Do you also have 50% of marketing shares playing a minus in sales?
Imagine that you are producing juice. You deliver this juice to large retail chains and put it on the shelf next to a dozen more alike. You want to sell it more, and decide to make a share for this. For example:
How to make a decision?
Now another example. You have a ton of yoghurt in your store, which expires after one month. When and what stocks to do? When to reduce the price, when to include a bonus to sellers, when to just merge them at cost price?
There are expert systems for making such decisions. I will tell you about them.
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In the general case, the task is reduced to three subtasks:
The most frequent example, of course, is to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign before it starts. You need to know exactly how much money and how you will earn, how much goods will go and so on. This can be considered as hands, or it can be done with the help of expert systems for solving such problems.
We have our own special atmosphere in Russia. Therefore, quite often such a decision is needed both by the suppliers of the goods (they hold promotions in stores) and by the retailers themselves. It is very difficult to evaluate the direct economic effect of marketing actions in practice, and in the conditions of limited budget, it is even more difficult for anyone to dispense money. But there is a tool that allows you to evaluate the effect of any marketing action, predict this effect (based on several factors), say whether it is worth doing it or not and so on. As a result, we at a minimum, increase the effect of our shares, as a maximum - we save a lot on cutting off unprofitable ones.
What does this look like? First, data about sales and stock parameters are loaded into the system. It is necessary to determine which marketing campaigns were carried out, what was the lift effect on sales during the campaigns. A fairly simple data analysis will follow, and the system will issue a list of parameters for new promotions. With recommendations.
Why do you need to do this automatically? Because in reality you can never count only one channel. For example, you could have an advertisement on two TV channels, on three radio stations, posters were hanging on points, plus flyers were heard near the subway, and once you were still giving a 10% discount on the product. Understanding which of these channels to use next time without any tool is almost impossible, and you have to make decisions about the next and next actions.
There is a history of basic sales in a particular region. Before that, you put up promotional stands (special bright shelves) in the sales area, for which you paid the retailer, but in different places of stores, for example, at the entrance, next to the other chocolates or near the cash desks. You upload data, for example, to Oracle Demantra and calculate how sales will go in this or that case. And you see that they stayed in the black only in some cases, for example, in hypermarkets when stands stood next to the rest of the chocolates, and in small supermarkets - near the cash desks.
Now you want to put such a promo booth in several stores in this region, but you don’t know exactly where it will work and where it will not. Again you look into Demantra and, based on the results of the analysis there, make a decision.
In one chain you tried promotional stands in some stores, priority placement in others, third ones started sampling — tasting stands in the sales halls, in the fourth they made a discount, in the fifth they set a bonus for the staff, and in the last two stores they tried to load sausage in the new bright packaging. In this case, everything was done in one region, say, in the Volgograd region.
And now you are placed in a new network in the same region, and it would be great for you to learn how to allocate the budget as efficiently as possible. What channels are best to use, how much to spend on each of them, how long will each be effective? The system can use the accumulated statistics of various promotions and offer the best options for new events (similar in format to stores, customer types, etc.) of the retailer.
It is clear that you have at the same time factors parallel to the sales forecast - seasonality, activity of competitors, availability of goods at points and so on. The marketing campaign management system allows you to isolate all these factors and find the unattainable - the effect of marketing campaigns.
More about the individual modules have already been one , two and three topic.
I have repeatedly come across the fact that those who understand how to count are somehow trying to count themselves (even on paper, even in XLS). And with a certain amount they begin to understand the need for an expert system. But there are other manufacturers, where either marketing is not so strong, or there are a lot of promotional channels involved. Often in such difficult situations they put pressure on an already proven channel (usually one, and to the maximum), and then they begin to shaman. In fact - money is wasted. It is very important to understand that if marketers do not have clear feedback in the form of profitability of marketing campaigns, then it is extremely difficult for them to build optimal channels of promotion in terms of ROI. But now the channels of promotion are more and more and everything may simply not be enough budget. As a result, half the marketing budget goes nowhere, and the most annoying thing is that you don’t know which one. The systems I’m talking about here help to very precisely understand which action leads to profit, and which one does not.
