As a young adult, before the days of electronic coupons and mobile shopping apps, I worked two jobs at regional grocery stores in South Florida. It was there that I learned my first lessons in the marketing of consumer goods. Sugar cereals on the lower shelves where children can pine for them; healthier options at adult eye-level; “point of sale” items in checkout lanes for impulse buyers. I can’t say that I knew or cared how the large display of crackers and potato chips landed at the end of Aisle 7, or why cans of clam chowder cost 10 cents less than last week.

25 years later I find myself building software to manage, capture and analyze such information for one specific segment of consumer goods, but across a wide spectrum of sales channels and outlet types. I can now appreciate the nuance of temporary price reductions, bundles, end caps, cold boxes, planograms and scan data. CPG manufacturers and distributors now realize that the key metrics aligned with these activities must be measured consistently across a broad array of sales drivers:

• Distribution – Does the outlet carry our “Power SKUs?”
• Visibility - Is Product X adjacent to Competitor Y?
• Promotion - Two or more pieces of branding elements in the decision corridor?
• Pricing – Is Product Z priced at or above $9.99?

The traditional approach involves circulating paper surveys once or twice a year to sales reps in the field, aggregating results into spreadsheets at the corporate office and building sophisticated data management tools and reports. Next the marketing team will distribute a set of slides after weeks or months of internal analysis around the effectiveness of trade marketing. While sophisticated trade marketing tools have existed for years, including spend management and strategic planning, it has always been extremely difficult to capture the current state of the retail environment in an actionable way.

While the Mobile Web is a “nice to have” for most industries, it is absolutely critical to winning sales execution for any company in the retail supply-chain. Field reps and sales managers can now use cloud-based “smart” apps with geolocation and offline data storage to plan, engage, survey, photograph and submit sales intelligence instantly and more frequently. Even marketers have reason to celebrate, as they too can review analytics in the cloud to measure real-time effectiveness versus brand standards.

I am constantly amazed at how mobility has created multiple ways that I can now find products that interest me, and how easily I can purchase them. I have consumed dozens of products and patronized hundreds of businesses that were rated or shared from my social networks – all from the palm of my hand.  The explosion of the Mobile Web in addition to the adoption of enterprise collaboration platforms like Chatter allows Retailers, Suppliers and Distributors to communicate with lightning speed across disparate networks, doing for brick-and-mortar retail what Prime and Square have done for electronic commerce. This has allowed savvier retailers to transition from purely “experiential” marketing campaigns like product sampling, to the new era of social, local and mobile (or “SoLoMo”) incorporating check-ins, personalization and online upsells.

As more individuals in the organization gain access to mobile apps for selling, surveying and reporting, it empowers a wider base of individuals to take action on strategic brand objectives in the market, anywhere and at anytime. As the feedback loop gets tighter, companies can make strategic decisions more quickly based on nearly-live market data wherever you may be. When combined with CRM best practices, these mobile tools become a strategic weapon in the battle for consumer mind share. Within the enterprise, these social and mobile technologies are transforming the semi-annual sales execution review into a simple daily and weekly routine that accelerates innovation and rewards technology adoption.

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