The Essential New Item Checklist – The Recipe For Success
Daniel Lohman, CPSA
Natural Brand-Building Industry Strategic Advisor, True Category Management & Trade Marketing Expert, Podcast Host. Retail Solved Blueprint
New product innovation is the lifeblood of every brand. New products fuel sustainable growth, attracts new shoppers and increases brand awareness. Know the critical steps to get your product on more retailer’s shelves and into the hands of more shoppers.
The 11 Most Important Things Retailers REALLY Want
#1 A Consistent Clear And Compelling Brand Message
“You never get a second chance to disappoint a customer”
The strength of every brand is the connection you make with shoppers. You want customers to like, know, and trust your brand. First impressions matter – make every impression memorable.
Have you ever played the game where you share a story with someone and they share it with someone else and so on? Your story is unrecognizable by the time it comes back around to you. All brands struggle with this dilemma.
Every impression your brand makes on a retailer’s shelf, online, on social media, in the press, by brand ambassadors, and with every customer needs to include the same consistent authenticity, passion, and enthusiasm as originally shared by the founder.
Your selling story also needs to be compelling and inspiring. Genuine shopper loyalty is earned and not embossed on a plastic card. The true value of your brand to any retailer is the customer you attract.
This is the single most powerful point of leverage you have when negotiating with retailers. The customer your brand drives into their store is worth far more than the slotting and other fees they charge.
Most of the bad press, problems, or missed opportunities that cause brands to falter or fail are due to a lack of clear and consistent communication. This begins with your selling story. Your selling story needs to be an extension of your brand!
Your selling story unites shoppers around a common cause or community. Brands that build a strong and vibrant connected community have the ability to drive sustainable sales in both traditional and online retail. This is how you build real loyalty.
The side benefit is that your community can help guide you to create products they will want and will support. Every brand needs to own their customers – beyond a retailer’s shelf. This is the best way to do that.
Your brand story is the foundation you build your brand on – make sure it’s solid! Your sales story needs to be turnkey, and it needs to be baked into every aspect of your sales funnel and brand message.
Your TURNKEY SALES STORY STRATEGY will help you attract loyal shoppers, get your brand on more retailer’s shelves, expand distribution, improve merchandising, and help you understand what retailers REALLY want. It’s your roadmap to success.
#2 A Blueprint To Ensure Category Growth
We have all heard the expression that a picture is worth a thousand words. Especially pictures and stories that resonate with us and leave a lasting impression.
A picture is more impactful than charts, facts, and figures. It is the primary element in building trust with your shoppers.
“Shoppers can’t buy your products if they can’t find them.”
The first impression that most consumers have of your brand is on a retailer’s shelf. Most shoppers search for their favorite brand first. Make sure your product stands out on the crowded shelf. On-shelf merchandising IS your first impression!
You put a lot of energy into branding your packaging. Make it easy so current and future shoppers buy your products over the competition. Shelf merchandising needs to be consistent across every store and every retailer, especially at health food stores.
Poor product placement and confusing merchandising are the single biggest problem most brands face. You worked hard to get your products on the shelf – make it counts! Identify the prime location for your brand and validate it with fact-based insights.
Retailers use planograms to map where your products will be merchandised. Grocery stores are broken into categories of similar and complementary products. An effective brand-building strategy is to provide planogram/schematic recommendations.
There are a lot of creative and low-cost solutions available. Providing a visual merchandising recommendation will make it easy for retailers to say yes to your new items. This will help you LAND SHELF SPACE AND WIN AT RETAIL.
#3 Know The Health Of Your Brand
Small brands don’t have the velocity to compete against big brands. Traditional category management tends to overlook small brands as a result. Your brand health includes your contribution to sustainable category growth.
Small health-focused brands provide sustainable growth across almost every category. In their absence, most categories would be down or declining. I proved this in a feature article for the 2016 Category Management Handbook.
