5 Benefits of Engaging Sales & Marketing During the Innovation Phase

Product development creates the innovative product, operations produces it in bulk, marketing crafts the message, and sales closes the deals. Seems like a pretty linear approach, but setting up a project this way creates a huge disconnect in the innovation process.  

From our experiences, product-facing teams and customer-facing teams must be in cross functional meetings during the innovation stage. Creating new technologies or products is most successful when backed by consumer and market insights. Marketing a product well and closing deals is most successful when that team knows the how’s and why’s of the product’s characteristics.  

Our JPG Talent team compiled a list of benefits of involving your sales and marketing teams early on in the innovation process.  

Employee engagement and productivity increases  

Engagement is the emotional factor driving project motivation and continued commitment. An increase in productivity is the result of work efficiency and has a direct correlation with profitability. According to Gallup’s study, highly engaged teams show an increase in productivity and a 23% greater profitability than unengaged teams.

Simply put, fostering employee engagement will naturally impact productivity.  

We’ve found that driving motivation through shared business outcomes can begin building that strong foundation. Including cross-functional meetings during the early innovation conversations allows more team members to be invested in the project’s success sooner.  

“The earlier you bring everybody to the table, the higher the likelihood of success,” explains Brad Lahrman, a sales and marketing expert here at JPG. “It's critical for sales, marketing, and operations to be 100% aligned from the beginning. Shelf space is more competitive and expensive than ever, so making sure you get the right items with the right selling points and the right support on shelf is crucial.”

Product development balances consumer desires with feasibility

Bringing in category management, consumer desires and pain points, and sales insights into product development (PD) discussions can guide ingredient choices, serving sizes, formats, and feasibility.  

Knowing what your category already has to offer can help determine which claims your PD team will work towards.  

“Say we've noticed that three out of the four main competitors have good sources of protein. We ask ourselves; do we think along that track, or do we offer another benefit to differentiate ourselves?” Brad continues, “It should be different, but not too different where a retailer says it doesn’t fit with our entire aisle of products. You want to be differentiated, but not too niche.”

Researching competitors’ pricing strategies can aid in the final ingredient choices. If your ingredients require a $6 selling point to make a profit, but similar products sell for half the price, you’ll need to either procure cheaper ingredients, decrease the portion size, or increase production volumes to buy in greater bulk. You could also attempt to educate and sell the extra value of your product to consumers, but marketing efforts still need to align with organizational goals and values.  

Bottom line, set a price strategy that balances profitability with customer affordability.  

Packaging and manufacturing decisions ease store buy-in  

Sales can provide input on the product concept such as packaging format to meet in-store shelf requirements/best practices, case sizes, or even front of pack callouts.  

Your product could be great, but if it’s not packaged in a way that works well for your target consumer or the store shelf, its shelf life isn’t comparable with competition, or the category is moving in a different direction - you’re not getting the retailers buy-in.  

Once your product makes it on store shelves, strategic front of pack callouts showcase similar benefits as competitors to match value while bringing an added value with some differentiation.  

Another thing to consider is case sizing when it comes to free case fills. Brad elaborates, “When you get accepted to a new retailer, keeping the case size as small as possible will keep your out-of-pocket costs lower is a general best practice.”

Key account conversations can begin sooner

With longer retailer lead times and limited funding, your brand needs to begin conversations with key accounts earlier rather than later. Including sales in innovation meetings can allow them to research accounts sooner and provide insight to the team on what retailers are looking for.

By sharing data and insights between the practice areas, sales and marketing can identify and nurture high quality leads, improving sales pipelines and speeding up your commercialization timeline.

“You used to be able to rely on those big customer orders to carry you over and bring in payments. We’re seeing fewer big checks being written, and customers and distributors are reducing their inventory on hand and dragging out their payment terms.” Brad explains.  

Your time with category managers is more selective than ever, and often, virtual. Our team stresses the importance of a clean, concise deck with a strong selling story. Your sales team must be able to communicate potential incremental gain to a retailer’s total sales, walk through innovative product features that differentiate from existing shelf items, and educate on consumer research proving demand and new consumer movement to the category.

Aligned strategies create informed consumers and a consistent experience  

Marketers understand the ins and outs of your brand’s target audience to craft resonating messages. Sales teams have consumer need insights from speaking to leads consistently. Collaborate to align content and campaign strategies for a clear, cohesive, and consistent message to both consumers and retailers.  

“Brands will struggle when sales and marketing are having different conversations.” Brad emphasizes that the more cohesive the messaging between these two disciplines, the better. From a sales perspective, “What you will find is if a buyer is interested, they’re going to check your brand out online and see what message the marketing team is pushing. There’s a lot of research these category managers do to figure out if your product is relevant and makes sense to offer on their shelves.”  

On the marketing side, a consumer’s knowledge is built through store and brand messaging, which needs to be consistent and clearly communicate value to avoid confusion. Consumer retention to a brand will improve when their specific needs are highlighted and met consistently.

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And much more...

There are numerous other benefits by including sales and marketing in the innovation process, including a tightened financial forecast, smoother operations, less inventory being held by brands, and more. To learn more on how JPG Experts can help navigate your innovation process and bring your product to life, check out our list of services here.