While many brands start the year with the best of intentions and set optimistic sales forecasts around peak shopping periods, there are times when the long-term planning required to actively boost consumer spend can slip down the priority list as more pressing day-to-day deliverables chew up valuable time.
With Father’s Day on our doorstep, and Christmas just around the corner, now is the perfect time to take hold of what your brand is doing to ensure every opportunity is maximised in the lucrative months leading up to Christmas.
Don’t be fooled into thinking that peak selling periods will automatically bring an increase in sales. If your brand isn’t geared to cope with additional customer service, distribution of inventory and tailored promotional materials, then you may be missing out on sales conversions and brand advocacy opportunities.
According to Andy Kirk, CEO of CROSSMARK, “Field sales and marketing agencies with specific retail expertise can work as an extension of your team, providing both tactical and strategic support. For brands and retailers who have existing internal teams, outsourcing to a field agency can be a more efficient use of resources, leaving the internal brand team free to focus on other important tasks like strategic decision making and nurturing client relationships.”
With so much to consider, following are four focus areas brands need to consider now to maximise Christmas sales:
Minimise out of stock issues: you can’t sell what isn’t there, so make sure retailers have your support during peak sales periods. CROSSMARK’s client teams have access to an internal BI team for data-driven deployment to maximise effectiveness and efficiency. This will ensure the retailer sells more, you sell more – everybody wins!
Grab shopper attention with product and campaign merchandising: make sure your product and brand stands out amongst the sea of options to help influence purchase. This is critical during Christmas trading periods when people are seeking specific items or gifting ideas. There is fierce competition for people’s attention during this time, making merchandising a key tactic to capturing opportunistic sales.
Maximise your sales and promotional days: Don’t let your Christmas campaign fall down at the last two metres due to poor store execution. CROSSMARK’s Speed to Market offering ensures you’ll be ready to execute a national campaign across 2,500 stores on Day 1.
Boost the consumer experience: minimise shopper frustration by making the overall shopping experience easy, achievable and fun. In-store experiences can be leveraged to win over customer loyalty and build brand advocacy. Aside from merchandising and stock management, a field marketing agency can help by deploying trained brand ambassadors. During peak sales periods, in-store brand ambassadors can be powerful advocates to help educate shoppers about your brand. They can also support a retailer’s floor staff by helping to ensure staff communicate your brand messages and train them on demonstrating your product correctly.
As bricks and mortar stores come under increasing pressure to deliver ROI, the sales and marketing execution during the seasonal sales rush often comes down to planning. Having the right level of support from a specialist field agency can help do a lot of the heavy lifting to ensure you are ‘Retail Ready’ to execute well and reap the rewards without the worry.
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