A conversation with a professional marketing manager and how their company sells new products into big retail stores.

Catalpha:    I'm talking with Tracy today.  She is the Retail Marketing Manager for a large consumer health products company.  Tracy, if you could tell me a little bit about what your responsibilities are?

Tracy:     Sure. My responsibilities are to build out the marketing programs within retail. So that's creating the tools for the stores, whether that's indoor events or signage or it could be coupons. 

I'm driving traffic to the store in the Sunday paper, and driving traffic to the aisles and increase the sales in the stores. As well as working with each individual retailer on their marketing program.

And part of that is supporting our sales team and getting them the tools they need to make sales calls, trade shows and trade ads to sell our products into stores.

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As business owners and brand managers, we all have a vision of what we want our audience to experience and feel about our company and product. Positive impression is always celebrated. Criticism is hard to hear and we want to get past it as quickly as possible. How did you handle the most recent criticism? Did you approach it as a single unique issue or is there a strategy in place to remedy the impact?

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Being in the ad business I can’t help but watch TV ads with a critical eye. Who is the target? What is the brand? Does it have the emotional tug to convert a sale? In short, is it effective? I try to figure out the brand or company the ad is for before they reveal it. Some companies do a great job branding their ads and others leave you wondering – do they really know their audience, what company/brand was that for? I have found myself wondering when the product advertised is for women if the ad was created by a man, because they totally missed the USP and audience pain motivator.

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We've had a number of calls lately from companies in the marijuana industry now blossoming in the Colorado, Washington and California areas.  One thing that strikes me are many of these people just opening their doors and expecting customers.  That may be true to start, but what's going to make them come back OR even be aware of you in the first place? Competition will grow as happens with every business and few will establish a brand that dominates, a brand value coveted by all.

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In the last couple of decades, the businesses all over the world have witnessed a tremendous growth email marketing platforms. As such, countries previously qualified as “poor” are now seen as future economic powerhouses. Nations such as India, Nigeria, Brazil, Indonesia, and China are just a few that have attained immense economic growth because of various online marketing strategies. Naturally, the rise of previously less-developed nations has prompted the use of “technological” mediums to conduct business activities.

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We are not alone in your search for customers. You aren't the only option for consumers and Google makes it easy for your competitors to lure them away. You need a marketing and business plan that includes strategies to increase traffic on website, get the phone ringing and your employees busy. These 8 tips can help with many areas of your business including employee development, evaluating your competition, website design, online marketing, package design and building a customer base of raving fans.

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The two most famous stories about market research are used as arguments against it.

In the first story, Henry Ford famously said that no bit of research or consumer testing would have led him to car production. “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”

That may have been true, but Henry Ford wasn’t in the buggy business or even the transportation business. He was a machinist and worked on his family farm. His goal was not to build the first car or enhance transportation; it was to improve car production. Ford neither invented the car nor the assembly line; instead, he improved them so middle America could afford automobiles. He was all about improving efficiency because he knew, from market research, that most Americans didn’t have cars because they were too expensive. His job was to build a car cheap enough for America to buy, not build a faster buggy.

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