FMCG Industry: Tips and Strategies to Increase Sales and Grow Business
FMCG is one of the most competitive industries. Whether it’s personal durables, food & beverage industry, or household care, rapid and significant changes are occurring in the industry. The FMCG market has experienced healthy growth over the last decade because of adoption of experience retailing along with reflecting consumers desire to enhance their physical shopping experience with a social or leisure experience.
The rise of technology and the changing purchasing habits of customers naturally require us to change the way we communicate with them. In this blog post, we will include strategies to increase sales in the FMCG industry. But first, we will look at the main features of the FMCG industry in order to understand and implement these strategies correctly.
5 features of the FMCG Industry
A consumer’s perception of the brand greatly influences the consumer’s purchasing decision. Other factors affecting the purchasing decision are change in lifestyle, fashion and income. Better market research naturally provides better insights about customers. This ultimately results in better brand reputation.
Marketing campaigns play a crucial role in the FMCG industry, as most FMCG companies have to reach people and compete with large numbers of players at the same time. Since there are the same merchandise and products offered by different brands, customers have the right to make thousands of choices. It is also a fact that the differences created by marketing and perceived by people are more than the real differences in the market.
The basic technology for production in the FMCG sector is readily available and stable at the same time. The basic process is rarely altered when changes in technology are applied.
4. High Initial Launch Cost
While FMCG is a low-capital-intensive industry, a large front-end investment is needed to develop new products, do market research, test and launch new products.Raising awareness among consumers can be a real challenge as merchants often spend so much on ads, free samples and product promotions.
5. Low Capital Intensity
Many FMCG product categories do not need a large investment in machinery, plant and other fixed assets. Thus, absence of capacity is not a common problem. Also, cash is the major payment method.
Strategies to Increase Sales for FMCGs
1. Know what customer need
A consumer’s buying habits are changing rapidly and it is necessary to know the consumer’s behavior towards your product. Create your own strategy to learn more about customer needs. After knowing about the customer, you need to build your own strategy that will help you capture market share and position yourself as a leader in the market.
2. Increase and manage sales efficiently
Sales is the first and most significant element of any company for growth. You should have a proper system to perform to manage your sales basket. Build a unique strategy in your business to have qualified leads. As you have qualified leads it is important to have a customized system to manage those leads.
Response helps you build/rebuild your sales strategy and modernize your sales process to manage your leads effectively.
3. Gathering All Process Stakeholders on Digital Tools/Platforms
We know that using digital tools is indispensable for any business looking for innovative ways to improve their business. There is no doubt that digital transformation directly increases efficiency in every distribution channel. Therefore, if FMCG companies aim to achieve better results, they should prefer digital tools and platforms of such high quality.
Digital maturity means improved customer experience, innovation in product delivery, and a way to connect all process stakeholders across various digital channels and devices.
4. Create a strategy for your bottom-up savings
Increasing sales and company revenues does not mean the company is making a profit.
In order to have more profits, the company must have a proper process to control the operational cost. Until a suitable process is in place, it will be very difficult for a company to save on unwanted costs.
5. Manage your operation efficiently
To have control over operational cost, a company needs to analyze and manage all operational activity. This is only possible by having the appropriate tools.
Response is always on hand to provide the latest tools to reduce your operational time and money.
Our proven system helps our customer significantly save on operational costs. Are you worried about unnecessary costs for your operation, then it’s time to meet us.
Tips to Increase Sales for FMCGs
Promotion has always been one of the most powerful marketing tactics that all businesses choose to implement.
Is constantly lowering prices the right tactic to attract customers? The answer would of course be NO. If you do not have a good and effective plan and strategy, customers will most likely evaluate your discounted products as poor quality and therefore buy from other brands.
Make sure you’re giving your discounts to the right customer group. If your targeted customers don’t have a demand for your products, they will ignore your products and your campaign will fail completely.
In addition, you can increase the likelihood that your customers will click on the deals and buy your products by using a promotion bar to display your deals on any page of your website.
2. Loyalty Program
Loyal customers are important in all industries.
However, due to the short product life cycle in the FMCG industry, customers have to repeat their purchases many times. If you can’t please your customers and earn their loyalty, they will start looking at your competitors’ products. This means losing a lot of profit. All of this makes loyal customers even more important in the FMCG industry.
As mentioned above, FMCG customers often purchase a product multiple times. So it creates a great opportunity for store owners to offer various subscription plans.
Many multinational FMCG companies, including Unilever and Nestle, are implementing subscription programs for their products and have had some positive results at first.
Traders and customers are very satisfied with the subscription model because it saves both time and money significantly
4. Good relations with retailers
Is your business working well? If the answer is yes, then we can say that you have a good retailer system. You must have answers to these questions.
How many retailers do you need to cover the entire potential market? What kind of retailers are your ideal partners?
The shopping experience at PoS is the decisive element for customers’ satisfaction.
Here are some helpful tips when choosing a partner for your business:
- Create a “picture of success” by identifying the main factors that most influence purchasing decisions. You have to properly consider variables such as regionality, store categories and sizes, seasonality. You also need to analyze all these elements to create the best possible conditions for your products featured in stores.
- Choose the stores with the highest sales potential. Companies now offer more products in the same categories, so the competition is getting tougher. Never sell everything everywhere. You need to segment stores to offer the right products in the right place to maximize your sales.
- Inform your sales staff about the “picture of success” regularly and in detail. Train your sales staff what to do when visiting the PoS to gain the trust of the store owners and customers.
- Ensure constant monitoring of your stores. When you present a great offer and attractive products to retail outlets, you need to make sure the stores meet all your standards.
5. After-sales services
There is a lot of hidden potential in the FMCG industry for both old and new traders. What matters is not how long you’ve been in this industry, but how smart you are in business strategies.
You can grow in the sector and stay ahead of the competition with the effective after-sales services you provide.
It is a fact that the FMCG industry is competitive. However, there is also a significant potential to grow and get a share. The important point here is to understand the dynamics and requirements of the sector and to analyze and apply the right tactics and strategies correctly.
At Response Digital Growth Marketing Agency, we create a digital growth marketing strategy that is not only innovative and market-leading but, most importantly, delivers commercial success. Would you like to discuss a full-funnel digital growth campaign? Contact us!