Your local teams — from retail distributors to shop owners and franchisees — are on the front lines of your brand. But when they’re stuck waiting for campaign assets or improvising without brand guidance, both speed and consistency take a hit.

This blog explores what effective retail distributor and dealer enablement looks like — and how consumer brand marketers can unlock faster, more consistent execution at scale without losing brand control.

Omnichannel execution is broken

You brief a campaign once. But before it hits the market, it’s been rebuilt, reformatted, and reapproved 15 times. Packaging needs one version. Shelf talkers need another. TikTok wants video. Ecommerce demands static banners. Then you localize it all — in five languages, with regional pricing, across every channel. The result? Weeks of lost productivity. A bloated production pipeline. Spiraling costs. Delayed launches. Internal teams spend more time managing tweaks than moving the brand forward. Omnichannel might be the new normal — but it shouldn’t mean chaos. In fact, it’s a challenge that should push retail marketing toward smarter execution.

What it’s really costing your team

Omnichannel retail marketing is complex by design. Customers interact with your brand across dozens of touchpoints — digital ads, shelf displays, mobile apps, influencer videos, packaging, emails, ecommerce — and they expect it all to feel consistent, responsive, and relevant. Delivering that kind of cohesion isn’t easy, especially when global teams are under pressure to localize campaigns in record time.

This complexity is made even harder by several external forces. Economic pressure is forcing teams to do more with fewer resources. Personalization is no longer optional — customers expect experiences tailored to their preferences, location, and behavior. Brands operating across regions must balance global consistency with local nuance. And the explosion of retail media channels demands near-constant adaptation to new formats and placements.

The rework spiral often begins innocently: a campaign is created for one format — a poster, a banner, or a video. But as it moves through different channels and markets, each adaptation requires changes. A new format means new specs. A new market means new messaging. Those changes require re-approval, which leads to further tweaks. Before long, teams are drowning in version control and redesigns.

What began as a single campaign idea has multiplied into a maze of fragmented tasks. It’s not strategic execution — it’s firefighting.

“Digital assets are alpha and omega in our industry. Digital assets help us market and sell our products to customers and resellers, and fund brand growth.

Without a DAM system, we would be forced to increase manual labour and the working processes would decrease efficiency immensely”

Rebecca Sjölander,
Trade Marketing and Asset Production Manager,
Helly Hansen

Make personalization scalable — not painful

Retail personalization isn’t just about knowing your audience — it’s about reflecting the right product, price, and message in every market. But when content production still relies on manual edits, personalization becomes a blocker instead of a booster.

For many retail teams, a single campaign must be adapted into thousands of variants: localized shelf-talkers, digital signage, and mobile banners — all tailored to region-specific SKUs, pricing, and translations. When those details are pulled and pasted manually, the process is time-consuming, error-prone, and impossible to scale at the speed retail demands.

With Papirfly’s Templated Content Creation, product and pricing data flows directly from your PIM system into brand-approved templates. Central teams build once — and instantly produce campaign-ready assets for every SKU, store, and screen.

No more spreadsheets. No more version chaos. Just accurate, compliant, hyper-relevant content delivered in minutes.

The solution: Build once, adapt with control

Papirfly’s Templated Content Creation (TCC) provides a way out of the chaos. Instead of rebuilding assets again and again, you create a master template once — and then adapt it quickly, safely, and at scale. At the heart of TCC is control. Your brand team can lock in essential design elements — like logos, layouts, fonts, and color palettes — so they remain consistent everywhere. You can then define editable areas for local teams to input pricing, product names, language, or offer details. This ensures the right balance between global control and local flexibility.

With auto-formatting capabilities, TCC handles the heavy lifting of resizing assets for multiple channels. Whether you need a print-ready flyer, an HTML5 banner, or a social video, the system generates the correct output — instantly. No manual reworking. No back-and-forth. The platform can also connect directly to your PIM or data sources. This means live product data, translations, or pricing can flow directly into templates, eliminating the need for error-prone copy-paste tasks and reducing compliance risks. Teams can go from campaign concept to activation in a fraction of the time — without sacrificing quality.

TCC doesn’t just improve speed. It protects brand integrity, reduces production waste, and enables teams across global retail organizations to act independently — without going off-brand.

Omnichannel ROI starts with execution

Retail marketers are navigating more complexity than ever before. Margins are tighter, campaigns are more frequent, and the expectations for personalization and performance are rising. In this environment, creative excellence alone isn’t enough. You need the operational backbone to deliver campaigns at scale, without delays or compromises. Execution isn’t just a delivery function — it’s a strategic lever.

With Templated Content Creation, Papirfly enables retail brands to unlock that lever. You eliminate repetitive tasks. You empower teams to act faster. You protect your brand identity while delivering local relevance. It’s time to stop recreating what’s already been made — and start making it work harder, smarter, and faster.

FAQs

Your local teams — from retail distributors to shop owners and franchisees — are on the front lines of your brand. But when they’re stuck waiting for campaign assets or improvising without brand guidance, both speed and consistency take a hit.

This blog explores what effective retail distributor and dealer enablement looks like — and how consumer brand marketers can unlock faster, more consistent execution at scale without losing brand control.

If your content delivery still runs on requests, you’re not enabling — you’re delaying

Retail marketing moves fast. And your brand depends on the people who activate it every day — your distributors, dealers, and franchisees.

Whether it’s a product launch, in-store promotion, or seasonal campaign, these teams are expected to move quickly and stay on-brand. But more often than not, they’re forced to wait on HQ or create assets from scratch.

If you’re fielding one-off content requests from local markets, you’re not practicing retail distributor and dealer enablement — you’re slowing your network down.

Why retail distributor and dealer enablement often breaks down — and how to fix it

Brand marketing teams want consistency. Local teams want to get campaigns live. That tension lies at the heart of most enablement breakdowns.

Your intentions are right — protect the brand, ensure quality, and reduce risk. But in reality, these goals often result in:

Your partners don’t want to go rogue. They want to go live.

The tools that help local teams move faster — without going off-brand

Your dealers and retail distributors don’t want to improvise — they want to execute effectively. But they need the tools to do it right.

Modern retail distributor and dealer enablement means equipping your network with:

• Editable templates that reflect current campaigns and branding
• Pre-set controls to lock logos, fonts, and layouts
• Simple interfaces that anyone on their team can use
• Freedom to localize where it makes sense and fast approvals when needed

When brand teams provide these systems, execution becomes faster and more accurate. Instead of chasing approvals or rebuilding assets from scratch, franchisees can act confidently within clear parameters. That’s how local marketing scales — not by adding more people, but by removing friction.

Editable templates: A practical fix for campaign chaos

With templated content creation, you don’t need to micromanage every activation. Instead, you empower local teams and dealers to:

• Create and localize content in minutes
• Stay on-brand through intelligent locking and embedded brand rules
• Reduce dependency on HQ or external designers
• Speed up time-to-market without sacrificing quality

This isn’t just about content efficiency — it’s about brand growth. Because when your partners can activate campaigns confidently and independently, your brand shows up stronger everywhere.

What a brand portal should offer your retail network

Even with great templates, success depends on access. That’s where a brand portal comes in. A centralized brand portal gives each trailer, dealer or shop owner a secure, easy-to-use space to find what they need — and nothing they don’t. Templates, campaign kits, product images, updated pricing — it’s all in one place, always current, and always aligned to their region or market.

No more searching shared drives. No more accidental use of outdated files. And no more chasing down the latest version of a campaign visual. A good portal not only saves time — it builds trust. Your partners feel equipped, supported, and confident representing your brand.

Scaling local marketing without compromising your brand

Retailer and dealer enablement isn’t just about content access. It’s a strategic shift — from reactive asset delivery to proactive brand empowerment.

When your content systems support speed, scale, and brand control, you don’t just protect your brand — you multiply its reach.

FAQs

The recent eTail Nordic event in Malmo brought together leading brands and marketing professionals to explore the latest trends driving retail and e-commerce in the Nordics. For brands looking to stay competitive in the evolving retail landscape, here are the key trends that stood out for us as a sponsor.

1. The evolving role of customer experience (CX)

In today’s competitive landscape, personalization and seamless omnichannel experiences have become essential. Nordic consumers expect brands to recognize their unique preferences across both digital and physical touchpoints, fostering loyalty through relevant, personalized experiences. As retailers scale their personalized marketing, however, maintaining brand consistency across all channels can become complex. The focus for brands now lies in refining how they present themselves, by showcasing relevant, on-brand content that connects with their audience instantly and effectively.

2. Sustainability as a core value

Sustainability is more than just a trend in the Nordics; it’s an expectation. Consumers are particularly invested in ethical sourcing and circular business models, rewarding brands that align with these values. As brands weave sustainability into their core strategy—not just their products—they are challenged to convey these values authentically. Effectively communicating sustainability efforts across markets, in a way that aligns with local values, is a critical step in building trust with consumers. Brands that manage to do this with clarity and consistency across channels have a distinct advantage in connecting with the eco-conscious Nordic consumer.

