In today’s competitive marketplace, shoppers have plenty of options. It takes very little effort to compare prices across various retailers. The connected consumer is a researcher: it’s now common to take a moment to check prices on a mobile phone before making even small purchases. In fact, a recent study found that an overwhelming 92 percent of shoppers said that they are “always” looking for deals.
In addition to keeping up with the competition, running smart promotions is an effective way to build brand loyalty, encourage repeat visits, and create a buzz about your brand. Accenture recently found that 95 percent or more of Millennials want brands to court them actively, and coupons have the most influence on them.
In today’s complex, omni-channel world, planning and executing a flawless retail promotion requires masterful orchestration across multiple departments, external vendors and agencies, and sometimes hundreds or thousands of stores. Getting the most out of your promotions strategy takes the right people, processes, and technology to avoid costly errors and productivity-killing extra steps. Are you starting to feel like the status quo way of running promotions isn’t scaling with your business? Here are six surefire signs that it’s time to invest in a modern promotion management solution.
You aren’t running promotions as frequently as you would like.
Are you losing out on the benefits of running frequent promotions simply because you can’t keep up? If it seems like the competition is running heaps of promotions every week, it’s because they are. To say that retail today is fast-paced is putting it mildly. Think lightning speed. If you feel like you need an accelerator to keep up, you’re right. A great promotion management solution will enable you to keep pace with the speed of business and outsell the competition.
You’re struggling to get all the right stakeholders to collaborate effectively.
Has the process of coordinating all of the key stakeholders become too cumbersome? To pull off each successful promotion, many different teams need to collaborate, from buyers to vendors and in-house marketers to ad agencies. The stores need to get stock and signage right. A misstep from any one of these teams can bring the whole promotion crashing down. Worse, it can anger and alienate customers, resulting in lost loyalty and potential reputation damage.
Your customers are complaining.
Imagine loading the kids into the car and driving across town, excited to get a great deal, only to find out that the store never received the stock they advertised in the flyer. In today’s social media-laden world, a single disappointed customer can share their story with thousands online in minutes. Conversely, a well-planned promotional campaign has the potential to score you priceless PR. Think about all the free buzz Amazon gets every time they announce a Prime Day.
Your inventory is stagnating.
Are you struggling with overstocks? Is your seasonal merchandise about to become irrelevant? Have the trends shifted, and you’re finding yourself with excess inventory? It happens, even with the best-laid plans. While promotions can be used proactively to drive traffic and revenues, they can also be an effective tool for offloading excess inventory. If you’re dealing less-than-stellar stock turns and stagnant inventory, a promotion management solution can be a great tool to help you free up shelf space for your best-performing items.
Your store traffic is stalling.
E-commerce has made it so easy to shop at any time, from anywhere, and from any device. Some retailers are seeing traffic decline at their physical stores as a result. Entice shoppers to visit stores for the instant gratification they feel when they get a good deal. Promotional signage in your store window intrigues passersby since most of us love to get a bargain. If your store traffic is stalling, it’s a good sign that it’s time to invest in a modern promotion management solution.
You’re spending your day doing duplicate and manual work.
If you work in retail advertising, marketing, or merchandising, then you probably love being innovative and creative. If you feel like you’re spending all your time chasing after people, fussing with spreadsheets, or doing manual data entry, then you definitely need better tools to help you work effectively. If you’re spending all day doing clerical work instead of looking at the big picture and affecting meaningful change, then it’s time to equip yourself with a modern promotion management solution that will centralize and automate the work of running effective promotions.
