Seven Signs Your Company Should Invest in Field Marketing Technology

Most national brands that have partners selling their products at the local level offer a co-op marketing program. For those brands with hundreds of local sales partners, keeping track of each partner’s marketing plan is a full-time job. Depending on your number of partners, it could add up to even 10 or more full-time jobs. However, those dedicated positions aren’t always covered within your national marketing team. That often means that local sales partners are left on their own to create strategic marketing plans, and guess what: most of them don’t have a marketing background.

Now don’t get me wrong – these partners are experts in their industry. They know their products and services inside and out. But from our experience in the field marketing industry, we’ve seen that those partners without dedicated marketing team members or outside support don’t implement the most strategic plan for their market. And that’s bad for your brand.

You can’t always solve these problems in house. Luckily, there are experts that offer marketing technologies and platforms that enable you to offer strategic, local marketing plans without draining your own resources. For example, SA offers Metis, an online platform that allows local partners to build custom advertising plans with the help of our marketing professionals.

So how do you know if this type of solution is right for your company? Here are seven signs that your co-op program could benefit from a field marketing platform:

• You notice your local sales partners aren’t using co-op marketing dollars. In other words, they’re not advertising.
• If they are advertising, you see that there isn’t a consistent brand message.
• Local sales partners are not using the digital assets you’ve made available to them.
• The partners are doing their own marketing, but the tactics are not effective in reaching new customers, driving sales, or meeting the company’s identified business objective.
• Creative work is not done by professional designers.
• You offer national promotions, but your local sales partners need help driving the message.
• Local sales partners are requesting more help with their marketing plans, but you don’t have the staff internally to help channel partners put together local marketing plans in an efficient way.

If you’re noticing the signs above or are just interested in learning more, visit our multi-location marketing page or give us a call at 515-453-2000 to schedule a demo.