3. AI and automation: Efficiency meets creativity

AI is transforming retail by driving efficiency in operations while supporting creativity in customer engagement. From inventory management to automated marketing, AI enables brands to streamline processes while still delivering personalized, engaging content at scale. For many brands, the challenge lies in balancing automation with a genuine, creative touch that resonates with consumers. AI’s role should be about removing repetitive, manual tasks, allowing marketing teams to focus on what really matters: crafting unique, value-driven experiences for their customers that set them apart in a crowded market.

4. Data privacy and trust

With data privacy being a significant concern across the Nordics, brands must maintain transparency and comply with stringent privacy regulations. GDPR compliance isn’t optional; it’s a fundamental requirement for earning and retaining consumer trust. For brands leveraging data for personalization, this means developing processes that respect privacy while providing value to the customer. Those who prioritize clear, ethical data practices build credibility and loyalty, standing out as leaders in responsible data use—a vital differentiator in today’s privacy-conscious market.

5. The growth of social commerce and influencer marketing

Social commerce is booming, and influencer marketing remains an impactful strategy in the Nordics, where consumers are highly engaged on social media. This trend presents a unique opportunity for brands to integrate social commerce into their e-commerce strategy, creating a seamless customer journey from social platform to purchase. Brands that stay agile in adapting to these changes, whether by leveraging influencers or capitalizing on user-generated content, are better positioned to resonate with the highly connected Nordic consumer. The ability to maintain consistent messaging across these platforms, without sacrificing agility, is crucial.

6. Hybrid retail models

The blending of physical and digital retail experiences continues to reshape consumer expectations. Today’s shoppers want the freedom to interact with brands across in-store and online channels, expecting a seamless, unified journey. As hybrid retail gains traction, brands need to focus on delivering a cohesive experience that meets customers wherever they are, whether that’s through digital signage in-store or a streamlined e-commerce interface. Brands that excel in providing this flexibility create a smoother path to purchase, building stronger relationships with consumers by catering to their preferred shopping styles.

7. Accelerated time to market as a competitive edge

In an environment where trends evolve rapidly, speed matters. The ability to go from concept to execution quickly allows brands to stay relevant and respond to market shifts before competitors. Brands that leverage efficient workflows and adaptable structures are better equipped to bring campaigns and promotions to market swiftly and consistently. This agility not only enhances brand responsiveness but also fosters a deeper connection with consumers, who increasingly expect brands to be relevant, timely, and attuned to current trends.

Future-proofing Nordic retail

The future of retail in the Nordics is an exciting mix of technology, consumer expectations, and deeply rooted cultural values. Brands that can align with these evolving dynamics—particularly around sustainability, customer experience, and data privacy—are best positioned for success. By adopting a proactive approach to these trends and prioritizing authenticity and transparency, brands can navigate the future of retail with confidence. The landscape is dynamic, but with thoughtfulness and a focus on core values, Nordic brands can seize tomorrow’s opportunities and continue to lead in a constantly shifting market.

Ready to see how your brand can stay ahead in the Nordic retail landscape? Learn how Papirfly’s Digital Asset Management & Content Creation suite can help you align with these trends and elevate your strategy.

In retail marketing, digital channels often steal the spotlight. Social media. Email. Paid search. Programmatic ads. Billions are poured into grabbing attention on screens big and small.

It might seem as if print had gone extinct. But here’s the truth: when done well, print materials are as powerful as they have ever been – if not more so.

At a time when consumers are bombarded by fleeting digital impressions, a well‑crafted printed asset such as a catalogue, flyer, or poster can stop them in their tracks. It’s tangible, memorable and trusted – and when combined with digital touchpoints it can deliver stronger engagement and conversion than either digital or print alone.

Let’s explore why print in retail still matters – and how you can use it to elevate your marketing strategy.

Print brings lasting impact in a fast‑moving world

A scroll, a swipe, a click – digital content is often here one moment, gone the next. Print lingers. Catalogues stay on coffee tables. Direct mail sits on desks. Posters remain in sight until they’re replaced. That visibility makes a difference for brand awareness and recall.

But it doesn’t mean print is stuck in the past. Smart integrations – QR codes, personalized URLs, promo codes – allow you to bridge the physical and digital worlds seamlessly, driving audiences from paper to pixel in seconds while achieving brand consistency.

The most effective formats for print in retail today

Print adverts

Still a proven way to spark emotional responses. In fact, printed ads can generate stronger emotional response than digital, especially when there is genuine creativity in the content creation process. 

Using QR codes and social media integrations can help you blend print ads seamlessly into the digital landscape. Take this example from Ford. Their print ad incorporates a phone-shaped outline with a QR code that directs readers to a series of short films.

Direct mail

Some still see direct mail as outdated. Why send something to someone’s door when you can reach them instantly via email or social media? But the numbers tell a different story – direct mail continues to outperform, with response rates up to 10 times higher than email and open rates exceeding 90%.

Take Darwill’s recent campaign for a U.S. nonprofit. They mailed personalized donation letters twice a year, aligning each with key fundraising periods. By tailoring the message based on past donor behaviour and coordinating follow-up through digital channels, they achieved a 10% year-on-year increase in donations.

In today’s digital-heavy landscape, the physicality of direct mail feels different – more deliberate, more thoughtful. And when paired with digital touchpoints, its effectiveness increases even further. Direct mail hasn’t disappeared. It’s evolved into a strategic, data-driven part of the modern marketing mix.

Catalogues

Contemporary brands and retailers such as Nordstrom, Patagonia and Restoration Hardware still invest heavily in printed catalogues. Why? Because physical products stay with consumers long after any emails or social media posts are deleted.

Catalogues also create an immersive and curated brand experience that is not always easy to replicate digitally. They invite deeper browsing, which can drive sales in store as well and online.

Point of Sale (POS)

In-store POS materials remain essential for influencing last-minute decisions. Simple, static displays – especially in high-traffic or checkout zones – can outperform more extravagant digital signage when designed well and kept on-brand.

Nike continues to give us some great examples of how to grab attention by keeping it simple.

Why print in retail remains a highly effective marketing tool

Studies continue to back what seasoned marketers know:

• Print gets more attention – readers of printed materials are more likely to notice product details, prices, offers, and CTAs.
• Print is easier to process – it takes less cognitive effort to understand a simple print ad, making it ideal for more detailed messaging.
• Print elicits more emotional responses – it cuts through digital fatigue and feels more personal.
• Print is trusted – zero risk of pop-ups or data breaches means consumers can interact with printed materials without anxiety or skepticism.
• Print builds brand awareness – print executions are often more memorable, increasing the likelihood customers will recall your brand later.

Why it pays to combine print and digital channels

This isn’t about choosing between binary options – it’s about achieving the right balance between the two. A physical first touchpoint can prime audiences to engage more positively with your online campaigns. Likewise, insights from digital behaviour can fuel hyper-personalized printed materials.

The brands that win aren’t digital-only or print-only. They’re the ones who combine channels strategically, delivering a consistent, standout experience wherever their audience meets them.

Power up print in retail with Papirfly

Print isn’t dead. It’s evolving – and in a market saturated with digital noise, it’s a competitive advantage waiting to be used.

With Papirfly’s Templated Content Creation tools, you can:

• Produce professional, on-brand print and digital assets in minutes
• Keep every campaign consistent across markets and channels
• Leverage accurate, real-time product data in your printed materials
• Scale creative output without scaling costs

Ready to make print work harder for your retail brand? Let’s talk.

FAQs

Consumers today have never been more conscious of where their products come from, the impact of their purchases and the conditions of the employees working across their favourite brands.

As well as wages and working environments, customers are also paying close attention to where companies source materials, where goods are manufactured, as well as a brand’s values and commitments.

This ethical consumerism is such a great consideration for shoppers today – whether B2B or B2C – that customers are voting with their wallets. They are buying from companies that align with their personal values or demonstrate certain ethics, instead of the companies they may simply already be familiar with.

What is ethical consumerism?

Every product or service you provide has an impact on the world. A growing number of consumers realise this and want to buy from organisations that have a more positive influence on certain social and environmental issues.

This phenomenon is called ethical consumerism, and is a purchasing practice that has been gaining momentum and popularity in recent years all over the world. To illustrate just how prominent this market is, recent reports suggest that it’s now worth over £122 billion in the UK alone.

Beyond the environment and employee working conditions, ethical consumerism is a broad term that can encompass a range of things.

Ethical consumerism can encompass whether or not a company…

• Tests on animals
• Uses sustainable materials
• Supports what they say they do
• Uses animal products

Although many factors have contributed to the boom in ethical consumerism, one of the primary reasons for this seismic shift in customer behaviour is down to the rise of social media.

These platforms are home to billions of users, all following, researching and discussing their favourite brands every single day. And, as word spreads fast on these platforms, a single post shining a spotlight on a company’s unethical practices could quickly gain traction. With sites such as Glassdoor offering current and former employees to anonymously review companies, it can also affect your ability to attract the right people.

Why is ethical consumerism important for your brand?

As well as benefiting the world, incorporating policies and actions that appeal to the ethical consumer can have several direct benefits to your brand.

