Why You Should Focus on Improving Return on Investment

Here at Field Sales Solutions, we use Return on Investment as our main measure of success – here’s why you should too.

Whether long or short-term, field marketing campaigns require a high level of investment and aim to make sure you get the most out of this. Therefore, measuring Return on Investment is a valuable way to recognise whether these drives are worthwhile. If Return on Investment is low, there are several things you may need to re-evaluate:

• The suppliers that you’re targeting – are these key stores/on-trade sites that provide opportunity to drive return? A well-established and proven call file is necessary to identify these target locations.
• The SKUs that you’re promoting – even the most effective field sales rep will struggle if the SKU they’re trying to push is misaligned to their target stores or has poor reception to this kind of activity.
• The quality of your field team – successful recruitment and extensive training is required to provide a high-grade field team that can deliver their KPIs and drive return.
• The frequency and length of calls – how often and how long field reps are in store can affect ROI. Too often and key decision makers may be less cooperative, too little and issues instore may not be resolved for a long period of time, resulting in detrimental losses. Similarly, if required call length is too long, less locations can be covered per day resulting in poor efficiency, too short and calls can be less effective due to time pressures.

Return on Investment is reliable, easy to measure and clearly shows the efficiency of your field team. It is calculated based upon the interventions undertaken by the field team, making comparisons with existing EPOS data to show the beneficial effect of their corrective and perceptive actions in the field. The use of Return on Investment figures ensures that data can be readily collected and supplied for representatives in the field to support their suggestions to key decision makers in stores and the on-trade. It also allows management to see whether their proposed strategies are proving a success in the field.

As a figure that can be calculated per store, and thus, per brand ambassador, Return on Investment recognises high achieving field team members providing more opportunity for reward and progression. This data can also be used to outline more effective and bespoke KPI’s for the activity, further driving the effectiveness of your field teams.

To put it clearly, Return on Investment is the most effective measure of success because it shows how much money you get for every £ invested in your field marketing campaign.

Our award winning approach, in a wide variety of sectors, means our clients can be assured that they are getting the maximum return out of our services. Contact Field Sales Solutions today to find out more about how we can drive your Return on Investment.