How to Improve your Marketing Retail Profits: Anyone involved in marketing has gone through their industry marketing data extensively, held the extended meetings, devised intense brand development strategies; all to solve the all-important questions regarding marketing allocations. Which advertising spectrum will most improve my sales conversation? Should I team with a manufacturer to develop POP displays? What about expensive TV and radio broadcasts? How do I increase customer awareness? What will give me the most profit ROI?



It is rather difficult to calculate ROI, simply because there is no real way of measuring what actually influences a customer's decision to buy. There are trends, and definite ways of increasing brand awareness, but without a flexible, multi-million dollar marketing budget, it can be difficult to gauge if marketing efforts are actually increasing customer awareness and product sales.

Mega-corporations have the capacity to employ these incredibly large marketing campaigns, designed to raise product awareness on a large-scale. Short-term ROI is hardly efficient however, and so this kind of campaign is not really an option for small and medium-sized companies.

However, this does not necessarily have to be a issue. Though the power of in-store marketing has always been understood, recent ROI data has suggested even greater potential than previously supposed. Nonprofit companies like POPAI and B&T, have demonstrated that customers make an average of 70% of decisions to buy while browsing in the retail store!

That is an incredible statistic, but it makes perfect sense. A customer can watch a visually powerful TV ad, but then not be in a place to make a purchase for hours, or even days. So the question is: why spend money on raising product awareness, when a customer is just not ready to buy yet? There are more effective methods.

There is one important factor in any marketing campaign, and that is the determining factor of recency. How soon after a potential customer saw your advertisement or marketing display were they in a position to make a purchase?

Subsequently, the most effective marketing method for small to medium-sized companies is "in-store" marketing, also known as POP displays. These Point of Purchase displays characterize the only marketing material that is in place when product, the money to purchase, and the client all meet at the same place and time. Now that is the time to delve into brand imagery and presentation of product benefits.

Though current "clean-store" policies need to be taken into account, retailers are always glad to receive POP displays from their product vendors. It gives them the ability to present to their shoppers a visually stimulating shopping experience. They are always looking for product presentation that is well-designed and crafted to make shopping for their customers a simpler and more enjoyable experience.

Be sure to hire the right marketing personnel, partner with an educated manufacturing firm, and design POP displays with intense visual imagery and excellent presentation of product benefits; therefore ensuring you have the resources to make the right marketing decisions. This is the key to improving your company's sales and profits.