Encourage brand loyalty

Many of the world’s most well-known brands grow and succeed because they encourage people to come back and purchase, time and again. Repeat custom rarely happens naturally, and more often than not hinges on a brand developing a trusting relationship with its customers.

Fostering meaningful buyer relationships isn’t something that takes just one action of goodwill. However, by aligning your corporate values with your customers’ expectations, and becoming more responsible as a provider of goods or services, you help lay a solid foundation from which to build a loyal customer base.

To highlight how valuable brand loyalty can be for your business, consider that 50% of loyal customers will make more purchases with their preferred companies, according to Hubspot.

Bolster your reputation

Although the ethical market is growing, this paradigm shift in consumer behaviour has also brought about a rise in ‘corporate boycotting’. This is when consumers avoid specific companies or products because they fail to meet certain common standards or expectations.

By catering to the ethical consumer in your shop, you can work to meet the rising expectations of prospects and help avoid the negative impact on sales and brand reputation a boycott could bring.

Although the severity of corporate boycotts can vary, sportswear titan Nike was at the centre of a labour controversy all the way back in 1990 that damaged the brand so much that it caused the company to completely rethink how it operated and presented itself on the world stage.

Future-proof your brand

Year on year, ethical shopping continues to make up a larger and larger portion of the market, as individuals become more aware of their impact on the world around them.

Moreover, as Gen Z, one of the most ethically conscious cohorts enters the workforce, this consumer movement is unlikely to slow down. 

By taking steps to become a more responsible brand, you help ensure your shop remains appealing to customers today and tomorrow.

3 brands accommodating the conscious consumer

With customer sentiment continuing to evolve, countless brands have made great strides in the way they operate and market themselves. 

To give you some inspiration and guidance on how you can become a more ethically-minded company, here are three of our favourite examples.

1. Reformation

Reformation, a fashion company focused on minimising its impact on the environment, aims to bring sustainable fashion to everyone.

To do this, the brand uses low-impact materials, rescued deadstock fabrics and repurposed vintage clothing. Beyond sustainability, the retailer is also committed to providing a safe and comfortable working environment for its garment workers, building its own factory in Los Angeles to make this a reality.

Launched in 2009, the retailer’s ethics resonate with customers, with Reformation being profitable every year since 2016, $150 million in 2019, and more than doubling to $350 million in 2023.

2. Salesforce

Salesforce, a global leader in cloud-based CRM, demonstrates that ethical consumerism isn’t just for B2C brands. The company has embedded sustainability and social impact into its DNA – turning responsibility into a competitive differentiator for its B2B offering.

Referring to the planet as a “Key stakeholder”, Salesforce reached net-zero residual emissions across its entire value chain and powers its operations with 100% renewable energy. It further underlines the value in their Sustainability Cloud solution to help enterprise customers track and reduce their own carbon footprints, effectively turning ESG reporting into a shared value.

This values-first approach resonates deeply with modern business buyers, positioning Salesforce as a tech partner that delivers both innovation and integrity – earning it continued growth, industry trust, and long-term customer loyalty.

3. Patagonia

Last, but by no means least, is Patagonia. This trailblazer in sustainable outdoor apparel, has long positioned ethical consumerism at the core of its business. The brand doesn’t just talk about responsibility – it embeds it into every layer of its operations.

From pioneering the use of recycled materials to launching the Worn Wear program, which extends product life through repairs and resale, Patagonia champions circular fashion. It allocates 1% of sales to environmental causes and has even gone as far as transferring ownership to a trust and nonprofit, ensuring that profits are used to fight climate change and protect undeveloped land.

This unwavering mission has earned Patagonia a loyal following of conscious consumers, with annual revenues topping $1.5 billion and continued growth driven not by trends, but by values.

How to embrace ethical consumerism

Because ethical consumerism is such a broad and varied topic, there are dozens of ways your business can cater to the ethical consumer – from changing the way you ship your goods, to the way you front your brand in the public eye.

Reduce your brand’s carbon emissions

One way to meet customer expectations is to reduce your carbon footprint as a store. While there are many ways you can approach this problem, we have selected a handful of simple potential solutions you may want to try:

✅  Install energy-saving bulbs in-store
✅  Ship orders to the same address together
✅  Turn off the air-con when it’s not needed
✅  Switch lights off overnight when the store is closed
✅  Encourage employees to cycle or walk to work
✅  Set up a customer recycling scheme to safely dispose of old goods

Even making microscopic changes to the way you operate, such as favouring digital receipts and printing documents double-sided, can all help reduce your emissions and create a more eco-friendly image for your brand.

Align corporate values with corporate actions

Another way you can embrace ethical consumerism is by ensuring your corporate values align with the actions your shop takes. 

For example, if your brand pledges to reduce its impact on the environment, but keeps all of its lights on overnight, people may feel as though you aren’t taking your corporate social responsibility seriously. This, in turn, can quickly harm your reputation.

Take some time to ensure your values correlate. If this means reducing the scale of your commitments to make sure your enterprise can actually achieve what it has set out to do, this will be better for your brand than overpromising and underdelivering.

As well as that, you should also ensure your values are easily found online or across your social platforms, as hiding this information away could seed distrust. Most importantly, your employees need to be able to be given online resources understand your values and ethical goals, as well as talk about them – whether verbally or in marketing materials.

Educate your customers

A third way of catering to ethically-minded customers is by using your reputation and platforms, such as your social pages or blog, to educate prospects on issues pertinent to your brand.

Tell people why you support what you do, and the steps you will take to achieve your desired goals. By committing to causes publicly, you help build trust with new and existing customers, while also raising awareness for good causes and charities.

Naturally, content is crucial in spreading the word about your brand’s values online and in-store. However, as campaigns and charities come and go often, enlisting the expertise of a third-party agency to produce assets may not suit your budget or timescale.

Bringing content production in-house is often seen as unworkable too, as the content creation process is traditionally time-consuming, and would likely clash with other employees’ responsibilities. As well as this, building branded visuals takes skills your team may not have access to.

Readying your brand for an ethical future

With customers more aware of social and environmental issues than ever before, ethical consumerism has seen a boom in popularity in recent years, and is a core consideration when building brand equity with customers.

Although this consumer movement may present a prime opportunity to grow the trust and authenticity of your brand in the eyes of your target audience, it’s important to be clear and honest when making commitments.

While there are many facets of this more conscious form of shopping, content is crucial in demonstrating your pledges to becoming a more responsible business. 

Whether B2B or B2C, creating signage, social media content and visuals for the web can be a costly and time-consuming practice, especially if you spend your budget on asset reproduction rather than high-powered creatives to articulate your commitments.

Building captivating visuals that showcase your ethics doesn’t have to be a grand investment in time or money. By providing teams with on-brand digital assets and templated content creation working together, you can scale content production without any design expertise.

With such a demand from your audience to hear the right message, it’s key you communicate authentically and consistently so customers know your ethics align with theirs – in every single message!

The importance of localizsation

Growing a new brand to become a household name can take years, if not decades, to achieve. But with successful localisation, you don’t have to rebuild your brand identity and consumer trust completely from scratch when launching in a new market.

For a brand to be truly global, it needs to be able to reach consumers anywhere in the world, unlock doors to new markets, be prepared to take on local competition and tap into the buying habits of different audiences. 

As anyone in touch with the modern marketing landscape will know, this takes more than just translating the copy on your products, communications and assets into the relevant languages — as we’ve already covered on the Papirfly Knowledge hub, doing this puts you at risk of making some embarrassing marketing faux pas.

Even at a time when marketers are well aware of the importance of localisation, a study from the CMO Council revealed that despite 63% of marketers being unsatisfied with their localisation efforts, 75% allocate less than a tenth of their budget to improving them.

For successful localisation in any local market, it’s essential to factor in a number of considerations, including:

Cultural sensitivities

Probably the most obvious and definitely one of the most important things to consider before releasing any kind of marketing material in a different market is the associations, nuances or dual meanings it may have there. 

Certain imagery that works well in one local market may be inappropriate or offensive in another. The tagline you’ve been running from day one may not translate as intended or it could even be a local term for something else entirely. For the sake of a few extra checks with local teams, there’s nothing worse than having to pull your hard work because it’s offensive to the very audience you are trying to engage.

There are a surprising number of occasions when big-name brands have got this wrong. Including the time clothing retailer GAP had to apologise to China after releasing a printed t-shirt showing an incorrect map that missed out several of its claimed territories. As well as being aware of long-standing cultural nuances, the impact of significant local events can change the meanings and associations of certain words and phrases. For example, retailers in Australia have to be sensitive about how they promote Black Friday sales as this is also the name given to one of the most devastating bushfires in the country’s history in 1939. It’s one of the reasons that Black Friday sales have only recently taken off and remains predominantly online.

Localising your message

Even when you’ve checked that your translated marketing materials say what you intended, it doesn’t mean they have the same meaning to local consumers. Your brand may be universally recognised, and your products purchased for the same reasons (taste, quality, price etc…), your messaging needs to be unique in every market to get those selling points across in the best way possible.

To get this right, it’s vital that you understand your audience’s buying habits, behaviours and pain points. This will help you tweak your messaging in a way that remains on brand, but resonates better with local consumers.

