Building Velocity Ahead of Distribution

Most of us have heard the saying that it’s easier to get on the shelf than off it.

Meaning that new distribution is the easy part and that getting sell-through at the store level is the true challenge.

We all know how hard it is to secure new accounts and get a yes from a buyer, so to be told that in hindsight that was the easy part, can be disheartening.

I love seeing brands win and there is nothing better than the now mandatory picture of the founder, outside a new retailer, with their product in hand, announcing the launch. But then, I remember a good broker friend of mine who used to be adamant about not celebrating a new account until the third re-order. After that order hit, and only after, did he truly feel that the brand was in the clear, at least until the annual review.

Most brands worry about velocity after they hit the shelf. They fill out their trade spend plan, opt-in to all the usual suspects, ask everyone in their network whether they prefer OI or MCB, and wait for the product to move off the shelf.

The issue is that most new brands fail in retail and buyers are quick to move off of new products in favor of another if your brand is not moving. Throwing money retroactively at trade spend solutions after you're on the shelf is a backward way of approaching retail success in my mind.

Most consumers are doing their product discovery online and not on the shelf. If they are reaching for a new product, it’s because they have heard about it online or through word of mouth.

Meaning you have to imprint your brand on the consumer before they enter the store.

Although discounting is a powerful mechanism, especially for millennial shoppers, you’re most likely not going to be able to compete with the discounts offered by national or private-label brands.

Your brand’s audience has to be your superpower.

Which brings us to the topic of the day! Building velocity ahead of distribution.

This is achieved by two key initiatives:

1) Audience Building

2) Data Collection

Building An Audience

The best brands approach retail with this strategy. Their products are already sold before they hit the shelf because their audience has been along for the ride from day one. They have been following the brand, ordering the product online, waiting for it to be available near them, and then supporting the brand in droves once it hits the shelf.

This is audience building. It’s not a customer acquisition cost equation that brands can spend on to fix later in their lifecycle, it’s a multiyear process of building trust through consistent content to your target consumers.

In my mind, omnichannel is not selling online and in-store simultaneously, it’s moving your audience online and in-store at will. It’s understanding that you have never been less removed from the consumer than you are now and that you control the narrative around your brand.

Last week we talked briefly about Nectar and their 1,000+ person line outside of HEB. That audience had been waiting for them to launch in Texas for years. All that time, the brand was nurturing those customers, followers, and subscribers. They were treating their audience as a community and building future velocity years ahead of their product being physically available to buy.

There are no shortcuts for audience building, but the best brands understand that if they foster a relationship with their community from the onset, that customers will be there to support them upon launch.

Take Mid-Day Squares as an example. We all feel like we have been on the journey with them since launching. They have brought us all into the process, documenting everything in lieu of simply creating content, and in doing so they have built organic velocity ahead of distribution that they own because they own the audience relationship and have their trust.

That audience translates beyond social media in the form of word of mouth, enabling their products to move off the shelf at a healthy rate. This coupled with traditional trade spend and promotions is the way to go.

Collecting Data As You Build Your Audience

As you build your audience, data collection is key. You can start collecting first-party data from your consumers with a handful of tools that are available, but you really want to drill down on where they shop and what makes your product resonate with them.

As you focus more on first-party data, you increase the ownership you have over your customer’s journey. Brands executing this are telling their customers where to support them, following up with them for attribution, providing them with a loyalty mechanism, and repurposing their purchase posts into social content. They have a never-ending funnel of organic content and consumer feedback that gives them full control of their on-shelf success.

Now, nothing is absolute, there are always exceptions to this. Historically, the products that I have seen succeed without having to simultaneously build an audience are products where the value proposition is so simple for the consumer to understand when they see it in-store.

These products are usually slightly healthier versions of classics. The consumer gets it instantly, the packaging pops, and the product itself is very strong which results in repeat purchases.

The common thread between these types of brands is that there is no need for consumer education. The consumer sees, the consumer understands, the consumer buys.

Then there are the unicorns that both have an instant, understandable value proposition, while also having an amazing online audience. This would be Olipop for example. If I see the product for the first time, I get it: that’s a healthier soda option. They also have an exceptional digital team, building their brand through amazing content and partnerships, while land-grabbing new product sets weekly inside of every retail channel.

The majority of emerging brands are not Olipop and will find themselves in a situation where they have some distribution (under 3K stores) and some sort of audience online, but it feels untapped and disjointed.

You feel like you’re building online and in-store in two separate silos instead of a collaborative vision.

For these brands, there is no quick fix. You can’t go back in time and start this process.

My advice, instead, is to take inventory of your current situation. Understand deeply where your distribution is succeeding and struggling, how you're communicating with your online audience, and which trade spend programs are resonating at the store level.

It is never too late to prioritize audience building and we will be sure to cover the best options for this in future issues, but it’s important to remember that the keys are consistency and transparency.

Using these two pillars as your guide to building an audience, and capturing that audience effectively, will unlock velocity for your brand that is not 100% reliant on the same handful of trade spend strategies every brand deploys.

Even smaller audiences, that are hyperlocal, can empower brands to own their retail success more, and as that audience grows, your brand will begin to build velocity ahead of distribution as well.

Thanks so much for reading and I look forward to diving more into this topic in future issues.