There was an example with one company producing famous clothes and shoes. History promotions was not. When we arrived, the first time was spent on raising correspondence in the mail on the subject of planned actions, to compare with real data the sales history and availability of goods, to find old promotional materials, to understand what and when they were given discounts, where they gave advertising and so on. After that, we formalized the parameters of each stock, removed the emissions, and began to turn the chaos of unstructured data into a system. As a result, when we finished everything, it turned out that half of the stock calendar could simply not be held, and sometimes it even turned out that the company played a discount to itself in the minus without a perceptible elevator. That is, the goods would be sold equally, that with a discount, that without.
Seeing our work, the management began not only to evaluate the effectiveness of each action, but to set the task for the divisions, for example, to increase sales by 50% over the period - and we considered assembling from methods that allow us to do this, since there were opportunities for a combination of stocks.
When you know exactly why this is necessary. For example, we realized that last year 50-80% of marketing campaigns had passed with unsatisfactory ROI. Or if you want to accurately and specifically justify the marketing budget not according to personal feelings, but according to calculations based on analysis and extrapolation of history.
If you count in the tablet with your hands and everything works - do not touch. But when there are too many factors to take into account, the volumes will be of the All-Russian scale and it will be necessary to remove the influence of the human factor - go to the systems of demand forecasting and calculating the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. One of the most difficult moments is the smoothness of the transition. There are a lot of pitfalls, and all are different. Therefore, if you have questions specifically for you, ask in the comments or email me at AlIsaev@croc.ru, I will try to help.
- Reduce the price by 25%. It is clear that the profit from the juice unit will fall, but will it be possible to sell it so much more that in general the profit will grow?
- Or maybe make a "buy three - the fourth for free"? Technically, almost the same, but in money it can be very different.
- Or maybe it is better to pay the same money network so that they put it right in the center of the shelf?
- No, let's hire promo girls in miniskirts, right?
How to make a decision?
Now another example. You have a ton of yoghurt in your store, which expires after one month. When and what stocks to do? When to reduce the price, when to include a bonus to sellers, when to just merge them at cost price?
There are expert systems for making such decisions. I will tell you about them.
')
In the general case, the task is reduced to three subtasks:
- Identify all possible channels and methods of the action.
- Collect data on the effectiveness of each or impose a profile of similar stocks from similar products.
- Calculate such a set of measures that will give the greatest profit (or solve another problem like the optimal sale of goods before the expiration date).
The most frequent example, of course, is to evaluate the effectiveness of a marketing campaign before it starts. You need to know exactly how much money and how you will earn, how much goods will go and so on. This can be considered as hands, or it can be done with the help of expert systems for solving such problems.
We have our own special atmosphere in Russia. Therefore, quite often such a decision is needed both by the suppliers of the goods (they hold promotions in stores) and by the retailers themselves. It is very difficult to evaluate the direct economic effect of marketing actions in practice, and in the conditions of limited budget, it is even more difficult for anyone to dispense money. But there is a tool that allows you to evaluate the effect of any marketing action, predict this effect (based on several factors), say whether it is worth doing it or not and so on. As a result, we at a minimum, increase the effect of our shares, as a maximum - we save a lot on cutting off unprofitable ones.
What does this look like? First, data about sales and stock parameters are loaded into the system. It is necessary to determine which marketing campaigns were carried out, what was the lift effect on sales during the campaigns. A fairly simple data analysis will follow, and the system will issue a list of parameters for new promotions. With recommendations.
Why do you need to do this automatically? Because in reality you can never count only one channel. For example, you could have an advertisement on two TV channels, on three radio stations, posters were hanging on points, plus flyers were heard near the subway, and once you were still giving a 10% discount on the product. Understanding which of these channels to use next time without any tool is almost impossible, and you have to make decisions about the next and next actions.
