Month: December 2021

Proposition – A ‘P’ added by Unilever’s framework

December 23rd, 2021
A proposition emphasises the USP of any product. Crafting a simple, focused and clear winning proposition can be complex and time taking.

A framework to derive your brand’s USP

Consequently, marketers and sales teams strive to extract learnings from the past, and drive bigger and better innovations for the future. A successfully crafted proposition creates an imprint in the target consumers’ minds to the point that they think of the brand synonymously with the product. Example: The brand, Vaseline and the product, petrolatum, Sharpies and permanent markers, Band-Aid and adhesive bandages…
Chapstick and lip balm

Kleenex and facial tissues

Popsicles and Ice lollies
The USP may be product purity, awards associated with the product, value for money, a cause that it stands for etc.

For some brands, it involves creating a narrative around the product. Its aim could be to educate the shopper, to awaken an emotional response or a call to support a mission driven cause. Eg: Tony’s Chocolonely, whose mission is a 100% slave free chocolate.

Most companies focus such propositions on their star brands and SKUs. This way, the benefits of customer loyalty and sales could even extend to different, newer versions of the same product resulting in a sales boost of the overall product category.

How do you communicate your value proposition?

These days, the proposition is most commonly communicated on e-commerce sites, whether that is the retailer’s site or one that is direct to consumer.

In store, proposition is often communication through shelf barkers/talkers. Gondola end displays are used as well.

Stocking hero SKUs near or at check-out counters is another way to augment brand visibility and communicate proposition.

Crafting succesful propositions

So what are the elements of great value propositions? We have 5 for you to consider.
1. The rule of 3: Propositions that sell more than three benefits often fail as consumers and shoppers fail to see the key benefit. Also, consumers/shoppers start questioning the assertions of the proposition and consequently trust the brand less.
2. Emotional or mission driven appeal vs functional benefits: Focussing on a brand’s functional benefits commoditises the product and makes it easier for consumers to switch brands. To maintain share and to encourage more consumers to buy your brand, focus on the emotional or mission driven aspects of the proposition. Mission driven brands have been shown to retain market share even in the most challenging of circumstances.
3. Include consumer and shopper benefits: Often times, the shopper is different from the consumer. For example, when parents go shopping for breakfast cereal for their children or when a woman buys shaving products for her male partner or when a man buys feminine care products for his female partner. It is key for the proposition to appeal as much to the shopper as the consumer.
4. Sustainable differentiation: Ensure that your proposition remains relevant for the long term as well as the short. If your point of differentiation focusses on the problems of today and is not expected to be relevant beyond a certain period, your brand is likely to lose appeal beyond that period.
5. The value proposition for your customers (for those brands that are not just D2C): The above 4 elements are often well thought through as a part of the organisation’s marketing and innovation process. However the value proposition for the customer is less thought through and often purely financial in nature. An effective customer value proposition combines both financial and emotional considerations and is often laid out when the customer is evaluating a brand or a SKU for listing at stores.
If you’d like to learn more about crafting successful value propositions for your brands, email me on veena@salesbeat.co
Process – A newer addition to the traditional 4Ps

December 16th, 2021
So you have a great product and you have defined and validated your target audience(consumer segment). How do you deliver your brand/SKU to the customer(brick & mortar/online) and make it available for your target consumers to buy? The next P, Process, covers this aspect.

The sales process followed in any organisation influences execution in store and how the brand/product is perceived by the consumer. As for your customers, it is crucial to make sure you’re easy to do business with, meaning you’re efficient, helpful and timely.

The sales process followed directly impacts execution, including delivery of your brand/SKU to customers, in-store availability, placement on shelf, how communication with the customer is managed, new product launches and so on. An effective sales process will include all aspects of the 7Ps and describes the series of actions or fundamental elements that are involved in delivering the SKU to the customer, for the consumer to buy.

By making sure your team has a good sales process in place, you will also save time and money due to greater efficiency, and your standard of service to customers will remain consistent and high, which is excellent for developing a great brand reputation and to build a great relationship with the customer.

The more seamless and personalised your sales processes are, the happier your customers will be. Customers typically feel frustrated or dissatisfied by late shipping, additional costs, poor communication or a lack of support and when brands/SKUs run out of stock in store.

Every part of the customers’/consumers’ journey has to be seamless and efficient.

Regularly assessing, adjusting and adapting your sales processes will help to structure your sales efforts so that your team can function at optimal efficiency. A great way to do this is to borrow from the tech industry. Map your customer and consumer journey on a regular basis. How does your brand get to the final user? What are the various steps in the journey to the final user/consumer and what process do you have in place that facilitates this? Prioritise elements that overlap with the customer/consumer experience.

The more specific and seamless your sales processes are, the more smoothly your sales teams can carry them out. If your sales team isn’t focused on navigating procedures, they have more time to build great customer relationships, enabling the business to grow.

