Overview: Digital tools and their application for trade marketing
Diverse forms of digital tools support brands and retailers in managing their trade marketing more effectively:
- CMS Tools
such as WordPress or TYPO3 manage websites. They provide content creation, search engine optimization, and blog post publishing functions. - CRM Tools
Software for customer relationship management collects, manages and analyzes customer information. This allows customer profiles to be created, purchasing behavior to be tracked, or personalized offers to be generated. - E-Commerce Tools
Platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce or Magento present and sell products online. In addition to product display, they also offer inventory management and payment processing functions. - Marketing Automation Tools
Platforms such as HubSpot or Mailchimp automate and optimize marketing campaigns. They enable, for example, the segmentation of customers and sending personalized emails. - Social Media Tools
Publishing tools like Hootsuite or Buffer help plan, publish and analyze social media posts. Community management functions enable interactions with the target group. - Influencer Marketing Tools
Specialized platforms such as IROIN, Storyclash or InfluData support the search for and collaboration with influencers and the management and analysis of influencer campaigns. - Data Analyse Tools
Tools such as Google or Adobe Analytics provide information on website traffic, customer behavior, conversion rate, and other KPIs and enable ongoing marketing strategy optimization.
Digitization and its underrated benefits for the retail industry
If there’s one fact we’re confident of at socialPALS, it’s that the future of trade marketing is digital. Because the best campaigns are still the ones that are seen. Here we explain what must ultimately follow from this realization for brands and in-store retailers.
Digital trade marketing offers many advantages: focused targeting, minimization of wastage, precise measurability of campaign impact and simple integration of lead-generation formats, to name but a few. In addition, it offers another system-immanent advantage – which is still unfortunately too often overlooked: We are talking about the manifold possibilities for automatization and campaigns in the virtual domain.
Why social media is the first stage of marketing automation
In some cases, the potential for process optimization associated with digital is so apparent that it is practically imperceptible. Using social media networks such as Facebook or Instagram is, from a technical point of view, a form of platform-based automation. You no longer have to worry about technical details regarding posting. And thoughts about the formal design are also not mandatory. Such providers aim to make the threshold for posting on the platform as low as possible by providing a suitable structure.
On the retailer side, this is why smaller stores, in particular, prefer – and often more or less exclusively – to fly their digital flag on the various social media channels. This gives them ample awareness with relatively little time investment, and local and regional target groups are also elementary to find. On the other hand, however, this easy access also creates an enormous amount of digital noise: A smartphone picture is quickly taken and posted – but where everyone is simultaneously next to each other doing just that, ultimately, no one is visible. Daily business usually lacks time for more aesthetically sophisticated communication that stands out from this noise and ensures real visibility.
Content is King – even in trade marketing
Brands and manufacturers are responding to this challenge with content produced specifically for social media channels – including those of their retail partners. And they would like nothing better than to see their elaborate campaigns played out via the retailer channels equipped with maximum credibility. But – cue workload and tough day-to-day retailer life – there isn’t enough time on the retail partner side to manually enter brand content regularly. The situation on the manufacturer side is hardly any better for proactive and individual advertising, right down to smaller partners in sales.
Download solutions are not very practical for brands and retailers
This is the main reason why purely passively structured B2B download portals, even in conjunction with regular newsletters on updates, often do not perform as successfully as hoped. The level of attention they demand from the retailer for successful use is still too high. Or, to put it another way, they criminally fail to exploit key automation potentials of digital trade marketing.
Because posting on social media channels can be perfectly automated. Adding third-party content from the cloud (for example, images or videos provided by brands) is not a problem. One hundred per cent CI conformity is just as perfectly guaranteed for the brands in this way as the strategically perfect timing of the measures. All of this, of course, with equally automated sociographic and/or regional targeting of the highest precision.
Automated trade marketing delivers effectiveness and success control
On top of this, automation in the digital world naturally also offers the potential for the most extensive recording of the circumstances that lead to new leads. And with suitable measures, the conversion rate can also be determined with similar precision on a platform like socialPALS as on purely digital channels. You can hardly place your advertising subsidies for retailers more transparently and thus more effectively.
If you want to know how easy the path is for retailers and brands to a fully automated, professional online marketing campaign, please click here for your personal, no-obligation demo!
Act today and use your MDF more effectively!
socialPALS brings brands and retail partners together and creates a win-win situation that unleashes previously untapped potential. The innovative software solution simplifies complex processes through automated trade marketing and strengthens stationary retail through regional brand campaigns. Get your obligation-free platform demo today and become part of the socialPALS success story.