Seasonal changes and local events

To stay relevant and front-of-mind, brands need to respond to what’s happening in every market they operate in. This means reacting to seasonal changes as well as bouts of unusual weather such as heatwaves, snow and storms, with relevant product promotions.

Being aware of location-specific events like sports contests, music festivals and local traditions create opportunities for brands to respond with promotions of relevant products and messaging.

Hyperlocal culture

A single localisation strategy for each country may not be enough to reach all the different audiences within it. Even when the language doesn’t change, cultural nuances can be completely different between counties, states and regions.

This means that a blanket approach to localisation won’t work. To avoid excluding swathes of consumers, make use of regional teams who understand the needs and wants of audiences in their local area.

Local teams

From an outsider’s perspective, it is almost impossible to gain an in-depth understanding of particular locations and pick up on all the cultural nuances that often become the central idea of the best advertising campaigns.

The best way to make sure that your brand is landing in a local market is to employ the expertise of teams who work there. 

In 2020, Deliveroo used hyper-localisation as the premise for its ‘virtual neighbourhoods’ to ensure they had 100% coverage in every area in which they operate. By building maps around local restaurants, they have been able to accurately geo-target campaigns for specific areas. It also meant they could automatically create new campaigns for local audiences whenever they launched in a new location.

How to make localisation seamless

The points above may seem like a lot to consider, especially if you are planning on taking your brand to every country across the globe. When you have a solid localisation strategy in place, innovative tools can help take the stress away from head office and give local teams the autonomy they need to implement your strategy with innovative features:

Integrate your PIM/ERP with marketing tools 

Bringing your product information management (PIM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) together and making them accessible in one location, empowers local teams to take control of pricing, stock levels, SKUs, variations, inventory options and distribution.

Working from a centralised portal, teams can more easily work together to make informed decisions using relevant data, while keeping senior-level teams in the head office in the loop. It’s a failsafe way to ensure that product variables are consistent.

Common product variables that are important for your marketing 

Capitalise on direct marketing

In unusually hot weather or the upcoming final of a major sports event, marketing teams need to respond fast to meet the sudden changes in consumer demand. 

These are often market-specific and local teams need to achieve fast turnaround times while ensuring that the materials they produce are the correct format, accurate and on-brand. With intelligent templates, pre-set to on and offline formats, they have everything they need to bring asset creation in-house and work within the strict parameters of your brand.

Don’t forget in-store assets

So that local stores are ready to promote local events, stock clearances and take full advantage of other time-sensitive opportunities, retail teams need a seamless way to produce printed in-store marketing materials.

Using simple creation software they can create professional in-store materials in minutes, define templates that are set up in the correct standardised formats for print and digital, and are pre-populated with the most up-to-date brand elements such as logos, colours and taglines.

Embrace local formats

As well as automated formatting for standardised social media assets such as Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, the tools you are using to localise your brand needs to account for local formats.

This means that teams can instantly set their marketing materials to the correct sizes for the local newspaper, print and digital format sizes.

Empower your local teams

Two key components of successful brand localisation are accuracy and speed. When you have a clear understanding of different markets across the globe, and your local teams have the tools they need to achieve great work, your brand can react fast to changing demands in specific locations.

However, these two key components come with two key challenges. When your internal teams are overworked or you rely on outsourcing from external agencies, both speed and accuracy can grind to a halt.

The best way to overcome these challenges is by empowering your teams with a simple way to produce assets in-house and automate repetitive, time-consuming tasks.

Automate content delivery at speed and scale

Tools like BAM by Papirfly™ have a suite of innovative features that help teams to create digital and print assets within dedicated templates. Easy to use and always on-brand. No expert skills are needed. As well as making your team’s lives easier, these features give marketing managers in head offices complete oversight of live campaigns and the ability to react quickly to take advantage of trends and opportunities.

Get smart with localisation and BAM

From online stores and social marketplaces to virtual shopping experiences and more, the number of retail marketing avenues to monopolise on has exploded, and there are more opportunities than ever for retail marketers to reach potential customers.

In today’s retail marketing landscape, pace, demand and scope have made setting a single set of guidelines and enforcing them globally very difficult to execute. In this article, we’ll explore the key elements of brand governance in retail, and where brand strategies should be focused on in the near future.

What does brand governance look like in 2021?

Applying more flexibility to brand governance does not mean going off-brand. While it’s necessary to adapt your guidelines for different platforms, sub-brands and territories, an underlying thread of consistency is still absolutely vital.

Brand trust and authenticity are delivered through consistency. When consumers become used to receiving your messaging, products and services in a certain way, you begin building a relationship. Should this messaging or brand be delivered differently, and without good reason, it could damage the way they perceive you. 

Research shows that a brand has a very short window to make a first impression, and it takes 5-7 impressions to start creating brand awareness.

To monitor every piece of marketing material or campaign asset across the world to make sure this first impression is right the first time, every time is a nearly impossible task. But the demands that have been placed on teams during the pandemic has meant that consistency for consumers has never been so important.

Where should marketers focus their attention?

Brand guidelines

Sure, you’ve already got a set of brand guidelines. But when was the last time you really looked at them? Since they were first created, has your business made any big decisions that could now make them redundant?

Could company decisions have impacted your brand guidelines? 

• Has it made any major changes?
• Started rolling out new seasonal marketing?
• Realigned its core values?
• Launched new products?
• Updated its approach to customer service?
• Introduced new sub-brands or initiatives?
• Opened shop in new locations?

If the answer is yes to any of these, then your guidelines are probably in need of an update.

Your teams may already be crystal clear on how your brand presents itself, but what about your company as a whole, including teams in other markets and departments? To achieve global brand consistency it’s vital that everyone in your company has access to up-to-date and relevant brand guidelines.

The results of outdated brand guidelines or a lack of access to them, will quickly lead to inconsistencies in your product information, pricing and communications. Muddled messaging, unfamiliar looking product packaging and major price differences will leave customers feeling confused and your brand appearing unreliable.

Pricing

Brand governance and price positioning are more closely aligned than you might think. While governance strengthens brand consistency, price positioning strengthens the perceived value of your product. When you have multiple brands and products going to market across the globe, your pricing needs to align with the perceived value in each location. The implications of getting this wrong can undo all the hard work that has gone into your brand marketing.

Any good brand activation management tool will have a PIM and ERP integration feature that helps your teams to centralise product information including descriptions and prices, and allow you to import this data into your marketing (with all content correct) without needing any manual input.

Streamlined product data

Product data is all the information about a product that can be read, measured and structured into a usable format. It can do some wonderful things for retail marketers.

Organised product data can…

✅ Help you create competitive pricing online

✅ Compile product metadata
✅ Give sales teams relevant information

✅ Improve commercial decision-making 

The key to getting the best use of your data relies on your ability to organise what’s relevant to specific teams and make it easily accessible from one location. Again, most good Brand Activation Management portals will help you centralise this easily

In-store challenges

Retail marketing is always changing to adapt to new trends and consumer demands. But the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic have caused monumental shifts in the way we shop in-store.

One of the top strategies for high street retailers has been to merge their online and in-store shopping experiences. More consumers now expect a seamless, hyper-personalised experience whenever they shop, and new technology has made this possible with app-based loyalty schemes, click and collect, personalised recommendations and more.

Effective brand governance is vital in implementing a seamless connection between these online and offline worlds. Without it, customers will be faced with misalignment between their experience shopping with a brand online and in-store.

Online challenges

Although the events of 2020 saw more consumers than ever before adopting online shopping as the norm, this hasn’t come without its challenges.

More online shopping platforms, along with competition from e-commerce giants like Amazon, mean that traditional in-store retailers have had to go above and beyond to meet the high expectations of consumers in the post-pandemic retail landscape.

Brand governance has played a vital role in making this possible. The core values of your brand are what attract your customers to your stores in the first place. Rolling out your brand’s messaging across multiple platforms and letting consumers see consistent, instantly recognisable traits both online and offline gives traditional retailers a physical, personal presence that giants such as Amazon have yet to establish.

Optimising approvals processes

Once a brand has solid governance and consistent alignment, teams need to be able to react fast to put it into practice. However, rushing to get a product to market on time is likely to increase the chances of error.

Having a clear approvals process where all changes can be monitored by key stakeholders not only makes life easier for your teams, but also means that you can react to demands, implement promotions and launch new products with speed and confidence. The key to a successful approvals process is ensuring it’s digitised where possible.

Which features to look out for when choosing a brand activation management tool

Template creation

If you have multiple teams producing retail assets, then templates are a failsafe way to ensure that everything stays on-brand, culturally relevant and consistent with specific campaigns.

Brochure creation

Never underestimate the power of print. With a creation suite built for producing both digital and printed assets, you can roll out a range of materials all with the correct branding, product names, features and prices. Bonus points for a localisation feature that can make your marketing tailored to local territories.

PIM & ERP system integration

As noted earlier in this article, keeping thousands of product variations consistent is much easier when you have up-to-the-minute product data at your disposal. With the right tool, you can use PIM & ERP integration to import information such as top-line USPs, and update packaging and cost information. 

