Overview of the Situation
A chilled foods manufacturer needed to sell in NPD along with existing brand range to symbol groups as the start of a major retail partnership programme for the following year. Having launched various products in the past eighteen months to varying levels of success, there was a need to improve their initial installation.
The Problem They Faced
The manufacturer needed to gain commitment from the symbol groups initially to ensure sales revenue, but also to support the conversations with retailers, so they could provide a sales history of the range. With confidence wavering from the retailer, not delivering significant initial and repeat sales would make conversations more difficult to have for the products long term future in the retailer estate.
They knew that the products would generally be displayed on the shelf and with limited above (and below) the line advertising, customer knowledge of its existence would need to be support by staff interaction on the shopfloor – therefore it was vital to have sales-led conversations with store staff so they could carry the message to the customer.
The Causes of the Problem
The lack of knowledge and general apathy to new products from retailers who are already dealing with significant approaches each week means that products don’t get a lot of time to prove their worth and to maintain their listing. Without local discussion to educate and influence, there would be limited understanding of the product positioning and the benefits to the consumer.
The Impact of the Problem
Failing to gain significant traction would see wasted investment in NPD, research as well as brand and trade marketing and a clear inability to further sell into other retailer groups. A lack of sales would result in limited revenue immediately as well as greater difficulty in gaining commitment from other retailers for this range or other products from the manufacturer.
The Promise / Plan
Our solutions were designed to:
- Create a combined field and telesales programme which allowed for multiple contact points with decision makers to allow them to have multiple opportunities to order, and a way to overcome initial objections
- Connect both solutions to allow the brand to be sold in via telesales to symbol groups, with orders delivered through group supply chains and for warm leads to be handed to the van sales team within the independent sector
The Outcome
For the project, we delivered:
- Over 3.3k phone calls and >600 field visits across three waves of activity
- Approximately £28,000 of additional sales revenue
- 5% increase in distribution across the channel (with repeat purchasing occurring in >85% of stores)
- Annual forecast sales increase of more than £162k for the ordering stores in the two symbol groups
