Managing sales in the fast moving consumer goods industry is a very challenging job indeed. This is chiefly because this industry is a very fast-growing segment of the overall market. Supermarket shelves are chock full of consumer products, all of them vying for the same shelf space. And each and every one of those products not only must be bulked tracked, their sales stats have to be monitored as well. Should their sales take a hit, entire marketing strategies must be changed at the turn of a dime. All of these factors combined make FMCG marketing a tough beast to tame.
FMCG sales environment being what it is, the sheer range of factors on which the success or failure of a product depends is huge, and therefore, all important decision making requires a constant stream of both primary and secondary level market research data in real time.
Rapid decision making at the tactical level is in marked contrast to overall strategy building. Sometimes, quick decisions are required in response to competitors’ aggressive marketing campaigns while strategies are more long term and require comprehensive planning beforehand.
If a competitor launches a new product with a heavy advertising budget, the sales or brand manager may well increase the profit margin of the retailers so as to deny the competitor shelf space.
For a well-balanced strategy, it may be necessary to collect POS (point of sale) data to understand the buying trends from the point of view of the end consumer, i.e. what the customer wants and expects from the product and ensure the product delivers beyond expectations. Demand has to be forecasted based both on demographics as well as the psychographics of the end consumer. Subsequently, sales targets have to be set keeping in mind the demand forecasts as well as competitors’ probable response.
The end result of all FMCG marketing strategies should not merely be consumer satisfaction, but rather the brand manager should try and ‘delight’ the consumer. A delighted consumer is almost always a repeat buyer, and his loyalty to the brand is assured.
Another thing to remember is that “eye level is buy level”. If the competitors stock the supermarkets with their products at the eye level of the consumer, brand loyalty may well take a hit. The end consumer would be tempted to try those products especially if they come bundled with tempting offers such as buy X brand toothpaste and get one toothbrush free, or other hard-to-resist lucrative discount offers.
However, merely making the product attractive to the consumer is not the only thing necessary for the success of an FMCG product. It has to be placed “within arm’s length of desire,” i.e. it has to be available wherever its target market resides. For that, distribution channels have to be forged, and a well-knit sales team hierarchy has to be created from the bottom up.
Ultimately, a well-designed product with an aggressive media advertising campaign and well-developed distribution channels is no guarantee of success, but all of these factors taken together go a long way in ensuring that the product becomes a commercially viable hit.