Digital signage

When the pressure is on to roll out new assets in your stores, digital signage is a great way to get your messaging out there, and fast. A tool with capabilities to upload assets to in-store screens directly from one system will help cut to-market turnaround times even further.

What’s next for brand governance in retail?

The world is moving faster every day. Teams are producing more content than ever. Hitting targets rests on the shoulders of central marketing teams. It’s integral to increase speed to market without compromising brand governance and consistency. But with disconnected teams across the globe, multiple agencies involved and disparate budgets, bringing powerful production tools into the mix will be a transformative move for retail marketers everywhere. It won’t be overnight, but when technology is embraced, workflows are re-imagined, productivity is increased and teams can deliver more on-brand campaigns than ever before.

BAM makes brand governance possible

We hope this has given you some new and helpful insights into establishing strong brand governance, and how a Brand Activation Management (BAM) tool can revolutionise your retail marketing processes. The challenges faced by retailers are growing, and as the landscape shifts on a daily basis teams should make their production process digitised, streamlined and future-proofed.Learn more about the BAM by Papirfly™ solution for retail brands and marketers. 

Retailers today are managing more systems, data, and demands than ever before. From inventory and pricing to customer data and campaign assets, the complexity behind daily operations continues to grow. And when systems are unconnected and out of control, it’s your customer experience that suffers.

That’s where Product Information Management (PIM) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) integrations come in. By uniting data sources and business processes, these systems deliver operational efficiency, fuel faster campaigns, and help you achieve brand consistency at scale.

Here’s how PIM and ERP work – and why integrating them with Digital Asset Management and Templated Content Creation tools creates a game-changing foundation for retail brands.

What is PIM?

Product Information Management (PIM) systems enable retailers to manage every detail of their products in one place. This includes:

• Descriptions, SKUs, barcodes, and specs
• Images, videos, and supporting media
• Reviews, prices, certifications, and warranties
• SEO elements and marketing metadata

Whether you’re selling through ecommerce, via marketplaces, or in-store, a PIM makes sure everyone has access to accurate, up-to-date product information – from content creators to ecommerce teams.

What is ERP?

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems centralize the essential processes that keep your business running – everything from order management to HR to logistics. In retail, they’re often used to manage:

• Inventory levels and product availability
• Shipping, payment, and fulfilment
• CRM data and customer journeys
• Campaign planning and budget trackingd warranties
• SEO elements and marketing metadata

An ERP brings clarity and coordination across departments. It ensures real-time data flows between functions and creates a single operational source of truth.

When connected to your marketing tools, that means fewer gaps, less duplication, and more reliable performance across campaigns.

Why PIM and ERP integration together matters for marketers

In a world where delivering a united omnichannel experience for customers grows increasingly important, the strength of your retail marketing depends on the accuracy and availability of your data. Without integration between systems, marketers risk:

• Publishing outdated or conflicting product information
• Slower time-to-market for seasonal or promotional campaigns
• Increased compliance and brand risk due to manual errors

By integrating PIM and ERP systems, you ensure:

• Consistent product content across every campaign, landing page, and sales channel
• Real-time inventory and pricing reflected in marketing collateral
• Streamlined workflows between planning, production, and performance tracking
• Localized, personalized experiences based on unified customer and product data

Papirfly: the missing link between data and brand

While PIM and ERP systems manage the what and how of your business, Digital Asset Management (DAM) powers the why. It connects your data up with a powerful brand portal, ensuring every asset, template, and campaign reflects who you are and what you stand for.

Papirfly’s Digital Asset Management and Templated Content Creation suite is built to integrate directly with your PIM and ERP stack. That means no more copy-pasting data or hunting down the latest pricing spreadsheet. Instead, your teams can:

• Access enriched product data directly within campaign templates
• Automatically sync stock and pricing across marketing materials
• Build local, seasonal campaigns with brand-compliant content at speed 

Whether you’re managing new product launches, regional promotions, or always-on campaigns, an integrated Digital Asset Management system unlocks faster execution with zero compromise on quality or accuracy.

Creating an effective retail brand ecosystem

Retailers without integrated systems rely on spreadsheets, manual updates, and disjointed approvals. Result? Wasted time, rising costs, and brand inconsistencies. But for retailers with an integrated PIM, ERP, and DAM solution, the opposite is true. They are able to: 

• Reduce production delays and errors
• Empower teams to create content fast without going off-brand
• Keep messaging aligned with availability, pricing, and strategy
• Deliver the omnichannel experiences modern customers expect

Ready to get connected?

A single campaign can involve dozens of people, hundreds of assets, and thousands of data points. When those are disconnected, delays and inconsistencies are inevitable.

By integrating your PIM, ERP, and DAM software, you streamline the entire content supply chain. That means more agility, less risk, and a brand experience that consistently delivers.

FAQs

No matter how big a retailer grows, the way consumers think and behave should always shape the way they adapt their communications, stores and customer journeys. Consumers are overwhelmed with choice; buying decisions are becoming harder to make and shopping experiences are becoming ever-more sophisticated both in-store and online. Introducing marketing personalisation into the mix is something that was once considered complex and costly, but today personalisation isn’t just a benefit to consumers – it’s an expectation.

Furthermore, 49% say they have purchased a product that they did not plan to buy after receiving a personalised recommendation from a brand.

Think of each personalisation as an interaction, each one slowly building a relationship with the consumer. As more is learnt about the individual, their experience becomes heightened both online and offline. The brand becomes familiar, a trusted ‘face’ amongst the noise that always appears to have their best interests.

Soon familiarity turns into purchases, and as the post-purchase communication continues, this breeds loyalty. But how far exactly does personalisation need to go in order to achieve this? Where is the line drawn between meeting customer expectations and perhaps a step too far?  

Creating a custom retail experience…online

When data is used responsibly – and for the benefit of the consumer – retailers can create a seamless, enjoyable shopping experience. Whether it’s building brand, making recommendations, or ‘handholding’ the customer through their purchasing journey, small yet significant touches can work wonders to make the user feel special, understood and encouraged to buy a product.

Collating information about an individual such as age, location and shopping habits can help you shape their experience. Many of these experiences are now the norm, and those who aren’t implementing them online are missing out on some great opportunities.

Here are our top 5 tips for personalising your customers’ online experience:

Personal greetings

Having a customer’s name present in your navigation not only makes them feel acknowledged, but assures them that their experience is going to be tailored to them.

Retargeting ads

Reduce abandoned purchases by giving your customers a second chance to see their desired products on other sites they visit.

Adding value through email

Send offers and products relevant to the individual, notify them when their favourite items are back in stock and send follow-up emails post-purchase to make sure they’re happy.

Use localisation

Amongst all the other data that can be collected about a user, one of the easiest to obtain is their location. Firstly, a user shouldn’t ever have to select which country they’re from – it’s simple enough to recognise and prevent them from having an additional step to reach the website. Secondly, being able to promote location-specific offers can be valuable. For example, if an area is affected by torrential weather, you might look to promote your wind-proof umbrellas on the homepage as opposed to sun cream.

Pick up where they left off

There’s nothing worse than making carefully curated selections, getting distracted and then coming back to an empty basket. Keeping products available to a user reduces the chances of them abandoning the purchase altogether.

Hyper-personalisation in retail

According to a Salesforce study, 51% of consumers expect that companies will anticipate their needs and make relevant suggestions before they even make contact. This is where hyper-personalisation will likely take centre stage, and consequently take personalisation in retail to the next level.

Hyper-personalisation uses insights from user behaviours and artificial intelligence to interpret real-time and historical data about an individual. Ads, emails, website content and in-store experiences can all be hyper-personalised with relevant content based on individual browsing history, location, CRM data and more.

It’s worth mentioning that, even though hyper-personalisation in retail can and will be incredibly effective, it’s not something that can be implemented overnight. Your organisation will need to have the right skills to hand, an effective way of centralising and managing data flow, and have plans in place for ongoing maintenance of these intricate marketing efforts.

The level of thought, planning and management is extensive, and though the results will justify the expense for many, it has left lots of industry experts asking is retail really ready for hyper-personalisation AI at all?

Creating a custom retail experience…in–store

Despite the cries of the tabloids, many retailers are managing to entice customers to their physical stores and bringing different levels of personalisation along with them. These opportunities may be viewed as restrictive compared to the digital world, but there are many ways to keep people engaged in-store. In some ways, the physical environment provides a much more effective space to convert. The customer is right there in the flesh and the marketing materials are supported by real salespeople.

Here are our 5 tips for in-store personalisation marketing:

Stores aren’t one–size–fits–all

The more you understand your stores’ locations, the greater the opportunity to enrich the shopping experience. Too often, retailers try and fail to bulk send marketing promotion materials from their head office. Harnessing detailed data such as weather reports can ensure stores present relevant promotions. But when you have hundreds of stores in locations across the world, it’s a monumental task to stay on top of this.

What many big retailers are choosing to do is put the power back into the hands of individual stores with brand activation software, which provides pre-defined on-brand templates for digital signage, printed materials and POS, so that stores can react accordingly to topical and local events. 

