The Path to Efficient Trade Promotions

Much like the media realm, the consumer product landscape is becoming increasingly fragmented. Competition is rising, new channels are developing and choice is rampant. The combination of these and many other factors has retailers and manufacturers shuffling myriad promotion options to best publicize their products and boost sales.

The results, however, are largely ineffective and often lead to losses rather than gains. To make matters worse, few folks have realized that it takes more than offering additional deep discount programs to increase promotion efficiency.

From a business perspective, it’s critical that companies—manufacturers and retailers—get in front of this plight facing America’s consumer product goods (CPG) industry. That’s because they’re collectively spending millions of dollars to promote products and getting little—or negative—in return.

There are, however, ways to turn things around. The key, as with many business challenges, is understanding what’s not working and using data and clear strategies to get back on track.

Promotion Efficiency is Trending Down

It’s true. America is pretty bad when it comes to trade promotions—or at least in terms of getting a positive return on that investment. And what’s more, the problem is getting worse. That’s because in many cases, companies are simply trying to regain their footing by increasing the frequency of their promotions, cutting prices lower or offering deep discounts more frequently. Unfortunately, these tactics, without clear insight into what will and won’t work, are going to create a bigger problem than exists right now.

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