Marketing Decisions: Sales Force
Our team relied heavily on four main strategies when making decisions regarding sales force. First, we steadily increased our Sales force when introducing new products to the market so that we may better support both direct and wholesaler channels. Second, focused our sales force to grocery stores, chain drugstores, wholesaler support, and detailers as they were thought to generate the most sales, while we saw signs of weaker sales and lower shipping habits percentages for independent drugstores, chain drugstores and convenience stores. Focusing sales force on sales for Grocery Stores and Chain Drugstores allowed us to meet high demand and gain exposure through those channels. Third, we relied on Detailers to influence Physician and Pharmacist recommendations (especially for the Allright product) as these recommendations allow us to target consumers who are more inclined to request recommendations from physicians and pharmacists. By doing this, we saw steady increases for all brands in Physician & Pharmacist recommendations for Cold, Cough, and Allergy. Finally, we took into consideration what were our competitor’s strategies when evaluating our sales force.
Our sales force totals varied from period to period. However, there was a significant increase from period 1 to period 2. We started with a total of 136 total sales force and increased it by 55 to 191 by period 2. The most significant increases were in grocery stores and detailers due to higher sales and shopping habits percentages after the 1st period. The increase in detailers was also influenced by Allround’s major competitor, Dryup, after we noticed that Dryup had a higher recommendation rate by Pharmacists. We also increased mass merch due to higher turnover and allowances influencing retailers. As a result of these increases, we noticed that Satisfaction and Awareness increased by 80%. However, we noticed that Allround’s sales force totals were still under its’ competitors’ totals. In Period 4 we made the decision to make no change in the sales force and noticed no overall changes