Apparently the concept of advertising to promote goods and services dates back Egyptian times. Since then it has grown and expanded to be an all-encompassing beast that confronts us every day at every turn. Advertising spend for 2015 in the US alone is forecast to be $190 billion!

In theory, consumers are driven in store by the advertising campaign to buy the product. Of course, in the vast majority of retail scenarios this works.

However, if the consumer comes across a persuasive sales person with a particular motivation to steer the consumer away from their intended purchase, the billions of dollars are wasted.

The point where the consumer interacts with the sales person is the final mile in the journey to purchasing the product and this is often the only point where the consumer will have interacted with a human.

This is where a Trade Engagement Programme comes in to play.

A good Trade Programme engages with the sales person and provides them with the tools, resources and knowledge for them to be confident selling the product.

It is a popular misconception that a sales person will only be motivated by a financial or material incentive, however this is not the case. A good Trade Programme engages with the hearts and minds and only needs to utilise incentives on a tactical basis.

Trade Programmes provide solid and easily measurable ROI and KPI’s and can be scaled within an instant to address competitor announcements or market conditions.

It is true that a Trade Programme is not as glamourous, high focus or award worthy as a multi-million ATL campaign… but then again the budgets are peanuts by comparison.

For more information on how to engage with your trade audience speak to engagement experts FMI Agency.