Some elements to consider are as below:
- Is your customer carrying the right levels of stock? If too little, how much more needs to be ordered and why? If too much, how can you help the customer reduce this before stock needs to be destroyed/written off?
- Is your logistics solution cost-efficient and timely? What does your scheduling and delivery logistics look like?
- Will your customers run out of product at critical times?
- If you are an e-commerce business, do items ship reliably from your website?
- How often do you meet with the customer’s team and how do you communicate price changes, POS artwork changes and packaging changes to customers?
- What technology do you use? How can your customer access it? Do they need access?
If you get more than one complaint about any element of the sales process, understand what’s going wrong and develop a solution.

When you get your sales process right, your sales team will
- be more productive, manage more customers and also have better relationships with customers as a result.
- maintain or gain market share for your brand. Fewer customers delist your brand/SKUs as your team responds immediately to consumer needs/feedback.When people love your products, they experiment less and so remain loyal to your brand.
- receive feedback from customers and consumers, and ensure it reaches relevant decision makers within the organisation. Feedback helps you change what needs to be changed, and helps your business grow.
- sell and deliver the right volumes of your brands/SKUs so your customers are neither overstocked nor understocked.
This includes any technology sales teams use in their normal course of work. This ranges from sales intelligence solutions teams use to calculate sales volumes through to merchandising apps that monitor shelves.

If your sales process is efficient and any sales technology you use is in keeping with the process and with market conditions, your brand thrives and so does your business.

If you’d like to learn more about how to set up an efficient sales process or how to maximise sales team productivity using the right sales technology and tools, email me on veena@salesbeat.co
Product – the most important element of retail execution & the marketing mix

December 9th, 2021

Product is, probably, the most crucial component of the 6Ps. It originates directly from your consumer through an unmet need that they have.

This can be a physical item, a service, a platform or software. It is produced at a cost and is made available to the target audience at a price to help fulfil the need. Whatever the nature of the product, it always follows a lifecycle. A company can increase its competitive edge by ensuring a thorough understanding of the potential lifecycle of the product for proactive launches of product extensions or timely re-launches. Re-launches help the brand/product to remain relevant in a changing market or at the end of its lifecycle.

Product lifecycle

The 4 commonly used stages are introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

We like the hubspot model as it breaks this down into 6 stages – development, introduction, growth, maturity, saturation and decline.

Development: The development stage of the product life cycle is the research phase before a product is commercially launched for wider consumption. In the FMCG context, this is when the innovation team develops/conceptualises the product and the branding in collaboration with the R & D team, with key consumer focus groups providing feedback.

Introduction: The introduction phase is when a product is commercially launched. In the FMCG context, this is when marketing teams begin building product awareness amongst consumers and sales teams reach out to potential customers. Typically, when a product is introduced, sales volumes are low and demand builds slowly. This phase is dominated by advertising and marketing campaigns educating both the consumer and the customer (supermarket/wholesaler/distributor etc).

Growth: During this stage, consumers have accepted the product in the market and customers are beginning to buy in. This is the stage when competition begins developing.

During this phase, marketing campaigns often shift from getting customers’ buy-in to establishing a brand presence so consumers choose them over developing competitors. Additionally, as companies grow, they’ll grow distribution at existing and new customers.

Maturity: Once the brand/product gains strong foothold in market, it enters the maturity phase, with gradual slowdown in sales. The brand/product is already the market leader and demand grows only at the replacement rate.

Saturation: This means that a majority of the brand’s/product’s target households will own or use the product. At this stage, sales grows more or less on par with population. Price competition becomes intense and the brand/product teams focus on retaining shelf space and even their listings at stores.

Decline: If the product/brand doesn’t become or retain its position as the preferred brand for consumers, it enters the last stage – decline. Usually, this happens to strong brands only in the case of industry transformation. Eg. Kodak. Sales will decrease during this time and the only way to win at this stage is to innovate and launch a new or transformative solution.

It goes without saying that functionally, the product must be able to perform its function as promised and it must be available when the consumer needs it.

At this moment in time, availability in store is proving to be a bigger challenge than others. This is driving consumers to look towards what they already have for solutions and in the cases of some products/brands, is speeding up the onset of the ‘decline’ phase before the products/brands even get to the ‘saturation’ phase.

Why is availability at risk?

2021 has been a challenging year for the grocery sector. While the HGV crisis was not specifically driven by the pandemic, it only made it worse. This has caused unprecedented levels of stock outs in supermarkets. And then there is the legacy of COVID on consumption behaviour.

Covid has had a lasting impact on our lives, from the increase in home based working (driving higher consumption of toilet paper and cleaning products at home vs the office) to cooking meals at home instead of eating out (increased demand for oil, salt, cooking ingredients at the supermarket vs at wholesalers/distributors to the on-trade). People have realised that cooking at home during the pandemic has helped significantly with savings. The same goes for consumption of beer, wine & spirits at home instead of at the on-trade. These are behaviours that are expected to last, especially as the impact of price inflation is felt at home.

The above changes, combined with just in time ordering and production followed by retailers and by suppliers in this sector is putting pressure on availability.

As 2020 demonstrated, at one point, availability trumps price and brand loyalty. And, at the risk of using an over tired idiom, out of sight, out of mind.