Now you sell chocolate
There is a history of basic sales in a particular region. Before that, you put up promotional stands (special bright shelves) in the sales area, for which you paid the retailer, but in different places of stores, for example, at the entrance, next to the other chocolates or near the cash desks. You upload data, for example, to Oracle Demantra and calculate how sales will go in this or that case. And you see that they stayed in the black only in some cases, for example, in hypermarkets when stands stood next to the rest of the chocolates, and in small supermarkets - near the cash desks.
Now you want to put such a promo booth in several stores in this region, but you don’t know exactly where it will work and where it will not. Again you look into Demantra and, based on the results of the analysis there, make a decision.
Now you are trading sausage
In one chain you tried promotional stands in some stores, priority placement in others, third ones started sampling — tasting stands in the sales halls, in the fourth they made a discount, in the fifth they set a bonus for the staff, and in the last two stores they tried to load sausage in the new bright packaging. In this case, everything was done in one region, say, in the Volgograd region.
And now you are placed in a new network in the same region, and it would be great for you to learn how to allocate the budget as efficiently as possible. What channels are best to use, how much to spend on each of them, how long will each be effective? The system can use the accumulated statistics of various promotions and offer the best options for new events (similar in format to stores, customer types, etc.) of the retailer.
Other factors
It is clear that you have at the same time factors parallel to the sales forecast - seasonality, activity of competitors, availability of goods at points and so on. The marketing campaign management system allows you to isolate all these factors and find the unattainable - the effect of marketing campaigns.
More about the individual modules have already been one , two and three topic.
How is the budget distribution in reality?
I have repeatedly come across the fact that those who understand how to count are somehow trying to count themselves (even on paper, even in XLS). And with a certain amount they begin to understand the need for an expert system. But there are other manufacturers, where either marketing is not so strong, or there are a lot of promotional channels involved. Often in such difficult situations they put pressure on an already proven channel (usually one, and to the maximum), and then they begin to shaman. In fact - money is wasted. It is very important to understand that if marketers do not have clear feedback in the form of profitability of marketing campaigns, then it is extremely difficult for them to build optimal channels of promotion in terms of ROI. But now the channels of promotion are more and more and everything may simply not be enough budget. As a result, half the marketing budget goes nowhere, and the most annoying thing is that you don’t know which one. The systems I’m talking about here help to very precisely understand which action leads to profit, and which one does not.
What to do when there is no data?
There was an example with one company producing famous clothes and shoes. History promotions was not. When we arrived, the first time was spent on raising correspondence in the mail on the subject of planned actions, to compare with real data the sales history and availability of goods, to find old promotional materials, to understand what and when they were given discounts, where they gave advertising and so on. After that, we formalized the parameters of each stock, removed the emissions, and began to turn the chaos of unstructured data into a system. As a result, when we finished everything, it turned out that half of the stock calendar could simply not be held, and sometimes it even turned out that the company played a discount to itself in the minus without a perceptible elevator. That is, the goods would be sold equally, that with a discount, that without.
Seeing our work, the management began not only to evaluate the effectiveness of each action, but to set the task for the divisions, for example, to increase sales by 50% over the period - and we considered assembling from methods that allow us to do this, since there were opportunities for a combination of stocks.
When does it make sense to switch to such a system?
When you know exactly why this is necessary. For example, we realized that last year 50-80% of marketing campaigns had passed with unsatisfactory ROI. Or if you want to accurately and specifically justify the marketing budget not according to personal feelings, but according to calculations based on analysis and extrapolation of history.
If you count in the tablet with your hands and everything works - do not touch. But when there are too many factors to take into account, the volumes will be of the All-Russian scale and it will be necessary to remove the influence of the human factor - go to the systems of demand forecasting and calculating the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. One of the most difficult moments is the smoothness of the transition. There are a lot of pitfalls, and all are different. Therefore, if you have questions specifically for you, ask in the comments or email me at AlIsaev@croc.ru, I will try to help.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/202240/
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