Posted by: TeletrackLIVE

3 ways to increase engagement with tactical merchandisers.

For FMCG brands looking to hit a lot of stores in a short space of time utilisation of tactical merchandising provides a tried and tested way of massively boosting the reach of their field marketing workforce. However in our experience engaging with tactical merchandisers is different to engaging with full time strategic field force, we've compiled a list of 3 ways to boost engagement and quality of data back from the field when utilising tactical merchandisers. 

These tips aren't just for FMCG brands, merchandising agencies can utilise these tips to provide an above and beyond service to their clients - engaged merchandisers deliver better results for everybody!

1. Brief, brief and brief some more!

Tactical merchandisers are an excellent resource for furthering your reach, but you must remember that they don't always know and love your brand as much as you do. You spend every day surrounded by your values, your value proposition, your mission - your new merchandisers aren't aware of any of that! When you send out your brief to your agency or agencies, make it more than the minimum expected requirements - brand activation is more than checking facings and siting SELs, it's a window to the eyes of your target buyers. 

Make sure your brief contains some information about why you're working with this merchandiser, what are you trying to achieve, what do you really want from the store visit. Remember briefs don't always have to be pdfs with a couple of example sitings - you can stand out even more by using rich media briefing techniques like:

1. Video briefings
2. Animated explainer videos
3. Infographics
4. Augmented reality videos
5. POS building videos

2. A well designed audit and process

It's essential when outsourcing merchandising/siting/POS placement activities that the process is well defined and the merchandiser journey in store is well understood. Merchandisers will follow the survey linearly so it's imperative to place the order of questions, photo slots and other instructions in the order that they will be carried out in-store. There's nothing more frustrating than having to go from one end of a retailer location to the other only to come back to where you started for the next SKU.

Thankfully the solution is easy - dry run the audit, either in person or by process mapping everything that will be happening in store. Find out where the SKUs are bundled together and work out how to organise the survey to complement the merchandiser journey through the activity. The benefits of this are two-fold:

1. Merchandisers waste less time in store, getting the required outcomes completed in less time and more likely to be completed in full.
2. Happy merchandisers will take on repeat work from the multitude of agencies and brands offering work out, having access to the best merchandisers can give you a foot up when executing activation strategies that are important to the business.

3. Gamification for Field Marketing

Gamification increases productivity - by some sources up to 89% of employees felt more productive when their work was gamified and there is no reason why this can't be extended to a 3rd party workforce - even small incentives such as a gift voucher (or even some of your fantastic product...) can bolster the success rates and engagement of the tactical merchandisers.

Gamification works on a concept of promoting some friendly competition across a series of predefined metrics, some of the metrics which can be applied in a retail merchandising environment include

1. Number and quality of photos
2. Speed of completion of activities
3. Extra facings gained
4. Prime locations gained for POS or FSDU sitings
5. Additional competitor activity captured

via GIPHY

So there we have it, 3 ways which you can boost the performance of your tactical workforce - we think by implementing any (or all) of these methodologies the return on investment will be seen quickly and the quality of the data received back from the field and the activation in the field will increase overnight - how good is that?

TeletrackLIVE is a retail execution platform used by brands and agencies to manage field based workforce - it is currently in use with tactical merchandising, strategic merchandising, field sales, brand ambassador programs and more! To find out how we increase ROI on retail execution activity request a demo today!