February 5, 2013

Before you are ready to pitch to a buyer, there are “must-haves” you should first have in place. These “must-haves” are all components of a larger business case you are building to convince buyers they need your product in their assortment. And these components take time to build, which is why it is important to address them now!

Add this “Must Have” to your business case to address the question, how does your product benefit retailers?

Build your brand’s awareness. Having a good product is not enough. It needs to be backed by strong branding and effective marketing. Good branding lends itself to future line extensions which give buyers’ confidence that this buyer-vendor relationship has longevity and can drive future business. Strong branding creates shelf presence and makes it easier to shop the shelves. And this fuels category growth, which translates to more shoppers and revenue for retailers. Also, any marketing tactics like advertising or promotional deals you can offer will help drive traffic to stores – either through new shoppers or more frequent or bigger store trips. You can demonstrate this in your pitch presentation with slides showing the success metrics of past marketing and promotional programs and recommendations for the programs you will create to drive customers to their stores. Also include a slide that shows all the media outlets that have featured your brand to demonstrate your broad reach.