Regularly review display effectiveness

Encourage managers and employees to walk in the shoes of customers – give them scenarios they can re-enact to test whether signage and wayfinding are sufficient. Introduce customer surveys to see whether they noticed certain products or promotions as they navigated the store and incentivise them with offers or prize draws.

Additionally, you could assess product placement by A/B testing your displays. For example, if you keep your merchandising blueprints on record, by changing it over time you can monitor how many products were purchased based on each display over a certain period and analyse why you think this could be. These are just a few ways you can help to validate your store layouts and campaigns.

Entice customers with mobile offers

Technology makes it fairly straightforward to send personalised offers or information when a customer enters your store. If they have your brand’s app installed, are connected to the store’s WiFi or they are on your SMS geofencing list, you can instantly know when they are near or in the area. How much data you hold about the individual will dictate whether you can send them a generic offer or a more personalised recommendation.

Connect offline activity to online

There are lots of different ways to introduce multichannel marketing to your customers, and two effective ways of getting physical visitors into the funnel is by introducing email-based receipts and electronic loyalty/points cards. The virtual receipts enter customers into an ‘opt-in’ email marketing funnel, while a loyalty card allows you to learn about their buying habits to further tailor your promotions.

Bring online in-store

Utilise collective data about your online audiences to adapt in-store promotions. For example, if a specific trend is selling well online in Edinburgh, it could be worth exploring this further in-store.

Importance of personalisation in retail marketing

Either bringing personalisation into your existent marketing and customer journey or elevating what you already have will only serve to help you connect even further with your audience. The perception of a retailer can switch in an instant, from a negative encounter with a sales assistant through to a discount code being invalid, every element of a retail experience – online and in-store – will shape the way people feel about your brand and your products, and ultimately whether they go on to buy them.

Brick-and-mortar retailers need to do the best they can to ensure that they can be both proactive and reactive in their in-store marketing. As previously mentioned, personalisation in retail is no longer a point of differentiation, but an expectation. And as technology becomes more sophisticated, so will the consumer.

The key to success is insight, and having the tools in place to effectively act on this insight. Brand Activation Software makes it possible for businesses to create pre-defined templates that can be tailored by employees with specific messaging, imagery and more. These marketing materials include everything from website banners, digital in-store signage, email templates, social media assets – the list goes on. Tools such as this one make the seemingly impossible task of personalisation in retail not only achievable, but simple.

The world of retail marketing is fast paced and ever-changing. Whether it’s at the store or head office level, marketers in this industry often deal with very limited time constraints, constant adaptation to trends and increased pressure on resources. In order to introduce more effective ways to manage campaigns for retail marketing, we must first understand exactly what it is…

What is retail marketing?

Retail marketing is the tactics and strategy of promoting your business and products to consumers.

The traditional retail marketing definition – a product, at a price, being promoted and then sold from a place of business – has given way to a more consumer-focused model. And the retail marketing strategy has changed to keep pace.

Now technology sees an ever-evolving shift in what products are made available and how they’re sold, delivered and promoted. In-store marketing has become more inclusive. And retail brand marketing has developed into a dominant force.

But how do you develop a brand? And get that to market in as crowded a space as retail? Here we look at retail marketing objectives and strategy in more detail.

Why retail marketing is important

Why is retail marketing important? Because quite simply, people want products. Your role as a retail marketer is to get your products to your audience, and how you market them goes a long way to achieving that aim.

You’re not waiting for the consumer to find you. You’re bringing the product to the consumer. And in an increasingly competitive landscape where consumers are spoilt for choice over virtually every product – if you’re not marketing your products effectively, they will find alternatives.

But there are other reasons why retail marketing is valuable for your brand beyond the long-established cycle of buying and selling:

1. It helps you connect with consumers and close the sale

Consumers tend to need multiple touchpoints with a brand, and a decent understanding of the value the product brings to them as an individual before making a purchase. Retail marketing allows you to speak to consumers on a variety of levels, at different stages of the buying cycle. The awareness, education and decision stages can all be directly influenced by campaigns at different touchpoints. 

2. It helps categorise products for the consumer

Marketing, like Point of Sale and digital signage, help purchasers find and buy what they need.  A customer may not even know what comprises the entire range of products and accessories relating to their needs. Often they’re looking for a solution, sometimes, to see if one exists at all. Categorising products helps satisfy the problem-solution issue, and delivers the options of the right product in an easy way for consumers.

3. Provides a service to the customer

As mentioned earlier, people today can choose from a variety of places to find the goods they’re looking for. Part of what makes retail marketing important is how it presents convenient information and incentives to consumers as to why they should choose you and your products.

4. It improves the standard of living

By making a variety of goods and service available to the people at a reasonable price it improves the standard of living.

Beyond the important part retail marketing plays for individual retailers, it also plays a valuable socio-economic role. From the employment opportunities available to retail marketing managers and similar positions, to the impact the retail industry as a whole has on a country’s GDP, retail and therefore retail marketing is a powerful force in today’s world. That’s why there are university degrees in retail marketing.

Retail marketing creates a constant flow of information between the market, consumers and manufacturers. Each helps encourage the other to produce higher quality and better fitting products and services.

What is a retail marketing strategy?

Traditionally, the core of a retail marketing strategy started with the four Ps. These aspects created the foundation for your future retail marketing efforts and put a heavy focus on your products and your organisation as a whole.

The four Ps

Product:

What is the product you want to sell? The two main types are soft goods (fashion, paper products, etc.) and hard goods (household items, tools, electronics, etc.)

Price:

Pricing is key to any retail strategy. You need to cover the cost of the goods, and weigh these against your potential overheads, such as staff and shop rental. Developing a pricing strategy for your products price will typically involve discount offers and competitor analysis.

Place:

Where will you sell the product? You could operate through a distributor, online or in a catalogue. When deciding this, first understand where your customers will feel most comfortable purchasing from.

Promotion:

This is where you define how you will market your product. Technology has opened up countless new opportunities to promote a product, so it’s essential to understand your objectives and choose the right mix of channels.

That was the traditional approach. However, as time has passed, retail strategy has evolved beyond the four Ps into the four Cs. Where the Four Ps centred around the product and how to get it to market, the four Cs approach instead concentrates on the consumer.

The four Cs

Consumer (Product):

Whereas once the focus was on the product, the focus changed to the needs of consumers. Manufacturers would ask what products do people need? They built products around consumer needs.

Cost (Price):

The basics of cost are the same as in the Four Ps in that you need to cover the costs involved in bringing your product to market. But now you need to consider the customer’s perceived value of what they’re buying matches their expectations. Cost also considers how much it will cost them to switch to a competitor.

Convenience (Place):

The internet has changed what convenience means forever. You can buy online and have something delivered the same day or pick it up from a nearby store at a time that works for you. But you need to be offering your customers options that suit them.

Communication (Promotion):

Instead of one-way advertising – ‘here’s our product. Buy it because it’s great…’ – promotion becomes about having conversations with your customers and building loyalty to your brand. Customer conversations can inform brand and product development and are crucial for a long-term retail marketing strategy.

Overall, developing a well-orchestrated retail marketing plan helps provide a greater return on investment, while attracting more potential customers.

But once you have this strategy, it is vital that it evolves over time in response to the economy, new products and innovations, consumer trends and more. Many of the most enduring and celebrated global brands survived by adapting their strategies and branding over time, be it a change of slogan or logo on their various offerings to customers.

Next-day delivery becomes same-day delivery. Partnerships are created to expand existing sales channels. Your retail marketing strategy must be malleable and capable of adjusting to new behaviours, patterns and developments in order to achieve long-term success.

What are the types of retail marketing?

An extensive range of marketing channels for retailers is available to be utilised, each presenting different advantages in line with your goals. Each should be considered in relation to your means and your overarching retail marketing strategy, particularly when it comes to where your target markets are most likely to see and engage with it.

Here are some of the most common types of retail marketing:

Online and digital marketing

The mix of online marketing tactics includes everything from optimising your site for search engines (SEO), automated abandoned basket emails and utilising social media with organic posts and paid adverts to pay-per-click adverts, affiliates and content marketing.

Direct marketing

Any marketing that is designed to elicit a direct response. This is usually a sale but could be a showroom visit or a request for more information. Direct Marketing includes letters through the post, flyers and email newsletters too. Television ‘infomercials’ are even considered a form of direct response marketing.

Point of sale

In-store promotions such as posters, shelf talkers or samples are known as point of sale. You are grabbing the consumer’s interest at the point of sale.

Public relations

PR relates to managing the perception of your brand, and making positive associations and stories to your company. Digital and traditional PR work to ‘spin’ stories that put your brand in a position of authority, maintain relationships with small and large media outlets and provide expert comment on your industry.

Experiential marketing

If you want to promote your product or brand give consumers a taste of what it’s like in the real world. Samples and test drives are a good example of this, but some marketers have gone to incredible lengths to promote a product. Remember Red Bull’s record-breaking skydive from the edge of space?

Limited-time discounts

Discounts are a common tactic to get shoppers to buy. They’re also a good way to clear stock. Add a time limit to increase the sense of urgency and the fear of missing out.

