Promotions in retail stores are one of the most effective tools to improve performance, making up 10-45% of total revenues. Although this strategy is powerful to boost sales and margins, it's a challenge to foresee the results due to highly variable performance.
The lack of understanding on which promotions are working and why that's happening contributes to this variability. Research conducted by The Boston Consulting Group indicates that 20-50% of promotions do not generate either discernible boost in sales or dilute them.
Source: BCG Analysis
For a greater understanding of the impact of retail store promotions, apply key marketing techniques while developing promotions. It is also important to communicate with retail managers and their staff because their insights may be helpful for you.
These are 5 ways to make your promotions more effective in-store:
Communicate clearly with retail managers
If you have relationships with tens or hundreds of stores, it is very easy to experience miscommunication issues. Inefficiencies appear, thus impacting revenue and leading to conflicts between headquarters and retail stores. To combat the problem, you'll want to communicate the promotions program to retail managers and keep channels open:
- Give retail stores training to let them know key features and all about the promotions.
- Detail incentive programs, special pricings and sales contests.
- Explain to retail stores how to push your products and increase ATV (i.e. push, up-sell, cross-sell).
- Get feedback from the stores to find ways to improve your product, positioning or other information that may help the ROI.
Communicate effectively with the stores
It's not just about communicating clearly with retail managers, but also how you communicate. To do it effectively, use a platform that provides the following features:
- It allows you to share micro-content or small chunks of information with the stores and their sales people.
- It has an organised and user-friendly interface that helps eliminate the learning curve and boost productivity.
- It creates a repository of all the content so it's accessible any time and that it's ordered from the most recent to the oldest, most read, etc to make it easy to navigate.
Not only do you create a positive experience by providing easy access, but also ensure that they learn and stay up-to-date on every single one of your current promotions and related product features.
Reach sales associates remotely
Now it's time to teach their sales teams and enhance both their effectiveness and efficiency. You'll want to:
- Develop an onboarding program for the retail store's sales people so they learn the features and benefits of your products.
- To teach in a fun and efficient way so their sales team enjoy a learning process that makes them feel motivated and empowered.
- In-person training sessions to educate and interact with their sales associates.
- Ongoing training so you make sure that the products are positioned just like you want in front of the eyes of customers.
Enable retail managers to become better trainers
It's great to help retail stores' sales people sell your products. Despite of that, you won't be there forever, so you have to give to retail managers educational support. The goal is to help them communicate what they have learned from you. Arming them with that knowledge and making sure they know why your products are better than your competitors is crucial to help them close sales.
Besides, you have shared with retail managers the promotional marketing content. Therefore, you also need to teach them how to leverage it at the right time of the sale. Then they will teach it to their sales team to make it easier for them to sell.
Transparent and two-way communication with retail managers
In retail stores, they have direct contact with the customers each day. They hear the questions, their problems and their needs. Therefore there are chances that retail managers know the consumer in ways that you don't.
Real insights from the field are powerful. Keep the communication flow constant, open and transparent with retail managers. Their knowledge trigger marketing actions and relevant training content topics or event to get you have to a "eureka" moment. Knowing exactly what type of content is valuable to your consumer means increased customer engagement and positive ROI for your company.
Give retail managers the tools they need so you can grow your brand effectively and build trust with their staff and customers. Resources and knowledge will give them the confidence to push the sales you expect.
Apply these five ways to boost your promotions in your retail stores to have a positive impact on overall performance. The right tools get employees motivated and increase satisfaction to influence the promotions coming from HQ. Keep them up with the latest in products, new offers, and changes to boost results.
