There are many benefits of making shopper marketing a part of your business, of making your business more shopper-centric. But there is one benefit that we see again and again from our work with clients. Businesses that make shopper a part of the way they do business are far more successful at integrating marketing and sales activities than those that do not. How does shopper marketing help bring marketing and sales teams closer together, and what practical steps can you take to use shopper to help create better sales and marketing alignment?
How shopper marketing helps with sales and marketing alignment
Creates a common language
Sales and Marketing alignment is going to be difficult without a common language. The shopper is the ‘Rosetta Stone’ which helps connect the world of consumers to that of retailers. Consumer marketers must be able to express their goals in a way which can translate into product sales; product sales happen when retailers support brands in ways that encourage shoppers to buy products. So, shoppers link consumer activity to retail off-take.
If the consumer team can clearly articulate (and quantify) the specific change in consumer behavior that they are targeting, then that can be translated into a required shopping behavior. If, for example, the consumer goal is to drive penetration among teenagers – i.e. get teenagers to drink something they currently do not – then someone’s shopping behavior needs to change too. That change in shopping behavior can be understood by shopper marketers, and in turn explains what a sales team will need to do (for example, to make changes to the in-store environment to encourage moms to buy a certain product for their teenage kids, or to get teens to do it for themselves).
How to use shopper marketing to help sales and marketing alignment
Focus on behavior
While the use of a shopper link creates the possibility to translate consumer marketing speak into something sales teams can understand, it only goes so far. In our experience a focus on behavior is key to link consumer to shopper to retail. Facebook ‘likes’ are all very well, but sales teams (and, to be honest, pretty much everyone!) finds it hard to connect this to sales numbers. But if the consumer team speaks of changes to consumer behavior, that translation is a lot easier for everyone to comprehend. Consumer marketing teams must be able to clearly identify what changes in consumption are being targeted. Which consumers are going to consume differently, and how will that consumption change. A change in consumption behavior is easier to translate into a change in shopping behavior. And it is easy to understand the impact a change in shopping behavior will have on sales. Without a clear understanding of consumer and shopper behavior, sales and marketing alignment is a lot harder.
Align KPIs
A focus on behavior, and a connection between the behavior of consumers and shoppers is a good start. But sales and marketing alignment needs more if it is to be sustainable. To keep teams working in the same direction, there needs to be an alignment in KPIs, too.
Different functions have different KPIs, and so they should. After all they have different roles to play. The ability to connect a clear and quantified consumption opportunity to a specific shopper objective is crucial as it makes it possible for shopper marketing teams and sales teams to have KPIs which go beyond driving sales numbers. KPIs which encompass making specific changes in the retail environment, which in turn are tuned to changing a specific shopper’s behavior – the same shopping behavior required to create the desired change in consumer behavior. Different teams have different KPIs, relevant to their role. A KPI measuring consumer attitude and behavior: KPIs measuring the behavior of target shoppers: KPIs detailing specific changes to the retail environment. All different, and all owned by different functions, but aligned behind a common goal – driving brand consumption.
Integrate Plans
If the plans don’t fit together, then don’t expect the execution to gel either. Many organizations create a marketing plan, and then build in the rest of the commercial team on a needs basis. Start with a consumer plan by all means, then build in the shopper and trade components. But don’t sign off the brand plan and then force fit the rest. No plans are signed off until all the plans are complete and aligned.
Allow constructive tension
Don’t expect everyone to agree on everything. That would be a bad idea. It is perfectly possible to disagree and then reach alignment afterwards. KPIs help this process, as does a common language. Different functions have different roles, and different goals, and that’s OK. Tension is good as long as nothing snaps. And that requires dialog.
No-one died through over-communication
Whilst “loose lips can sink ships” in war time, have a think. How many issues in your business can you think of that were caused by too much communication? How many by too little? Exactly.
Less meetings, more purpose
More communication yes, but please, not more meetings. Meetings should be brilliant ways to create sales and marketing alignment, but often, they aren’t. Most meetings don’t work. So, don’t start with meetings. Start with meeting. There’s a difference. Meet, discuss. Compare and understand. Then work out what needs discussing and agreeing on a regular basis. Then arrange meetings around those regular discussion and decision needs.
Cross-fertilize
Get marketing people to work in sales. And vice versa. Not for just a month either. The best way to learn a foreign language is to go to that country. The same thing goes for different functions.
Create integrated ways of working
Define processes which require integration. A lot of business processes are brilliantly complex and comprehensive for the most part, but don’t specify the why, what, who, when and how of communication. The output might be brilliant but if it isn’t shared it isn’t leveraged.
Measure interaction
When we first work with a client, to assess how a business functions, we use an online survey tool, EngageAssess™. EngageAssess™ checks the quality of processes being used, but also checks a number of other measures. One of those measures is the communication of outputs. We can map inputs used in an activity with the outputs of other processes received. For example, if a trade marketing process requires three specific inputs, we measure if they exist, and if they are used. We measure what is created, what is shared, what is received and what is used. The disparity between one team who say they communicate something, and the other functions who say they receive it (let alone use it), is amazing. If integration is important, then measure it and make communication part of the team’s KPIs.
…and reward it
If, as a manager, you want integration, measure it and reward it. Don’t just reward sales, or market share, or award gongs: reward the behavior you want. Give prizes for “best integrated work”, or even “most effective meeting”.
Sales and marketing alignment – However early you start, it’s too late!
Plan early. Share early. Whatever you are doing now, imagine what would happen if you’d shared a month earlier. Perhaps six months earlier. How much more input could you have got? How many obstacles would have come up earlier, giving much more time to plan, more time to communicate, share, and understand.
Take action towards sales and marketing alignment now
There are simple steps that anyone in business can take to start this process. Be it designing new ways of working, investing in shopper research, or merely making a commitment to meet more regularly with your peers in other functions. Share your progress and challenges in the comments below, and we’ll try to help.