In 2012, Katrina Markoff set her sights

Retail Leader
ELECTRONICALLY REPRINTED FROM
January/February 2013
Aligning
Sales
and
Marketing
I
How to Convince These Sibling Rivals They’re
on the Same Team. > By Sharon Stangenes
In 2012, Katrina Markoff set her sights
on doubling sales of her premium chocolate
company within three years by launching a lowerpriced brand to be sold by other retailers. Priced from
$4 to $5 a bar, the candy is available at retailers such as
Whole Foods Market, Wegmans and Walgreens.
The new brand, Wild Ophelia, validates Chicago-based
Vosges Haut-Chocolat’s success in carving a place in the
crowded premium chocolate category with its high-quality
ingredients infused with exotic blended flavors.
Vosges, which currently has annual sales of about $30
million, is filling a niche with sales gains that larger, more
established companies well might envy and with a collaborative
> Human Capital
sales and marketing approach others would benefit from, says
Carrie Shea, Lombard, Ill.-based president of AMG Strategic
Advisors, the growth strategy consulting unit of Acosta Sales &
Marketing.
“[Vosges is] small enough that people are talking to each other
and working with each other, and departments such as sales and
marketing haven’t become walled-off silos,” Shea says. While Markoff makes it look easy, the rivalry between sales and marketing
departments can be a thorn in the side of many larger companies.
Sales and marketing together drive a business, Shea says, so it is
“critical” they are aligned for sustainable profitability and growth
regardless of a company’s size. This is especially true in today’s
fast-paced retailing world where shoppers are making “more and
more split-second decisions” at the point of sale, Shea says.
To capture consumers’ attention, marketing and sales must
cooperate, react and adjust as never before. There is a natural—and not always unhealthy—tension between the big picture
responsibility of marketing and the more practical focus of sales,
says Margaret Lombard, vice president shopper marketing for
AugustineIdeas based in Roseville, Calif.
Marketing’s efforts to build a brand and create a positive identity do not necessarily correlate with increased sales. And the sales
staff, responsible for moving product and meeting company goals,
can sometimes be skeptical of new products and company initiatives. The short-term pressure felt by those calling upon customers
is seldom felt as intimately by those working on the long view.
When the tension descends into stalemate or escalates to outright
sibling rivalry, no one wins.
Relations are often most difficult when the two teams have
different priorities, says Lombard, who was vice president of marketing for California-based Raley’s Supermarkets. To reunite and
keep the two sides in alignment starts at the top, she says.
Working Together
It works best when one person heads both areas and acts as a
“benevolent dictator,” Lombard says. Sales and marketing efforts
are most collaborative—and beneficial—during new product
launches where the objective is obvious. “This is mostly because
everyone agrees on what should be promoted and both teams
need each other,” she says.
Supermarket chains and CPGs can go a long way toward breaking down this natural tension by creating a collaborative frame-
“Whether it is a
supermarket chain
or a CPG company,
at the end of the
day, it is having an
understanding and an
appreciation of what
the other is doing” that
builds team effort.
work in which sales and
marketing work together as
much as possible, Lombard
says. “Whether it is a supermarket chain or a CPG
—Margaret Lombard,
company, at the end of the
AugustineIdeas
day, it is having an understanding and an appreciation of what the other is doing” that builds team effort, she says.
Marketers in executive training will gain a greater appreciation
for sales if they attend a client meeting where the sales staffer is
given 15 minutes to make a presentation. “They will learn how
quickly the time and chance to make the case for a 20-page marketing plan goes by,” she says.
BUILDING COOPERATION
Representatives from both marketing and sales should be invited
to the annual planning meeting so they have the chance to offer
opinions early on about new initiatives. Both should be part of
progress-tracking and field trips as well, she adds.
Another critical component to building cooperation can be
examining how an organization or company is structured and
employees are rewarded, suggests Stephanie Smith, who worked
at Kraft Foods for 20 years and led human resources for its largest
region before retiring in 2010.
“If it is structured more as a team with marketing and sales
each getting a share, and performance is measured as a team and
the metric for reward is how well the team
performed, you are building reasons for
marketing and sales to work together,” says
Smith, now vice president for human resources at DePaul University in Chicago.
The advent of scanners and industry
consolidation is altering some marketing and sales roles, says Daniel Strunk,
“[Vosges Haut-Chocolat is] small enough that people are talking to
each other and working with each other, and departments such as
sales and marketing haven’t become walled-off silos.”
—Carrie Shea, AMG Strategic Advisors
> Human Capital
“If it is structured more as a team with marketing and sales each
getting a share, and performance is measured as a team and the
metric for reward is how well the team performed, you are
building reasons for marketing and sales to work together.”
—Stephanie Smith, DePaul University
executive in residence and managing director of the Center for
Sales Leadership in the department of marketing at DePaul
University in Chicago.
Where once vendors were the major sources of research on
consumers, today retailers are on the front lines of data gathering
about shopper preferences and buying habits. CPG sales staffers
must do more today than try to persuade a supermarket client
to try a product or line. They must be active partners in trying to
understand buyers’ needs and help answer those needs to create
value, he says.
The old model of sales persuasion “takes you only so far,” he
says. Today’s sales professional is a conduit of information both
to the client and to his employer. Today’s sales person is “the
company or brand representative to the customer [or] client
and at the same time is the representative of his customers to his
employer.”
Not only are retailers trying to align sales and marketing
internally, but many also are actively pursuing collaboration with
vendors “seeking insight and advice,” he says.“Not to collaborate
is wasted effort.”
