INTRODUCTION
For CPG industry, retailers play a great role because they are the touch point to the shopper and consumer. There are approximately ~14 million retail stores in India [1]. All these outlets differ in their monthly sales, location, SKUs, footfall, format, size etc. This requires the organizations to develop strategy for promotion, and sales unique to the outlet. When we talk about BTL or Below-the-line, it focusses on a targeted audience ensuring the content and location line up as clearly as possible with the intent of these potential customers. They typically provide better ROI and tight control. There are multiple types of BTL activities including the following: [2]
With the rising need for personalization and customization, there has been a great shift in the spending from ATL to BTL activities in various industries. CPG organizations are known to be the biggest spender (~21% of sales) [3] in marketing activities (ATL and BTL) among all the industries. These budgets are typically a primary target for cost saving and therefore, shall have a higher ROI. To get high ROI, it is important to use the right strategy for the right store. For example: You shall not have BOGO offer on Ariel Matic in a GT store located in a slum area, or You shall not install a free trial activation for new diet coke variant in all self-service stores as it may cost you a lot but offer low ROI. Therefore, there is a need of prioritizing Outlets for BTL activities and utilizing spends effectively.
OUTLET SEGMENTATION
According to BCG’s “Re-imaging FMCG in India”, there is an opportunity for the CPG organizations to transform their GTM model. The strategy should involve better partner management by developing channel segments and prioritizing them for product portfolio mapping and resource allocation.
Trade spends accounts for about 25 to 30% of total revenues. They can be optimized with outlet prioritization. Now, the question is how do we segment and prioritize our channels/outlet.
As per the same article, there are 3 ways to segment outlets. Basic level is based on retail format, Intermediate level is based on Business and Lines per Month and advanced level is based on Sales Mix (SKU, Category, Values).
FRAMEWORK
According to L.E.K. Consulting’s article, the 4 steps to improving trade promotion programs involve assessing trade promotion options as the final step. This includes assessing various options involving decision about the mode of promotion.
Today, most organization have a TPM and TPO system established but there is an opportunity to think about additional feature of prioritizing outlets based on various structured and unstructured data. This holds a great importance especially in the Omnichannel format that the organizations are moving towards.
Chaitali Bansal
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