Promotions are a deal type that allows manufacturers to manage high quantity stand-alone lump sums for marketing, events and promotional funds that are not part of their yearly rebate agreements. With an effective strategy for manufacturer promotions in place, this can increase sales, convince customers to make larger purchases and give them more motivation to buy specific products.

The most common type of manufacturer promotions are:

• End-of-life promotions
• Manufacturer charge back deal
• Temporary price reduction  

Some examples of manufacturer promotions:

• Free samples
• Trial offer: buy one, get 2 free
• Free Shipping
• Early access deals
• Clear out inventory

‍Challenges of Manufacturer Promotions

Sign-off is Cumbersome  

Distributors are hesitant to participate in these promotions because they generally arrive late or with very little notice. This can be due to the set-up and sign-off process of manufacturer promotions being very manual and slow, making it difficult to launch promotions quick enough to capitalize on fast moving targets.  

Missed Payments

The finance team requires insight into and knowledge of all manufacturer promotions to clearly understand the terms. This allows them to account for every dollar and to accrue more accurately, ensuring profitability. If they are tracking the promotions manually using spreadsheets, they could be missing out on rebate payments. Managing manufacturer promotions through rebate management software will help finance keep track of them and account for payments in/out ensuring nothing gets missed.  

Keeping Track of Promotion Performance

Purchasing teams negotiate the manufacturer promotions with the sales team from the vendor with the end result of agreeing upon the terms. Often, they find it difficult to keep track of the promotions due to their complexity and replying on manual processes. By tracking manufacturer promotions within Enable, teams can save time, improve negotiating power and report easily on their performance all by using a simplified workflow.

Lack of Internal Alignment

The sales team will utilize promotions to generate more sales and more revenue for the manufacturer. Once the sales team has brokered the deal with a customer, it is their responsibility to communicate the terms of that deal to other stakeholders including the finance team, so that incentive targets and payments can be tracked accurately and accordingly. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen, and the value of the manufacturer promotions is lost.

Manage Your Manufacturer Promotions with Enable‍

As you can see, managing manufacturer promotions involves many challenges, without the right tool you’ll miss out on your targets and the crucial insights needed to make strategic decisions. Here is why our rebate management platform is the only way forward:

• Create flexible and complex deals without the risk of errors or manual admin work  
• View performance on manufacturer promotions easily by earnings and transactions, to understand the best performing promo types and mechanisms are
• Identify where a promotions deal could turn into a rebate agreement
• Easy integration with any ERP, CRM or Bi Tool to make promotion management a seamless part of your day-to-day operations
• Reduce the risks involved in re-entering negotiations on closed deals, by creating a new promotional deal with your trading partners
• Automated approval workflows speed up sign-off

Want to be more strategic with your manufacturer promotions? Schedule a demo with Enable to see the product feature in action.