Best Buy Is Your Best Strategy To Gain Retail Leverage
- Feb
- 08
THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.
SUMMARY:
Well the dust has settled and results from the Q4 holiday season are in. I realize that some of our readers are in the CE community and have ready access to retailer share. Note that I’m not quoting anything from NPD that I have access to for my job. I’m linking to a couple of public sources to point out that you can get a good idea of what is going on with a little digging (or you can get it from us)! The data I’m sharing is from consumer surveys conducted by 2 different firms, so take it with a grain of salt – it isn’t cash register data, but provides valuable perspective on where consumers look to purchase their electronics.
1) AD AGE ARTICLE SHOWS BEST BUY GAINING GROUND (WITH 33% SHARE)
2) RETREVO PULSE ARTICLE SAYS BEST BUY LOSING GROUND (BUT WITH 40% SHARE)
TAKEAWAY: CONSUMER ELECTRONICS STILL REVOLVES AROUND BEST BUY
Best Buy is the dominant player in Consumer Electronics, a king maker that has influence with consumers beyond whatever its share actually is (33% – 41%). Even as Walmart and Amazon grow share in the CE space, it is ultimately because people get more comfortable NOT making their purchase at Best Buy. If you are a CE manufacturer, not having your products at Best Buy robs you of credibility with consumers and key influencers. If you are an agency with clients who sell products at Best Buy, you need to know as much about Best Buy as your clients because it is your best route to success. If the products you sell can’t succeed at Best Buy, you will have little leverage wherever else you go to peddle your wares. Conversely, succeeding at Best Buy paves the way for success in other channels. Best Buy does the heavy lifting for other retailers that sell consumer electronics. They just have to look at what Best Buy assorts as a baseline and start from there. So get it right in the first place and base your plans on success at Best Buy. Retail leverage will flow from there.
How I Learned To Love Hi-Lo Pricing (And Get Better Circular Ads)
- Feb
- 03
THIS IS AN EXCERPT.
CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
5 HI-LO TACTICS TO TAKE TO HEART:
1) Launch high with instant rebate (sleeves out of your vest)
2) Price drop to original planned level (back to the future)
3) Price drop plus discount (price drop on steroids)
4) Vary Level of Instant Savings Based On Opportunity (keep your powder dry)
5) Never Ending Closeout (the McRib of closeouts)
Five Retail Leverage Predictions for 2010
- Jan
- 30
THIS IS AN EXCERPT.
CLICK ON THE TITLE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE:
Five Retail Leverage Predictions for 2010:
1) The CMO Will Become the CCMO (Chief Customer Marketing Officer)
2) Creative Services Agencies Will Learn the Language of Retail
3) It Will Take a Village to Make Social Networking a Relevant Marketing Tool for Retail Leverage
4) “Co-operative Planning” Content Will dominate Newsstand Best-Sellers
5) The New “All-in-One” Brand Will Dominate the Retail Landscape:
You Can Be Skeptical of MagicJack – But Not How They Got Retail Leverage
- Jan
- 06
THIS IS AN EXCERPT; TO READ FULL ARTICLE, CLICK ON TITLE.
SUMMARY:
MAGICJACK: RETAIL AND DIRECT IN PERFECT HARMONY:
So you might ask yourself wasn’t MagicJack giving up something by tagging retailers, effectively pointing potential customers to stores?
Well they can start dialing back their Direct Response spend, or at least keep it flat. Plus after 2-3 years of hitting the airwaves hard with the same product, there are diminishing margins of return on the number of people who will buy your product direct. Chances are they saw the ad – if they were going to buy it direct they would have done so already.
Retail represents an untapped market. There are people who won’t buy direct, or maybe never even saw it on TV. And there is a good chance the retail margin they’ll pay is probably close to the cost per order to sell direct (media costs + fulfillment.
LESSONS LEARNED:
1A) Infomercials are a great vehicle for telling a story and building demand at retail.
1B) Marketers with a holier than thou attitude towards Direct Response TV (DRTV) are ignoring a viable tactic.
2) Take risk away from the retail buyer. This makes it easier for them to list / support your product. MagicJack wouldn’t be at retail if they didn’t have a success story from their direct experience, as well as ongoing aircover in the form of their DRTV spots they continue to run that in effect are ads for their retail placements.
