-sale (POS) marketing materials, campaigns and promotions first.

Rather we’ll spend our time on suggestions that are focused on What POS Works. But don’t forget that POS initiatives are the key marketing measures you should be taking if your goals include “improved revenue and profit.”

The Consumer vs. The Shopper/Buyer

Much is written about the consumer. But it should be noted that the consumer is really only relevant to you if the shopper/buyer of your beverage is also the consumer. It’s not that the consumer isn’t important or relevant; it’s just that unless the consumer executes a shopper’s specific behavior, like choosing and purchasing your product from the retailer’s shelf, it doesn’t really affect your sales.

Without the purchase of your product, consumption just isn’t possible, obviously. This means that you must focus on the shoppers when they are at a place and time where and when they can and want to buy.  

If you’re a beverage distributor, your reps probably have it fairly easy getting orders from retailers for the products you sell. In fact, if ordering products was all there was to “success” in selling beverages to Kroger’s or Piggly Wiggly, you could argue you don’t really need an order taker. On-line order taking could certainly be employed simply to place an order for let’s say 144 cases of beer.

Your rep’s real value lies elsewhere — certainly as the retailer is concerned and perhaps even more so for you, the distributor. Assume for a moment your rep “sold” 144 cases of one of your products to your customer, the retailer. Next, think what happens if the retailer doesn’t sell your product to his customers - The individual shoppers who walk the aisles looking to buy all kinds of products, including yours.

If your products don’t sell, the retailer may simply ask you if he can return the products purchased from you and receive a credit.

Now, here, we’ve reached a point where we could provide much more information regarding the mind or even the habits of the shopper. For the purpose of this blog we won’t go into that.

Three Effective POS Marketing Strategies

If you’ll accept the fact that you do need a particular message at the point of sale in order to increase sales, we will present three effective POS marketing strategies you can employ. We’ll also suggest a method for demonstrating what POS marketing materials really are most effective and provide the highest ROI.

1. Establish Brand Affiliation

If you work for a beverage alcohol distributor in marketing communications, custom POS design and development, or in the sales department, it is important that you think about your POS displays as the “always-on” promoters of the benefits and value of the product you are promoting. If the product is from a well-known and successful brand, it is also important to associate the product being promoted by your POS initiatives/materials with the Brand.

2. Focus on the Product - Focus on the Reason to Buy

Every POS sign or display should be produced to achieve the goal of selling more of the specific product being advertised. Typically POS is not designed with the goal of strengthening Brand Identity or a Brand’s Message, especially if the product being promoted is from a well-known and popular brand.

If your POS’s primary purpose is to announce a new or lower price in order to stimulate sales of an existing product; or grab market share from a competitor; or to introduce a new product from a well-known brand; it is important that your POS focuses on the product and price as simply as possible, and not so much the Brand.  

If price is often used to sell your product, make sure the POS materials are as clear, clean-looking and simple as possible in identifying what is on sale, for what price and for how long. Product benefit messages are not important here, and they would actually distract from the selling point in this case - Low Price.

3. Bigger is Better - Less is More

Remember, when ordering POS for your retail customer, the product’s category and the number of products that you will be in competition with for the shopper’s attention.  If the product’s category has many items, it has been demonstrated by our customers that one or a very small number of large-scale impressions (signs) increase demand more than many smaller impressions with a similar message. Shoppers see dozens, often hundreds of POS messages per trip to their favorite retailer — and many shoppers tune out all but the biggest impressions.

The OnTrak Solution

Without tracking, measuring, and visual verification to prove placement, the above three strategies will, generally speaking, work in some fashion.

But you won’t really know what worked best or even when. Therefore, to optimize the effectiveness and ROI of your POS marketing campaigns, you will need a system to help you track, measure and manage your POS initiatives from ordering, through production, placement and replacement.

To learn more about the OnTrak Solution, please click this button: