Why Can't Promotional Activities Be Done?

[phenomenon]

Every June, it is the off-season for Q enterprises.

Marketing center management team repeatedly discussed that they should launch a new round of promotional offensive at this time.

In order to get the approval smoothly, they have chosen the set of minimum risk and guaranteed income in many promotional schemes.

The forecast results show that the national agent channel can only invest less than 300 thousand yuan to promote the start-up capital, so that it can increase sales volume of nearly 10 million yuan and nearly 3 million gross profit, and the input output ratio is considerable.

This prediction is based on facts.

Just two months ago, the marketing center has just held similar promotional activities, the effect is very satisfactory, the national sales volume increased by 40% over the same month, and sales increased significantly.

The improvement of this plan is not small, the details are more perfect, and the marketing center is also full of confidence.

But they enthusiastically reported the activities, but were questioned and opposed by the boss.

"What about the agents who withhold the promotional gifts?"

"Do you not sell mid and low end products well?"

"Sales promotion is over and sales are down again. Is it not a waste of effort?"

A series of "bone picking" problems in the egg, how can the marketing department explain the boss's dissatisfaction?

At last, the boss was furious, who asked you to spend money so lavishly?

After repeated statements and repeated requests from the marketing center, the boss finally reluctantly agreed to promote sales, but demanded that the budget be reduced.

As a result of a 1/3 reduction in investment, the effect has declined, reaching only half of the expected growth. Even so, the company has once again made a full pot of monthly sales.

After the victory, the marketing officers were in a heavy mood.

It's a good thing for enterprises to be happy if they do well in sales promotion and earn lots of real gold and silver.

But the boss not only does not support, but is so critical. Is the boss really going to "get away with money?"

Few bosses expect businesses to be bad. Then, when Q companies have successful cases in marketing centers, why do they need to intervene?

It is not for fear of the "running away" of promotional gifts. As long as the income of the enterprise is large enough, it is entirely acceptable to regard the promotion fund as the cost of giving profits to the channel.

Nor is it worried that sales will fall after promotions, and sales will increase in the off-season.

In fact, the boss has talked about the idea that "low and medium end products need not be promoted".

The implication behind this remark is that the middle and low end products are not profitable enough to push the promotion cost to high-end products.

In the final analysis, two word profit is the most important concern of the boss.

The boss thinks: the marketing department unceasingly increases the expense input, is indifferent to the profit big high-end product, is one kind of "buttocks decides the head" the standard thought.

They only care about whether they can complete the sales task, and only care about their bonus at the end of the year, and do not care about the overall interests of the enterprise.

Marketing department thinks: market competition has entered the white hot, price war smoky, trying to maintain high profit space is a dead end, only through the substantial growth of sales in exchange for profit steadily.

On the face of it, the boss and the marketing department are making a dispute about how much the promotion costs and how to promote the details. In fact, the focus of the dispute is "who is responsible for the profits of the enterprises?"

The reason for this difference is that Q companies only focus on sales assessment, but there is no profit assessment index.

Due to intensified market competition, raw material prices have skyrocketed in recent years, and the average gross profit margin of Q enterprises has dropped from 40% in the past 20% to about the present.

Because shareholders must pay dividends enough each year, enterprises are more sensitive to profits.

In the past, the lack of a leg assessment index began to create a serious mutual distrust between the top level and the middle level.

As long as it involves the problem of cost, enterprises suspect that the marketing department is a false report of "wearing three feet cap", so they tend to cut the knife head-on, but this often cuts the flow of the marketing department's head and greatly reduces the work efficiency.

The solution is to set up gross profit index (not net profit, net profit of enterprise is also affected by the comprehensive cost of management and financial expenses, and the marketing department is unable to control). The relationship between the two sides is clear.

Sales can not be rewarded if the gross profit is not completed. The marketing department will form self-discipline, and the top managers can also fully empower them tactically.

Good sales is really good?

Three levels of assessment for marketing department

Look at the management level of an enterprise. Sometimes, just ask them what assessment indicators they have for the marketing department.

Sales volume does not mean everything. Measuring marketing performance should start from three levels.

Primary level indicators: only to assess financial indicators, at least should include sales, gross profit, cost and market share.

The first two items are absoluteness requirements, and the latter two are relative requirements.

The reason is that when sales and gross margins are substantially increased, the cost requirements can be moderately relaxed.

The market share is affected by many factors, so the latter two importance is relatively minor.

These four kinds of indicators are indispensable, which will lead to fatal problems.

Without sales targets (of course, rarely seen such a daring enterprise), marketing departments will muddle along.