3) There is less risk in balancing a direct and retail strategy than ever before. The battle lines have been blurred by retail consolidation, and the growth of private label. I don’t think the retail buyer spends much time worrying about where you are selling your product, as long as it is selling well in their stores. We spend way too much time worrying about who we compete against, versus just selling.
read moreWill Your Brand Be Up To The Challenge At Best Buy?
- Dec
- 14
We here at Retail Leverage are big fans of Best Buy, so we were delighted when BusinessWeek took a look at Best Buy in the post-apocalyptic environment after the demise of Circuit City. While Walmart and Amazon are worthy foes, Best Buy is the only large national consumer electronics player left standing. However important Best Buy was before as part of the buying process – regardless of the final point of purchase – Best Buy is now ready to take advantage of its position.
If you are a challenger brand marketer (or an agency working with one) there are lots of takeaways.
To read the full article, click on the Title.
read moreLexmark Offered the Apple Store Value Beyond Printing
- Dec
- 10
Despite its apparent misfit with the Apple Store panache, Lexmark announced last month that it successfully secured distribution of a new Lexmark-branded All-in-One Printer called “Interact” in Apple Stores and at store.apple.com. So how did Lexmark accomplish the seemingly impossible? By enacting a retail leverage strategy that aligned the Lexmark brand and product offering with the needs, wants, and expectations of the interconnected, tech & fashion-forward, high performance Apple-nation.
To read the full article, click on the article title.
read moreFirst 100 Days of Retail Leverage
- Nov
- 08
What Makes Retail Leverage Tick?
Challenger brand marketers have to be more creative and do more with less. Inspiration can be found anytime, anywhere. We look for ideas in business and trade publications, store walk-thrus, weekly circulars, pop culture. The 3 contributors behind Retail Leverage have lived this daily for a combined 40 years (and with challenger brands, there definitely is a “dog years” multiplier in terms of experience). We hope that by sharing our ideas, inspiration and commentary we can help others – and we think we are.
To read the full article, click on the title.
read moreMaximizing Test Store Performance (A Must-Read for Challenger Brands at Retail)
- Oct
- 18
THE DILEMMA OF TEST STORES:
What should you do when your fate at retail is dependent on your product’s performance in a handful of “test stores?” If your sell-through is strong, then your product line gets rolled out to all stores nationally – if not, then your door practically closes forever at that retailer with that product line, even down the road when the “new and improved” version hits the market. The real question that we all struggle with is “Should my company put forth any efforts to stimulate demand in a test store environment, even though we know that those efforts will not likely be replicated upon national roll-out?” The answer is an unequivocal, “yes!”
To read more, click on the title.
read moreThe Ad Agency Dilemma – Retail Leverage Friend or Foe?
- Sep
- 20
Excerpt:
Our problems become their problems. Here in-lies a potential conflict – an ad agency is a business and its goal is to encourage its clients to spend as many marketing dollars with the agency as possible. While this is a very understandable desire, it may limit the challenger brand’s ability to use its marketing dollars to gain retail leverage as sometimes critical investments need to be made to support the retailer which may cut out the agency’s interests.
3 ways challenger brands can motivate their ad agencies to support their need for retail leverage:
1. Check your agency’s “Retail Leverage” I.Q.
2. Teach your ad agency about your business – not just your brand.
3. Implement an Incentive-Based Agency Fee System
Kick the 360 Marketing Plan to the Curb
- Aug
- 31
The powerpoint presentation can look dreadfully similar on the number of marketing communication vehicles you can use whether you are on a $5M Marcom plan or a $50 Marcom plan.
Put simply, unless you are the Geicos or Capital Ones of the world that have MARCOM budgets that dwarf the size of most companies’ total revenues and the GDP of some small countries, pick a…one…uno…a SINGLE communication vehicle that meets these criteria listed below to deliver maximum impact.
REQUIREMENTS FOR YOUR ONE COMMUNICATION VEHICLE STRATEGY:
1. Makes Sense Strategically (long vs. short story to tell? Reach vs. Frequency goals? Close to a Retail Sale? Etc…)
2. Reaches Your Target Audience – (obvious you want to shout where your target customers can hear you)
3. Penetrates Enough to Be Heard – (your budget should be able to support a high level of reach/frequency over time)
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