Progressive companies such as Coca-Cola, Kraft Foods
Group and Starbucks are responding to this changing landscape
with a variety of measures. Some involve rotating employees
through both sales and
marketing assignments, reevaluating traditional career
paths and inviting retailers
earlier into new product
development, says Barbara
Ford, senior vice president at
AMG Strategic Advisors.
Collaboration starts with
the retailer who has a “very
tangible” need, says Shea. The
retailer needs to be focused
and identify the problem or
“Not to collaborate
opportunity. For example, “I
is wasted effort.”
need to drive the sales in aisle
—Daniel Strunk,
four.” Then, be open to sharDePaul University
ing ideas and information across departments and with vendors
to find a solution, she says.
“Walmart has done it well,” says Ford. “It listens to its consumers and then creates the event or products to answer the need. It
requires a different dialogue than has been in CPG [companies]
and supermarket retailers in the past.”
Walmart is not alone in creating a winning sales alignment,
however. Ford cites the success of Milwaukee-based Roundy’s,
which built back-of-the-store sales near the pharmacy after
manufacturer data from Clorox identified a gap between what
customers believed would keep families healthier and their actual
behavior. Research indicated 70 percent of consumers believed
disinfecting surfaces would keep their families healthier, but only
46 percent did anything about it.
Working with AMG and using Clorox’s “Prevent, Protect &
Soothe” in-store display program as a core, the Wisconsin-based
retailer pulled together Campbell’s soup, Kellogg’s cereal, Brita
water filters and Dial soap with Clorox disinfecting wipes, bleach
and Clean-Up cleaner in a display near the pharmacy for an
October through January cold and flu-season promotion.
The promotion was used in 140 of the company’s 158 stores in
the Upper Midwest from the Twin Cities to Chicago. By grabbing
consumer attention and providing convenient, one-stop shopping to shoppers, the retailer got a sales lift as did the manufacturer from bundled products, Ford says.
The metric for measuring the success of marketing and sales
alignment is ultimately sales, Lombard says. Chocolatier Markoff
agrees. “Honestly, you are failing if you aren’t selling,” she says.
“Most of the time you should be creating buzz and giving a
brand soul.”
Marketing also plays a role in generating awareness and generating the next big idea. “Revenue in the end is a key indicator of
success,” Smith says. But other considerations also are important,
such as: “What is the use to the consumer? What is the consumer
wanting? Those are important questions that should be answered
in every effort that sales alone cannot give you.” RL
Sharon Stangenes has reported on retailing and consumer
products for more than 25 years for daily newspapers and industry trade
publications.
Talking with...
Robert Hill
www.acosta.com
President and Chief Executive Officer
Acosta Sales & Marketing
A
costa Sales & Marketing is a leading
outsourced sales and marketing agency
that works with retailers and CPG
companies around the country, through services
like integrated marketing solutions, headquarter
sales and retail services, among other offerings.
Retail Leader: How have Acosta’s
recent acquisitions strengthened its
ability to enhance CPG companies’ and
retailers’ businesses?
Robert Hill: We are bullish about this industry
and strive to provide our clients with integrated
solutions that provide a one-stop solution for a
broad array of services. To that end, we are
always thinking about what additional services
we can add to better serve the industry, so we
recently came together with a company called
Griffin Strategic Advisors. It is a consulting unit
that helps clients with brand positioning and
shopper and brand insights, and it’s helped us
bring strategic growth consulting as it relates to
a number of industry topics. We also recently acquired Mosaic Sales Solutions, a company focused
on shopper marketing, experiential marketing,
assisted selling, and retail merchandising. Lastly,
Acosta entered the foodservice channel in March
2012 and is working toward building a national
footprint. This is important to our clients as many
are in the foodservice channel offering both edible
and non-food products and that has strengthened
us, too, since half of consumers’ food consumption comes from outside the home.
RL: How do your solutions help companies
drive innovations — and save on costs?
RH: The core of our solutions is around insights
driven by day-to-day analytics that help open
opportunities for our clients. This could involve
working with clients on trade optimization
opportunities or helping them think through
pricing strategies. The ability for us to be in retail
outlets — with more than 32,000 associates —
helps us deliver excellence.
The solutions also help us look at demographics,
particularly around Hispanics. One of the challenges with many CPGs, for example, is how to effectively reach the Hispanic population, and learn
how they shop and what’s important to them.
RL: What shopper insights have you
gleaned that are of particular relevance
and importance to retailers and
CPGs right now?
RH: One of the key insights is that there are
distinctions in shoppers today. As a result, some
manufacturers are creating “good,” “better” and
“best” platforms. Another insight is related to
the perimeter of the store: people are shopping
the deli and fresh departments, but retailers also
are focusing on growth in center store. We are
also looking at the changing frozen foods category. Data suggests younger
shoppers aren’t shopping that
aisle as much, so the question becomes how to create
innovations to get people
in that area.
Finally, one of the important
topics around trade promotion
is making sure there is effectiveness in driving purchases
through a blend of traditional
tools and new avenues, including
using people as media and integrating overall advertising spends.
We are focused on making sure
we are truly adding value
to clients, understanding
retailers’ strategies and
supporting them in a way
that helps with those
strategies.
Posted with permission from January/February 2013. Retail Leader, Stagnito Media. Copyright 2013. All rights reserved.
For more information on the use of this content, contact Wright’s Media at 877-652-5295
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