Without gross profit index, the marketing department may make the enterprise lose money and make a cry.

Without cost indicators, greedy laws will be imposed and the surplus can not be spent.

Without market share index, it will appear arrogant and dumb.

This is a simple question. It is strange that many enterprises have made a big mistake in this respect.

Q enterprises are short of the absolute quota of gross profit for a long time. This leads to the fact that the boss has become a real marketing director, so long as he is concerned with profits, he will definitely intervene.

In the most important 4P of marketing, the decision-making power of products, channels, prices and promotions is not in the marketing department at all two.

In other words, 4P can only be authorized by 2P, and the decision-making of high level is divorced from the line of marketing.

Similarly, the lack of market share index makes Q enterprises slow to make decisions.

Although sales have been improving in recent years, other enterprises in the industry are growing faster and their market share is declining.

This shows that they have problems in the strategy of products, channels and prices.

But when the marketing department reflects up to the top, the boss is suspicious of his motives, causing the company to miss a good opportunity for development.

If there is a market share index, enterprises will not misjudge the overall situation.

To achieve the basic sound financial indicators, we can have a relatively objective understanding of the short-term marketing situation, but this is far from enough.

Intermediate level indicators: a more effective way of in-depth evaluation of marketing departments.

It mainly includes: channel construction index, brand influence index, customer satisfaction index and engineering project index.

These indicators are not as easy to get as financial indicators, but they are more valuable to enterprises, mainly in order to prevent marketing departments from drying up and keeping enterprises in the medium and long term development momentum.

Without channel building indicators, sales growth will not last.

To prevent the marketing department from picking fruit and not planting trees, later people will have nowhere to enjoy the cool.

Without the brand influence index, the basic physical fitness of enterprises will continue to weaken.

It is necessary to prevent the marketing department from investing in brand building in the short term promotion, so that later people can only take over a mess that lacks brand reserves.

Sales growth is definitely short-term in the absence of customer satisfaction indicators.

To prevent the marketing department from oversqueezing channels, then people will be sitting on the powder keg, so long as a match is struck, a big explosion will happen.

For projects and other special indicators vary from enterprise to enterprise.

The retail sales of Q enterprises are shrinking, and the proportion of projects is approaching 50%.

In this regard, we will not assess, and one day, enterprises will be unable to catch up.

High level indicators: if the indicators of the first two levels are sound, enterprises with vision and vision will join the indicators of learning and growth. The purpose is to ensure the long-term interests of enterprises.

Generally speaking, it should include cadre team building, staff skills growth, information system integration, process reengineering and innovation.

It is worth noting that not all enterprises must pursue the advanced level of marketing management indicators. This depends on the external environment and the internal environment of the enterprise.

Bosses often care only about sales volume, but they do not know that sales quality is more critical.

Sales without profit are of little value to enterprises. From this perspective, profit is the core index to describe the quality of sales.

Indicators should form a system, otherwise marketing will easily become a short-term behavior. The marketing department will raise another indicator by hurting an indicator, which often runs counter to the original intention of the enterprise.

This is the same reason as the purchasing department of an enterprise.

Purchasing department ensures that material supply timeliness is the main indicator, but if there is a lack of quality and cost index constraints, the purchasing department can achieve its purpose by reducing quality and raising costs.

This will bring greater harm to enterprises.

Marketing is also true.

The primary level indicators are not perfect, and intermediate level indicators are not set up. Such enterprises have obvious conflicts in marketing decisions.

When the assessment index is not perfect, the responsibility is not clear, so the authorization is not enough. This is a problem encountered by middle-level cadres.

When the assessment index is not perfect, monitoring is also not good, so we can not talk about effective management, which is the problem faced by senior cadres.

Decision makers should know which indicators are to be included in the examination area. Instead of "subordinates", subordinates should be asked to put forward their strategic requirements openly and openly.

Tactical decentralization and strategic centralization are the only way to enable the top and middle levels of the enterprise to find their proper positions.

1, for the marketing department, we have lightened our responsibilities and lost our power.

In the marketing assessment of enterprises, there is a lack of an important index of profit. On the face of it, the marketing department takes advantage of the company and the burden is reduced.

But in fact, because this will affect the company's authorization, causing marketers to be tied up, and ultimately even sales can not be guaranteed.

As an executor, the marketing department should take the initiative to ask for more responsibilities, and not to muddle along.

To help enterprises improve their performance indicators and benefit others.

2 for the boss, people will first use indicators.

Many enterprises are worried about the introduction of "parachute soldiers" of professional managers. One worry is that they are afraid of the risk of excessive short-term behavior. This is often because their own management index system is not sound enough.