Brand Health ≠ Cash In The Bank
The real health of your brand is measured by the profitable growth it drives in the category. The real health of your brand is its ability to drives sales at a premium price. Premium products that are organic, gluten free, allergy free, that support a plant-based diet, etc drive contribution in the category – what retailers REALLY want.
The health of your brand is measured by it’s contribution to the category in the form of sales and profits. This is critically important to every retailer. They want to know that if they place your product on their shelves it will increase profits and shopper foot traffic.
While other brands brag about their product’s category ranking, you need to focus on how your brand contributes more to sustainable category growth than they do.
Most of the business schools and programs available to small brands are focused on how to get more funding to support your growth. Wouldn’t it make more sense to focus on getting the most out of the resources you already have? I want to challenge the notion that a brand’s CEO needs to be a perpetual fundraiser.
Better yet, brands that are able to capitalize on all of these points will have the sales to appeal to potential investors who offer more attractive terms.
The health of your brand is measured by your sales WHERE you have distribution. In other words, how are your products performing in the stores that sell them? Make ASSESSING THE HEALTH OF YOUR BRAND a priority before every retailer appointment and new product introduction.
#4 Maximize Your Promotion Effectiveness
This is a big one! Every dollar spent to get your products into the hands of shoppers is called trade marketing. The challenge is that most promotional spending is ineffective and wasted. Effective promotions expand runway, grow sustainable sales & maximize your promotional ROI.
Trade marketing encompasses everything required to get your products into shopper’s hands. Promotions are required by retailers, distributors, and shoppers expect them. They can add rocket fuel to your sales when done correctly or they can bankrupt you when they fail.
Trade promotions typically represent the largest expense for every brand’s income statement. This literally affects every aspect of your brand’s success and it can determine how many months, days or years your brand will be around.
The harsh reality is that most promotions fail to achieve their objective. I’ve heard estimates of over 70% of promotional spending is wasted.
“You can not afford to get this wrong!”
Let’s face it, retail is “pay to play” and big brands have a substantial unfair competitive advantage. You feel like the deck is stacked against you and for good reason – but it doesn’t need to be.
What if I told you that there was a better way? What if I told you that you were not alone and that even the big brands struggle with this? It’s true – and I have first-hand knowledge working with retailers as well as big and small brands.
Additionally, I’ve had the unique opportunity to design, build, execute, and measure promotions where I’ve had unlimited access to the resources needed to measure promotional effectiveness down to the contribution back to the brand and retailer. Many of the tools and strategies I created are still in use today by large and small brands.
Brands need to own this and not farm it out! Brands need to commit to learning PROVEN STRATEGIES TO MAXIMIZE TRADE MARKETING ROI.
#5 Know Your Numbers
The number one question I get asked by brands listening to my podcast is what are the best reports I need to drive sales and grow my brand? Sadly, most brands use reports that do not reflect how consumers buy their products – even the big brands. This is an expensive and huge waste of money.
You’ve most likely been told that bringing canned topline reports to your retail appointments is critical to your success. The reality is that most canned topline reports are simply a waste of ink and paper.
Sounds like a pretty harsh statement, let me explain. Savvy retailers already know how your brand is performing on their shelves. They do not need a report confirming what they already know. They do not need a report telling them the exact same thing every other brand is telling them – even with your unique spin.
What they REALLY need are actionable insights that they do not have access to on their own. They need actionable insights that your competitors are not providing them. Retailers also need you to help them compete more effectively in their market.
Every retailer needs to know that if they put your product on their shelves that it will grow category sales and increase shopper traffic in their stores. Once that happens, you then need to validate and reinforce that your brand deserves to remain on their shelves because it continues to achieve those results.
“Retailers want insights. Actionable insights.”
The most effective way to do this is with sales data – fact-based selling. It’s critical that you use the right kind of data to tell your selling story and differentiate your brand from your competitors.
Traditional methodologies focus exclusively on metrics that overlook the contribution natural brands provide. I have a much better solution that has a long successful track record!
Brands need to go beyond canned topline reports. Brands need to learn how to MINE THE DATA MAZE. They need to include actionable insights to tell a compelling sales story – what retailers really want!
