Make your trade promotions work harder – here’s how with Celonis

But for the retailers behind the promotions, it’s not always such a great feeling. While companies around the globe have doubled the amount of money they spend on their trade promotions over the past 10 years, Nielsen reports more than two-thirds (67%) that happen each year in the U.S. don’t break even.

Reduce trade promotion overspending

With $1 trillion annually spent on promotions, consumer companies need to reduce overspending and improve trade management if they want to maximize their ROI in an incredibly competitive market.

Trade promotions set out to increase brand awareness, take market share, and boost product penetration. When they don’t have those desired effects, companies tend to cut prices further and make promotions more frequent. That’s pouring oil onto the fire. Promotions won’t cut through if they simply scale up and fail to account for customer behavior.

Three focus areas to improve trade promotions

If Consumer companies can pinpoint where their promotions are going astray, they can create an effective strategy to please their customers and their balance sheets. Here are three areas to focus on:

1. Measurement: Consumer purchase data sits in various systems: internal financials, third parties like Nielsen and IRI, retailers, retailer-owned shopping data, loyalty systems, and more. Capturing and sorting that data will give companies a granular picture of what customers want – and when.
2. Stock: Companies have to ensure their supply chain can get the product to the customer. Failure to do that means lost sales and high dissatisfaction. It’s a tough market, so make sure your supply chain is in a fit state to deliver on customer expectations.
3. Consistency: Integrated software ensures trade promotions are consistent and effective. Open up siloed departments and their knowledge and data with technology to create powerful promotions.