Building
Account-Specific Retail Relationships
By Don Peppers and Martha Rogers, Ph.D.
Smart
marketers understand that retailers are much more than just
the last link in the distribution chain. They realize they
must build powerful, one-to-one relationships with these
players if they are to capture the attention and address
the needs of consumers. One way they are doing this is by
devoting an increasing amount of their promotional budgets
to customized, account-specific campaigns. One study of
350 product marketers by Cannondale Associates found that
94 percent intend to increase their spending on account-specific
marketing in the next five years.
Considering
the heavy competition among product marketers for retail
shelf space, it is more important than ever to win the commitment
and mind share of retailers.
By
creating customized promotional strategies - encompassing
television, print, store displays and other media - that
influence customers and direct them to particular retailers,
marketers are finding they can strengthen these relationships.
The numbers bear them out. Market research demonstrates
quite clearly that focused promotions of this kind - as
opposed to simple mass media ad buys - will increase sales
considerably.
The
hard part has been execution. However, the emergence of
account-specific marketing agencies and powerful new sales
tools that facilitate such efforts is eliminating traditional
barriers. Companies like Stamford, CT-based Customer Marketing
Group (www.4cmg.com) have developed interactive sales tools
that enable company reps to sit down with retailers and
customize promotions on the fly.
CMG's
CD-ROM-based PromoWareTM tool, which is presently being
tested by Tropicana and other large packaged-goods firms,
enables reps to call up videos, marketing materials, consumer
data, and calculate likely promotion results. Working in
tandem with PromoWareTM, its web-based PromoLinkTM service,
it allows those same reps to access new marketing resources
and materials, as they become available, from a custom website
specifically built for the sales force.
Even
if you cannot cost-effectively create a one-to-one relationship
with the ultimate customer (or, at least, not yet), you
can create such relationships with retailers, one retailer
at a time. And a useful tool for doing this is the customized,
account-specific promotion.
For
more information, contact Bill McKinney at 203-226-9845
or write Customer Marketing Group, LLC at 7 Hill Farm Road,
Weston, Connecticut
