The various strategies in retailer marketing

Whether in retail, in the insurance industry, as a franchise or decentralized company, working with local retailers is often a great opportunity for companies to address local customer groups, position themselves on the market and increase sales. Nevertheless, working with independent partners is often also a challenge and internal competition with competitors, even before customers even get involved. Retailers usually not only offer the products and services of a manufacturer, but also have various brands in their range. It is therefore particularly important to enter into a good partnership with retailers and to find strategies to promote your own product more and better than that of the competition. The main aim is to provide incentives and work together on equal footing over the long term. Retailer marketing and sales work particularly well when there is a win-win situation on the part of the retailer and the brand, from which the end consumer also benefits.

Why are local retailers important?

Retailers are particularly important for companies and brands, as they are directly on site with customers and maintain direct contact with the target group. They are the first to be confronted with customer demand or potential problems. Retailers are therefore not only important for sales and marketing, but also a channel to register trends and changes, which in turn can be valuable for future product development. For retailers, a partnership with major brands can not only provide in-demand products, but also individual marketing support. With this help, even smaller retailers can build up a successful, cross-media marketing mix and dare to use new marketing channels on the Internet (such as the social media platforms “Facebook” and “Instagram”). This is ensured primarily through continuous dialogue, incentives and benefits, as well as marketing and sales training. This increased marketing can ultimately increase sales. Retailers and companies benefit equally from the profits generated.

Cooperation marketing under the name of the manufacturer

One option is to advertise together with local retailers. In this cooperation strategy, the names of the retailer and the manufacturer are mentioned on the marketing materials. The company usually provides local partners with marketing documents, which they can use cost-effectively for their local marketing. These advertising materials are either provided directly or can also be individualized by retailers and adapted to the target group. However, the design and corporate identity are usually determined by the manufacturer. As a result, the manufacturer's brand is brought to customers via local retailers and becomes better known overall. Retailers, on the other hand, receive support in the form of marketing materials, some of which are free or discounted, and templates for various forms of advertising (e.g. advertising, Internet advertising, social media or classic printed materials). Depending on the success and sales of the partner, these subsidies can be awarded and extended. This gives successful retailers advantages and an incentive to promote more of the products and increase sales in the future. However, it is important to make clear agreements from the outset and to regulate precisely who is responsible for the procurement, preparation and production of marketing materials and who bears the costs.

Advertising on behalf of the retailer (private labeling)

In contrast to cooperation marketing, the private labeling strategy stands in contrast. This allows retailers to create marketing entirely in their own corporate design and with their own data (logo, etc.). The materials for this purpose are provided as templates (usually in a marketing portal) by the manufacturer and can be edited and ordered by the retailer. Nevertheless, the marketing materials still contain the manufacturer's brand's products and information, which, however, are sold under the name of the local retailer. This strategy is particularly interesting for brands that want to strengthen their local retailers and do not want to present themselves as a brand to end users. In doing so, they give retailers the opportunity to use many new marketing strategies and produce advertising measures in a simple way. Any agreements on corporate design requirements are therefore omitted and the retailer is given additional freedom to market the products. This gives retailers the advantage of maintaining their independence and still being able to draw on the manufacturer's marketing know-how, information and advertising recommendations.

Grow together and break new ground

Regardless of which strategy you ultimately choose, as a brand, you ideally always offer retailers the opportunity to produce and publish advertising for their own product or service in as simple and diverse a variety of ways as possible. This is particularly interesting when new advertising measures such as social media or online advertising in general are also to be introduced. The young target group in particular usually uses search engines such as Google when searching for providers or even searches directly on Instagram and Co. Only those who know their own customer's customer journey can select the right platforms and address their own target group directly. However, advertising online in particular is often new territory for local retailers and is not yet sufficiently used. However, with the right cooperation between the brand and the retailer, these areas can also be expanded and joint, regional online marketing can be implemented. This cooperation generally leads to an increase in sales, which in turn provides financial benefits for both parties involved.

If you too are just about to decide how you want to carry out marketing with your retailers, we look forward to hearing from you. We would be happy to show you in case studies how other companies are dealing with this challenge.