Catalogues

A catalogue is great for allowing people to browse in their own time. Not only can you present products in an idyllic real-life situation, if they leave your store without buying, just hand them a catalogue on the way out. It maintains that connection, for when they are ready to buy and showcases your entire range.

Word of mouth

Word of mouth is one of the most powerful marketing tools. A good recommendation often leads to a sale, or at the very least a highly qualified lead. As well as great products, deliver great customer service and a strong brand. It will help people spread the word.

Some companies formalise the word of mouth strategy with a referral scheme known as refer-a-friend. These deliver rewards for both referrer and referee.

TV and radio advertising

The more traditional channels of television and radio advertising are still useful in an overall marketing mix. Television adverts are often mirrored online through sites such as YouTube, while some companies choose to create ‘television’ adverts purely for YouTube alone.

Television sponsorships are frequently used too.

Partnerships

These are a good way of reaching another potential audience and might take the form of a promotional flyer that another company inserts into its current orders when they are sent out. Or a fast-food chain might partner with a cab company to provide a door-to-door delivery service.

We’ve looked at some tactics and below are the most common outlets for your retail marketing strategy:

Department stores – these offer high levels of customer service alongside a wide range of products and possibly a shop-in-shop model, where other brands sit within the same area of the department store.

Prices typically vary over time, and discount sales are common. In these environments, a customer has the convenience of many products in one place.

Supermarkets – once the main outlet for food, drink and groceries, the supermarket has diversified into banking, insurance and homewares.

In a competitive industry, supermarkets have huge buying power and will sell at low prices, in exchange for volume.

Warehouse retailers – usually in a no-frills environment, warehouse retailers keep overheads down and can sell a wide range of goods at competitive prices.

Speciality retailers – here expert knowledge is backed up with premium prices. Speciality products are added as part of an added value experience.

Ecommerce retailers – also known as etailers. Products are sold online via a website. These are highly convenient and can pass overhead savings, for example not having a brick-and-mortar store, onto customers. Most can ship products anywhere in the world.

Convenience retailers – smaller localised stores, often found in residential areas. These offer a smaller range of products, but at higher prices due to the nature of convenience.

Discount retailers – a variety of discounted products with low prices. Discounter retailers buy less fashionable and overstocked branded products from a range of suppliers and resell at discounted prices.

All or just some will fit your strategy, depending on where your customer is.

How to develop your retail marketing plan

Now we’ve established the basics and importance of retail marketing. To get your brand, products and services out there, it is important to consider the steps to develop an effective, feasible and unique strategy to achieve this.

Below we’ve incorporated some aspects of retail marketing best practice to consider when constructing your plan.

Develop your brand

• Create your brand story and qualities
• Align this with your business objectives
• Develop the assets needed to communicate your brand

Define your position

• Examine what your competitors are doing
• Assess your place in the market – where do your products fit in the landscape?
• Use customer surveys for feedback

Identify your target market

• What are the demographics of your customers?
• Where and how do they prefer to shop?
• What needs and wants do they have that you can resolve?

The benefits of your product

• Determine the USPs of your product against the needs of your customers
• Develop your messaging around these key advantages your products offer

Detail your tactics

• How will you promote your product?
• Which retail marketing channels will you use?
• Will you use advertising?

Build a schedule

• Create a budget for your retail marketing campaigns
• Plan out when the various aspects of your campaign will be delivered, and through which channels

Alongside these best practices, you might also want to consider these other features of effective retail marketing strategies: 

Begin with a story

Every great marketing campaign begins and ends with a story.

It’s a hook designed to grab the audience and pull them in and ideally connect with a very personal emotion. When building your story focus on an individual who looks and fits into the organisation’s key demographic.

Highlight the problem, and show how your product can fix it. The stories do not need to be complex, but are there to showcase the unique advantages of your products and your brand’s distinct personality.

Understand the marketing channels available to you

There are dozens of marketing channels, ranging from social media and internet paid advertising to blogging, TV spots, internet video and word of mouth. You shouldn’t be hasty in determining which one is best suited for your ambitions.

You need to understand the particular channel before using it. The better you understand a marketing method, the stronger you become in this particular ecosystem as you learn how to best utilise the benefits offered by the marketing method.

You may decide to go with a specialist advertising firm to assist with this, or you may bring in a professional who knows the ins and outs. Either way, you need to understand the channels you’ll be working with ahead of time.

Unite your messaging

When you advertise across multiple marketing channels and in numerous locations, it’s crucial to have a strong unifying message. Your messaging needs to be consistent down to the individual product level.

How you position your products across all your marketing channels needs to be consistent with regards to pricing, brand logos, technical specifications, as well as additional text and images.

In this connected world, customers will find you out fast if you can’t keep consistent.

Let branding do the selling too

It’s best to focus on branding, and connecting customers with the brand, as well as selling the product. By telling a good brand story too, you’ll be in a stronger position and you’ll get more engaged and loyal customers in the long term.

How to build a retail brand

Brand value increases exposure and goodwill toward your company. As your brand value grows, your business becomes a more valuable commodity, as more people recognise who your company is and what you stand for.

The value of your brand, also referred to in some cases as brand equity, is generally identified as the amount of money the business makes when compared to a similar product with a generic brand. In other words, how much more (or less) money does your company make due to its branding.

What is retail brand activation?

Brand activation is the process of making a brand a popular, trusted household name. It’s crucial in developing a positive connection between your brand and your audiences. First impressions count.

You may find product samples in stores, pop-up shops in high streets or more complex experiential events. It’s as much about an emotional engagement with consumers as it is putting a new product or brand in the hands of potential buyers.

Here you’ll showcase the core features that make you stand out from the competitors. You’re creating your brand positioning. Doing this effectively and consistently results in greater customer loyalty, as long as their values match your own.

Also consider:

• Marketing and creative that engages with an audience on an emotional level. Get them to believe in your brand.
• Timing – engage your customers at a time that’s right time for them.

Achieving brand consistency

In everything you do, your brand identity should remain consistent throughout the entire company. However, building brand consistency can prove difficult, especially for new companies searching for an audience. Here are several ways brand consistency can be realised as part of your retail strategy.

Create a brand guide

Every brand needs to have a clear voice and identity. It’s what the company stands for and what gives it personality. However, unless you have this clearly defined and established, your company will lack brand consistency. This is why creating a brand guide is necessary.

The brand guide should outline what personality the brand has, the brand’s identity and what sort of character your brand has. All of these traits should receive a clear identification as soon as possible. This way, you can determine your brand’s voice, which will guide a lot of your retail marketing efforts. Generally, your brand guide will fall in line with your key demographic, yet customised for your unique values and objectives.

Once you have created a brand guide, use it for every bit of marketing material, social media post and in-store display. Ask yourself if it fits into the brand guide. If it does, good. This helps build brand consistency. If it doesn’t, adapt the material until it does.

Evolve with the times

It might sound counterintuitive, but your brand needs to evolve. This doesn’t mean dropping all your products and completely changing the services you offer. Instead, evolving your brand identity simply means keeping your company vibrant and current.

Companies evolve their brand identity all the time.

If you look at the history of the Lego logo as one example you’ll find 13 versions since the company began in 1932.

And Lego is certainly not the only brand to reinvent itself – Apple, Burberry and Stella Artois among others have all reinvented their brand. There are many examples and the reasons behind it vary from facing bankruptcy to wanting to appeal to a new generation of consumers.

By constantly revisiting the brand guide and refreshing it when necessary, it is possible to not only stay current, but it allows your business to continue to stand out in your industry. Just make sure everything you produce and all marketing material is consistent with your brand identity.

When you establish a clear brand identity, it allows you to build brand consistency and use this to inform any retail marketing campaign.

Use social media to build a retail brand

Social media has become a powerful way of communicating all elements of a brand to today’s consumers:

The best retail marketing ideas should incorporate a mix of social media techniques:

Don’t stick to a single channel

Customers use more than one channel. You should too.

Use social to support existing campaigns

As well as the obvious advantages of reaching out to new audiences, using social to support existing campaigns will help create a seamless brand experience for your customers.

Use social media for feedback

Social media channels offer great opportunities for gathering feedback about products and testing new ideas.

It’s a great customer service tool

Some customers will only use social media to contact your business. Develop the customer service side of it, to ensure their experience is as good through social as it would be if they phoned.

Get customers to share

A huge advantage of social is the ease with which customers can share their positive experiences. A photo for example, of them happily using a new product. Use them as your advocates.

Listen for trends

Social media channels are where people chat. Look for trends in your market, or about the products you are selling. It’s also a great opportunity to hear what customers are saying about your business.

Use social shopping

People can now buy directly through social media. Make sure you’re on board with this to maximise your business’s sales potential.

Retargeting

If someone comes into your shop or visits your site but doesn’t purchase, it’s possible to retarget them through their social media pages. Like social shopping, it’s all part of the marketing mix.

What does brand equity mean in retail? 

The principle here is that well-established brands, those with a good reputation, are more successful.

Brand equity is important. It affects both the user experience and your potential customers’ confidence over making a purchase from your company.

Retail brand value

Brand value allows a business to charge more for the brand name, and it generates more interest as consumers want to be part of your brand. As your own customer brand equity grows, so too does your ability to increase profits over the competition.

