Applied marketing: sales tactics and strategies
Did you know that in the case of distribution businesses – even though the marketing and the sales managers know in theory how to increase sales with up to 20-30% – the practical implementation of these ideas fails in 80% of all cases due to the limitations of the informational system used by the respective company? And this is because the above mentioned managers do not know what business software tools can be used to shape the marketing mix at a highly detailed level. When they do choose a Sales Force Automation (SFA) application, their attention is focused only towards the basic components, i.e. the automation of the presales activity, the elimination of errors and the control over the sales force activity.
Whereas in the FMCG or the pharmaceutical businesses – two highly dynamic verticals – marketing has been “driving” the sales for years, in the “technical” sector, comprising the distribution of a large number of industrial SKUs and products, has known a rather slow evolution. The latest mobile terminals (smartphones, tablets), unveiled in the recent years do fulfil the technical requirements (processing power, memory, storage amount) needed for implementing “large number SKUs in the product portfolios” as part of the SFA solutions on the mobile terminal. This way, technical industries can benefit from the marketing and sales strategies that have been optimized for a long time within the FMCG business.
A sales manager will often focus mainly on the sales activity itself and will overlook aspects related to applying the marketing strategy and its appertaining tactics. Market segmentation, scanning the competition, adapting the offer to the client category, adapting the prices, focusing on best-selling products or linking the targets and bonuses thereof to the focus-products in order to motivate employees, are just a few of these aspects. Due to the lack of specific instruments to help implementing such tactics, they rarely get put into practice. In many cases these are neglected or left up to the agent. More advanced sales stimulation elements, such as shaping the buyer behaviour and using combined promotions, are even harder to put into practice, in lack of the right software tools to sustain them.
Below you will find out more about this and about the 8 levers you can use to shape an effective sales process for your business by implementing an effective SFA such as the HERMES Evolution. Here are the suggested steps:
(1) Segmentation of the targeted market by setting client categories according to several practical criteria (for instance according to the type of shop, rural/urban) and defining the sales seasons on the basis of previous experience. Segmentation of the offer by adjusting it to the type of client (target market) and season, by defining the product categories we intend to use for winning over each market segment (client category) by using the product lists suggested by HERMES.
(2) Market scanning by collecting data about competition (shelf presence, price, visible promotional items) using the merchandising questionnaires provided by HERMES Evolution. After analysing the collected data, the areas to be addressed with priority as well as the targeted products are identified.
(3) Price adaptation according to the addressed market segment (client type) can easily be done by defining special price lists and discounts for each client category.
(4) Focusing the sales agents on best-selling (driver) products. For instance, top 10 products that generate the largest sales every season combined with new products that need promoting are included on the focus-products lists, those which sales agents need to focus on. Practically, by defining the focus-products lists in HERMES Evolution, with every order the agent takes on field he must also go over the screens showing focus-products, a good opportunity to include these products in the current order.
(5) The motivation of employees so that they focus more on these products is possible by connecting sales targets to the focus-products lists. Hermes Evolution enable you to define more types of targets: value related, quantity related or based on numeric distribution. By monitoring numeric distribution you can check whether your agent sold a minimal number of products, for instance at least 8 from 15 distributed products.
(6) You can make sure not to miss sales due to shops being out of stock with regard to your best-selling products. In this respect you can use the stock collection function in HERMES Evolution for the products enlisted on the focus-products lists, which then allows you to control the optimal stock in shops.
(7) Shaping the buyer behaviour for a particular season by activating the order suggestion in HERMES Evolution. The order suggestion can provide an average for the last visits according to the colleted stocks. At the beginning of the visit, you can suggest a starting order, a set of products and quantities, which the agent can validate or adjust according to the needs of the customer.
(8) Stimulating sales “on the field” by using mixed promotions for groups of products and by offering bonuses at the client’s free choice, as elements to be creatively used during the negotiation process.
If the information provided was of interest to you and you wish to have a meeting with a Transart specialist in order to find out how the HERMES Evolution system can help you to shape the above mentioned levers, but also to find out about the other benefits provided by a SFA mobile solutions, please fill out this form!