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Without a clear understanding of exactly what you want from your promotions, it’s hard to avoid the temptation to copy, paste, and tweak your current plan to emulate your current performance. This risks reduced profit whilst damaging the brand, a situation we see too often with our clients.
A smarter way of working starts by determining a set of objectives. This is what is considered during the ‘direction’ stage of your revenue management framework – it’s the research around your competitive environment which feeds into your planning. Alongside these, winning manufacturers use shopper insights to shape and mould their promotional plan. This is built upon during the review phase, whereby you make use of your performance analytics for course correction. Used wisely, these external insights allow you to take your promotional effectiveness to the next level:
Think about who buys your product
Consider age, gender, price profile and loyalty habits. Not only this but think about competitors and allow their category of shopper to influence building consumer personas.
Consider customer loyalty
What other products within the category have my shoppers purchased? How strongly do factors such as pack format, brand, or specific SKU drive their buying behaviour? How competitive is the ‘sphere’ that I currently operate in?
Opportunities for cross promotions
How does my product play a part in the consumer’s total transaction, how can I make it easier for them and are there any opportunities for cross promotions? This is the tactical way to make the most out of your promotions.
Marry external insights with existing knowledge
Winning manufacturers are those who combine these external insights with existing internal factors to drive a greater return. With the additional use of predictive analytics, you’ll ultimately come to make more informed decisions.
Consistently monitor
Often the missing link in managing promotions effectively is post-evaluation. Utilising analytics from past performance whilst considering your new programme can change the direction of your promotional performance.
Promotional effectiveness is an ongoing cycle of continuous improvement. Rather than a trial and error approach, take it as ‘evaluate and adapt’. Use insights into who buys your product, what drives sales, and competitor behaviour in order to take your promotional effectiveness to the next level.
How this contributes to ‘Working Smarter’
Often people perceive working effectively as driving efficiencies within what they know, however the most effective ways of working can be found by taking a step back and thinking differently. Utilise this thinking and combine insights from different channels. The key here is to access insights which highlight the levers influencing positive customer behaviour. Gather these insights, as they’ll allow you to understand the performance of your promotional levers, so ultimately you can spend more time analysing them to inform your future decisions.