However, as a company, you must first identify and agree upon a way to define your own brand value, in addition to how to measure growth.

Define your brand values

Do not confuse brand value with brand values. The values of your brand are what your company stands for.

It is important to have clear brand values established ahead of time. This way, you can define your retail brand’s value while maintaining core values. Core values are often a prime motivation for customers to engage with your organisation. They like that you provided quality products at affordable prices, or that you donate a portion of proceeds to a local charity, or that everything is made with locally sourced materials.

As brand value grows, and you shift your core values, it will affect brand equity. Increasing the prices of your products, as an example, may negatively impact the way customers saw you as an affordable option.

Brand valuation methods

Your business needs to determine not only how to define brand value for the company itself, but also how to measure it.

The income approach brand valuation, also known as in-use approach brand valuation, looks at predicted future net earnings and connects it to the brand in order to establish a retail brand value.

In other words, it forecasts future sales. You’ll also have your forecast to use as a measuring tool.

Market-based brand valuation occurs when you compare your brand against others on the marketplace. You would be looking at, for example, transactions, prices for similar products and client growth.

You then measure brand value in comparison to the competition.

Cost-based brand valuation looks at the costs your business has accumulated since it started. It looks at how much it would cost to replace the brand.

You’d be aiming to have revenue greater than the cost of creating the brand.

More retail marketing tips

• Have a local appeal – customers want to feel special, and that their unique needs and pain points are being met by your brand and its products. Even if you don’t have a physical store location, you should still be making efforts to localise your marketing to connect on a deeper level with consumers. Employ location-based marketing techniques, such as targeted adverts and discount codes for users in select areas, to drive traffic directly in your local markets.
• Create a unique in-store experience – more and more people shop online for its convenience, but nothing beats a friendly face when they come into your store. Get inventive with your retail marketing efforts here, as customers are only a few steps away from a sale. Experiential marketing can be particularly effective, whether it’s sampling sessions or free trials of products, it can greatly enhance their experience and how they view your brand.
• Retarget online customers – customers who don’t purchase can be retargeted through advertising and social media
• Use online data for agile retail marketing – When your customers shop with you, you build up a profile of information, such as their personal details, buying habits and browsing history. As you amass more insight, your digital marketing and website messaging can be tailored to create a more personalised experience for individual consumers.

How to do retail marketing well – your template

Effective retail marketing requires a good amount of initial research. That would include data that helps you understand the market for your product, including a SWOT analysis, a competitor analysis, understanding the demographics of your audience and where they are buying. Are there any trends? Are there areas where other companies have been successful or failed? The more you have at this stage, the more you have to work with.

Based on the data you’ve acquired, you should have a good idea as to what sort of product or service to highlight in your upcoming marketing campaign. You’ll also uncover other attributes including key demographics and what marketing channels generate the highest return among these audiences.

With a wealth of information provided off the back of your analytical data, you have a strong foundation to produce a functional, successful retail marketing plan.

You just need to generate a template for documenting what works, what doesn’t and how you can evolve the plan over time. Here are a few suggestions on creating that marketing plan template:

Target customers – consumer profiling

There’s a good chance your company has a few different key demographic consumers. Or, you may be interested in attracting a new demographic to the company.

Identify the target customers. Create a customer profile, regarding their age, income level, gender, character traits, interests and everything else you might need to put a real face behind the target customer profile. This step should be an essential part of each of your marketing plans, always placing the consumer, their characteristics and their needs at the heart of everything moving forward.

USP

Your unique selling proposition helps separate your business from the competition. Basically, it’s what special feature your brand delivers that nobody else does. Are you the fastest? Are you first? Whatever it is, say it loud and say it often.

Many companies fall short here, placing their focus on generic benefits over something that genuinely makes their business unique.

Expenses and projections

Where possible make projections for expenses and don’t lose sight of costs. Your budget may be the most crucial part of any retail marketing plan. It will inform where and how you advertise.

Measure success

An often overlooked part of any retail marketing plan is taking time to reflect on the areas that did work, and what fell short of expectations. Testing and refining are crucial in finding the successful formula, so ensure during and after each campaign, you devote time to analysing where improvements can be made.

In addition, define what success means for your company at the start of the process and build milestones throughout to keep you on track. This presents a benchmark for your marketing efforts, so you’re aware if changes are required to achieve the goals you have set out to accomplish.

Great retail marketing ideas for retail stores

• In-store events, such as book signings or book clubs, can be promoted through social media and email.
• Leveraging employees to share information about the store through their own social media channels.
• Taking advantage of channels like Instagram Stories, which allow you to show off certain aspects of your store in an informal manner.
• Price discounts are a fast way to increase sales and get people through the door. Most customers these days expect some kind of sale.
• Get their attention by creating a brilliant window display. Use it to promote your sale.
• Many high-street stores promote loyalty programs. It creates returning customers, but in some cases retailers can even maintain a higher price on their products as customers return to spend their loyalty points.
• Stock products made locally. It’s a great selling point and you can align your brand behind supporting your local community.

PIM – Product information management

You’ve developed the brand, created the strategy but your business will still need to implement and managing processes at each stage of your customer’s journey, including the eventual purchase.

Bigger opportunities mean more challenges, especially when it comes to product-related content. The strategic opportunities of new lines may not include the practical reality of getting those products online, into shops or within catalogues.

Who’s making sure that the descriptions are accurate from a technical (and legal) point of view? Perhaps most importantly from a marketing perspective, with so many products to list and lots of people involved in content creation, is your central brand message in danger of becoming muddled or diluted? And how do you make sure your marketing is using the correct pricing?

This is where your product information management (PIM) strategy comes in.

At heart, it describes a set of processes and tools to help you stay in full control of the information linked to your product lines. Getting it right enables you to make your whole content creation process much more efficient, and promotes a stronger, more accurate and more compelling marketing message.

Why do I need PIM?

From your buying or product development department, via marketing and customer queries, and right through to order dispatch, your products are essentially on a ‘journey’ as they pass through your organisation.

Unless the right information about these products is presented to the right people at the right time, that journey can become needlessly protracted. Here’s how:

Governance

Multi-channel marketing and sales are now part of the marketing mix. Tone and content may alter to meet the needs of different channels, but with multiple sales platforms to manage, there’s a risk of straying from important product information. So it’s useful to have a central hub for core information about the product for your people to draw on – along with channel-specific guidelines.

Flow of information through the company

Where information is fed into a single source, you don’t have marketing teams sitting on their hands waiting for technical information from the product development department. They can access these details immediately and independently to greatly reduce turnaround times for marketing to reach consumers. Plus, it offers a valuable platform for collaborative working with employees who may be based remotely.

Flow of information to the customer

Having access to managed product information makes it easier for your marketers to tailor advertising and marketing materials to your various audiences. This allows you to showcase particular features or particular product variants to groups based on how receptive they will be to these aspects, supporting your personalised marketing efforts.

Retail marketing trends

When you’re creating your marketing plan think about these trends in retail marketing.

• Only 5% of retailers focus on Gen Z. However 60% still target millennials.
• Be vocal about social issues. Most retailers think it’s a risk worth taking and that there are inherent risks with sitting on the fence.
• Be varied with your use of discounts. People seek deals, especially those shopping on mobile. Retailers will offer exclusive discounts to mobile users.
• Invest in voice search. Many retailers believe it’s the way of the future.
• Retailers will use more exclusive products and offers to compete in the digital space.

You may also want to improve on the basics

• Ensure you comply with GDPR and the EU ePrivacy Directive
• Differentiate your brand
• Improve the shopping experience

Whether it’s retail digital marketing or in-store marketing, paying attention to these trends while shaping your strategy will make it more likely you see rewards for your retail marketing efforts.

Retail marketing during COVID-19

In the wake of the Coronavirus pandemic, few sectors have felt both extremes brought on by this crisis like the retail industry. From the immense pressure placed onto supermarkets and other essential organisations, to the reduced traffic experienced by high street shops and fashion lines, 2020 has brought unprecedented challenges to this sector.

When discussing the retailers’ response to COVID-19, there’s a greater emphasis than ever on keeping engaged with customers at this time of confusion and misinformation, investing in digital channels and producing content that resonates with audience’s pain points and changing behaviours in these unique circumstances.

While there is the temptation for those with reduced activity to take their foot off the gas, we firmly believe now is the time to focus on innovation and adaptation. By taking these strides, retailers will be in a stronger position to maintain customer loyalty in this difficult period and perhaps form connections with new audiences both now and beyond this crisis.

So, why retail marketing?

In its simplest form retail marketing is the process of getting your product or service in front of the audience. The immediate benefits are more sales, which are crucial for the survival of a business.

Retail is experiencing a transformation too. People want the experiences to be more personal. Providing brilliant customer service distinguishes you. Great branding inspires confidence and it all has the power to result in repeat custom.

Some of the strategies and techniques available to the retailer are listed here, but when it comes down to it, the sky (and budget) is the limit with developing ideas that get your brand to the top in this noisy world.

A well-defined marketing mix, delivering the right message at the right time, to the right people is a recipe for success.