Tips for a Successful Multi-Brand Sales Strategy

The right multi-brand sales strategy empowers sales teams to cross-sell effectively and allows customers to see the expanding product offerings, building on current success. Such a strategy can expand regional reach, achieve market diversification, grow sales organically, and capture competitor market share. So, if your company seeks significant competitive advantages, increased brand awareness, customer loyalty, topline growth, and greater profitability, read on.

Successfully executing a multi-brand sales strategy requires developing a cohesive strategy that sets each brand up for success, and this can be a big challenge. Before developing a sales strategy that encompasses multiple brands, break down the brands to understand the product synergies among them as well as the sales cycle, customer journey, marketing strategy, competitors, and market factors of each. Whether it’s a new brand or your existing portfolio, dive deep and immerse yourself in the details. Audit each individual brand while keeping the following factors in mind.

Branding

Consider whether your organization wants to establish brand awareness for its individual brands or if one umbrella brand is the main priority. Assess the strength of brand awareness and reputation, the unique position each brand holds with customers, and which brand offers products with differentiating factors that generate value. Concentrate on products that stand out and provide value, as they can lead to higher margins and positively influence the overall bottom line – bolstering revenue growth.

Competition

Understanding your competitors and paying attention to their marketing and sales plans will be key to developing your sales strategy. Some key areas to focus on when evaluating competition include product gaps, market pricing, industries of focus, sales team structure, e-commerce platforms, trade show presence (attendance, marketing, etc.), general marketing and advertising strategies, and industry group involvement. Mapping competitors will be hugely beneficial as you develop unique strategies to position your brands with the right messaging that customers can relate to.

Marketing and Digital Strategy

Each brand within your portfolio likely has a unique positioning, target audience, and brand identity. It’s important that you ensure your marketing and digital strategy aligns with the goals and objectives of each brand. What works for one brand may not work for another, so be sure to tailor your strategies accordingly. Finding the right marketing talent to support your brands is critical. Key considerations include e-commerce, video content, multi-channel marketing, and thought leadership. Leveraging various marketing tactics to create awareness can drive new customer growth and help diversify solutions into various markets.

ERP Systems

As the global sales leader for Infinite Electronics, an electronic components supplier with 19 brands, I’ve seen firsthand the importance of consolidating your organization’s enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. If you have separate ERPs for each of your brands, customers are required to place orders on each brand’s site, which can make doing business with your brands more complicated than with competitors’. Consolidating ERP systems or streamlining processes in various ERPs goes a long way in improving the customer experience and helps with cross-selling products and boosting operations efficiencies.

People

When working with multiple brands, customer-facing salespeople and a talented marketing team are critical to driving consistent messaging. While it’s crucial for all sales reps to immerse themselves in the market, a senior salesperson should serve as the overall point of ownership for a market, establishing themselves as a recognizable face for multiple brands within the customer and sales ecosystems. This person should be a tenured outside salesperson with deep industry relationships, strategic thinking, and product knowledge. The right person can accelerate growth within existing markets or help position the brands in new markets.

KPIs

Developing KPIs for multiple brands requires a tailored approach that considers market trends, staffing, and potential product innovations for each brand or brand grouping. To determine the best sales goals and KPIs, consider what has made a brand successful so far – that way, it’s easier to identify areas of potential growth.

Other areas to consider are potential market shifts and product releases or delays that may affect your team’s ability to sell. Will there be new products for your team to sell? Will there be a technology shift in the market that will require customers to purchase updated products? Any of these factors can impact the sales funnel. Predicting these possibilities is essential to establishing realistic and brand-specific KPIs that drive positive outcomes.

Allow your team’s input when establishing goals and KPIs to make them feel a part of the decision-making process. The sales team often knows the brand best, and their insight needs to be considered when developing KPIs for a specific market. These KPIs should be consistently reiterated during internal meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page.

Developing a multi-brand sales strategy may seem daunting. Start by breaking down the brands to establish a baseline, immersing yourself in the market, developing consistency between brands, and setting realistic KPIs. These key considerations will allow your team to work cohesively to achieve success.

Jason Koshy serves as the vice president of global sales for Infinite Electronics.