How can you make sure that you reach the shelves of the biggest retailers? How can you increase brand awareness and customer loyalty? How can you promote your products efficiently?
Trade marketing is the answer to all of those questions!
Trade marketing is a B2B form of marketing that allows brands to promote their products to retailers, wholesalers, and distributors. Unlike shopper marketing or in-store marketing, trade marketing doesn’t focus on the final buyer, the consumer. Trade marketing focuses on improving the supply chain and making sure that products are on the shelves of retailers.
Some brands choose to work with wholesalers, instead of communicating and selling directly to retailers. For most big brands, distributors are also involved in the picture, to make sure that product demand is being met.
When did trade marketing become so relevant?
While being misunderstood by some, trade marketing has a bit of a history. While back in the 80s the manufacturers (or brands) had the power, during the 90s the whole retail sector evolved and retailers became important pieces of the puzzle. With that, trade marketing grew and it began to help brands promote their products and gain market share.
Trade marketing started to become essential when FMCG brands started to deal with some pressing issues.
Some of those issues were:
Media fragmentation
Back in the day, brands were able to communicate to large masses on 1 or 2 channels. As technology evolved, it opened the door to many channels, including social media. This had a major impact on brands. With the help of trade marketing, brands can communicate with the retailer and convince them to purchase the products which are going to be sold to the final customers.
The appearance of retail chain stores
In the 70s there were a lot of small shops where brands and manufacturers presented their products. Since big chain stores appeared, it was a necessity for brands to be able to put their products on those shelves. Trade marketing helps brands create a connection with retailers and gives competitive advantage to those who implement an efficient strategy.
While trade marketing is essential for brands, most of them still haven’t found the ideal trade marketing strategy. There are numerous trade marketing challenges that brands face constantly and there are some ways in which they can tackle them.
Trade marketing challenges
1. Lack of research
While you might sell to a retailer, you still need to take into consideration the final buyer. After all, if the shopper doesn’t purchase your product, the retailer might not make a new order from you.
One of the biggest problems in this area is the lack of relevant data. Apart from knowing your revenue, ROI, and the number of shoppers, you don’t receive relevant data during your trade promotions.
Like any other challenge, this one has a solution.
What is the solution?
Invest in tools that can offer you more relevant data so that you can analyze it, observe what it is not performing, change it, and check again. Like in most cases, trade promotions are a trade and error kind of scenario.
2. 50% of trade promotions don’t work
More than 20% of the total revenue of brands is invested in trade promotions and half of them don’t break even. This is a big challenge for brands because a failed trade promotion means wasted money and even a wasted collaboration opportunity.
Most trade promotions fail due to the fact that brands still use outdated in-store promotions solutions like POP displays. These old school tools no longer seem to attract the demanding attention of customers. Therefore, your promotions go unnoticed.
What is the solution?
Innovate! Follow up on trends and tech and find a trade marketing solution that can truly showcase your trade promotions.
Tokinomo is the right solution that can make your products promote themselves. By combining sound, light, and motion technologies, Tokinomo offers you the possibility to bring your products to life and make them engage with consumers.
While a regular campaign (with POP displays) can increase sales by 50% (in the best scenario), a campaign with Tokinomo lifts your sales by 200% on average!
3. COVID-19
Let’s face it: COVID-19 is a challenge for most sectors. While Retail might have seemed untouched in the beginning of Spring, now you can see the damage this pandemic has done to retailers and brands alike.
Brands had to say goodbye to retail events and sampling campaigns which led to a decrease in sales. As we’ve mentioned earlier, outdated in-store marketing tools don't attract shoppers as they used to. How can brands promote their products effectively?
What is the solution?
Apart from catching the attention of the customers, Tokinomo also communicates with shoppers without the need of any human interaction. Since your products can talk for themselves with the help of Tokinomo, you don’t need somebody to present them.
This way, you engage with your customers directly at the POS without actually being there or hiring a promoter to do it. Simple to use, yet much more effective, Tokinomo can help you increase your revenue and raise awareness at the same time.
Trade marketing is the bond between brands and retailers, but the most important purpose for both of the players is to please the final customer. There are a lot of challenges and bad scenarios when it comes to trade marketing. This being said, with the right solutions, brands can please retailers, promote products, and engage with customers without worries.
Want to solve your trade marketing challenges? Drop us a line to find out how you can get Tokinomo to promote your products.
