Disruptive Distro Strategies to Cut Through The Noise
Originally published on our craft beer newsletter Alcohol Content.
Written by: Rob Day
Photography courtesy of brandonsbeverage.com
The beverage business is complicated. It’s hard enough for brands to connect meaningfully with consumers, but in this business, you also need to be compelling to retailers and distributors to be successful.
Let’s focus on the distribution tier and how to be effective.
TREAT YOUR DISTRIBUTOR LIKE YOUR CUSTOMER
This should not be so disruptive of an idea, but I’m shocked at how often this is not the frame of mind that beverage companies approach the distro tier.
With all the talk about partnership and growing the brand, it’s easy to lose focus of the simple fact that your distributor is your customer.
Spend some time getting to know their business and their needs. Then map how your brand fulfills those needs – just like you would with consumers.
- Does your distributor have a portfolio weakness in the winter, and you have the perfect winter drink?
- Are they constrained on bandwidth? Can your business be easier to work with?
- Can you add incremental dollars to deliveries to make every truck more profitable?
- Can you help open new classes of trade with your product offering and effort?
- These are a few examples, but spend some time on this exercise and it will pay back dividends.
ACTIVATE YOUR CONSUMERS
It’s not your distributor’s job to market your brand. That’s your job.
Get to know your drinkers well and find creative ways to motivate them. This takes focus and discipline combined with creative execution. Most companies don’t have budgets to be boring, so you need to bring it every day.
Focus relentlessly on motivating consumers, and you create pull and velocity. Distributors need velocity to run an effective business, and retailers love a brand that moves.
Putting significant energy behind this will pay off more than any sales incentive you can imagine.