#6 Offer The Right Mix Of Product Shoppers Want To Buy
Step back and think about the way you make purchases. Everything is about perception. Does the store have a good assortment of the products you want to buy? Are their prices fair?
You never get a second chance to disappoint a customer. Getting your products into the hands of more shoppers is critical to increasing sustainable sales. It’s critical to your very survival.
You have a choice and its a simple one. Either manage your own distribution and merchandising or trust it to anyone BUT you. Do you trust your competitors to protect your merchandising and distribution when they present their new items? Of course not!
“Remember that everything is negotiable – especially in this industry.”
Retailers cannot possibly be experts in every category, on every item they sell, and on your loyal shopper. They need your help! They need you to support and help guide them to merchandise the right products that keep shoppers returning.
Every time any new product is presented to a retailer, one product needs to be discontinued to make room for it. Many times, the decision is made solely on a brand’s performance – or lack of performance. This can be a huge mistake.
Most strategies focus narrowly on individual item sales and overlook how your product interacts with other items in the store. In most cases, your sales have an impact on the sales of other items making your product more valuable to the retailer when they consider the shopper’s total purchase at checkout.
These are important things that need to be considered when making those decisions, the things that are really important that others frequently overlook. These are the skills that most sophisticated brands use that gives them a substantial competitive advantage. This is how you level the playing field and compete head-to head-with the big brands.
Brands need to help retailers MAXIMIZE SALES WITH THE RIGHT PRODUCT ASSORTMENT.
#7 Adopt The Advanced Strategies Big Brands Depend On
Retailers want and need brands willing and able to help them drive profitable category sales, increase shopper foot traffic, and convert occasional customers into loyal evangelists. Big brands rely on the advanced strategies championed by category management experts.
Category Management is the great equalizer between big and small brands. It is also one of the most overused and misunderstood terms in the natural channel.
Category Management includes the advanced strategies required to make it easier for customers to find your products where they shop with effective merchandising, increased distribution, maximizing your promotional effectiveness, reducing wasteful trade spending, differentiating your brand at retail, giving you more runway from your funding, growing sustainable sales in any economy, reduce and even eliminate out-of-stocks which equals disappointed customers and lost sales, help you stand out on a crowded shelf, help you develop a loyal committed community around your brand, and much much more.
It can level the playing field, giving you a substantial significant competitive advantage. More importantly, it can help you save valuable time and money. This is why big brands rely so heavily on category management. It’s proven itself repeatedly to be the best sales driver for brands and retailers.
This is the most important skill every brand, retailer, and entrepreneur needs in their tool-box.
“If you want to play at the level of the big brands,
you need to BE at their level.”
Traditional category management relies heavily on canned topline reports and templates. While these are a great starting place for any analysis, they are NOT enough to help differentiate you from your competition. Most of these strategies lack creativity and rely heavily on what I call “push button category management.”
I coined the term “True Category Management” many years ago to help brands like yours take this to the next level and beyond. I’ve spent my career pushing big brands around effectively beating them at their game because I focus on what really matters – the customer. Nothing happens until someone buys something and shoppers can’t buy your products if they can’t find them.
True category management focuses on the basics – what retailers REALLY need from you and your brand. It then overlays those strategies to help you help your retailer partner compete at the highest levels. It looks at the customer journey from the shopper’s perspective.
I believe that retailers and brands spend most of their energy trying to get us to buy the stuff on their shelves as opposed to selling us what we want to buy. This is where you come in. Like the ripple in the pond, true category management focuses on what shoppers want both in traditional brick-and-mortar and online retail.
I believe that every brand needs to captain their own ship. Brands need to commit to the advanced strategies found in TRUE CATEGORY MANAGEMENT – THE ROADMAP TO SALES SUCCESS. It can add rocket fuel to your growth.
#8 Maximize Each And Every Selling Opportunity
Your entire sales team needs to be in lock-step and they need to communicate your selling story with a unified and consistent voice. This includes both your internal and external sales team.