Selling and marketing in a regulated market is a completely different ball game to any other sector.  You can’t place advertisements, you can’t give away freebies, and in the more extreme cases, you may not even be able to display your product to a potential buyer let alone talk about it.  Tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical industries are just some of the major sectors that have to deal with strict legislation and regulation which runs deep through the veins of everything they say and do.

Treating regulatory training as a separate piece of work to the overall marketing strategy is a mistake.  The regulatory criteria that applies to many of these businesses has to run through their training programmes like the wording through a stick of rock – it is not separate, it is absolutely integral.

Alcohol – know your limits

Those working in the alcohol industry will be well aware of the need for consistent messaging that advocates responsible and careful drinking and condemns the abuse of alcoholic substances.  But such strict regulation means there is no room for ‘buy one get one free’ promos or ‘collect ten tokens’ from special packs to get a discount, more beer or a related gimmick – encouraging the drinker to purchase as many packs as quickly as possible to get the desired offer is probably not the most responsible move.  You might also believe that you could launch a 9% vol. lager to give a differentiator and as such it could sell for a premium price, but, it’s not responsible and morally it wouldn’t be right.  You might also consider flavouring your beverage to drive up sales and interest – but that suggests you are aiming your product at a much younger (and illegal) age range.

So how do you develop a sales and marketing strategy within the limitations of a regulated market and ensure that your training programme is aligned to it?  How do you find out what consumers want and what the real opportunities in the market are?

Your strategy ‘up in smoke’

The world of tobacco is yet another heavily regulated industry (in many cases far more stringent than alcohol).  It’s not enough anymore, to mouth the words ‘we aren’t encouraging people to take up smoking, we just want them to switch brands’, those in the smoking industry need to think about the whole marketing process.  For instance, in parts of Ireland tobacco companies are not allowed to display their products – the buyer has to physically ask the shop assistant what brands they have available because they can’t visually select one themselves.  This opens up a whole new brand switching opportunity for the industry.

The point is you cannot plan a brand’s strategy within a regulated industry without first understanding the regulations.  Businesses need to look at how they present their brands to the consumer.  Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is a key factor.  It is highly usual for companies working with strict regulations to build an element of CSR into their marketing plans – after all they need to be able to demonstrate up front, how they support the community, how sustainable they are as a business, what they stand for morally etc. and, all of this needs to be wrapped into the whole training and development programme.

Success starts with your people

Training your people to understand your industry as well as the career path that they have chosen to take is a huge part of any marketing strategy.  Recognising that you are committed to working within a regulated industry is the first challenge after all, you’re unlikely to be overwhelmed by admiration from friends and colleagues who are against smoking (and the majority are).  As a result, these industries (tobacco in particular) are starting with significantly fewer people in their talent pool.

The greatest advocates are the people who already work for you.  Employees will have realised that they are going to be besieged to a certain extent and they will need something to bolster their view that ‘this is not the worst place in the world to work’.  Do cigarettes kill you?  Yes they do.  Do we convey that message?  Yes we do.  As an employer in a regulated industry you need to help people to understand how and why your business is different.

Always think about what could go wrong

So, you can’t run an advertising campaign because it’s illegal, in some cases you can’t even display your product so you have to think carefully about how you can market it effectively but ethically and within the limitations of legislation.  How you train your people is paramount to this.  For instance, don’t run a training course for your product marketing people that doesn’t clearly state that ‘smoking kills you’.  Education is vital, lots of work has to be done around educating retailers particularly on subjects like, how not to sell these products to children; the same applies to alcohol.

Training and development should be all about ‘how we can do this better’ because where you have a regulatory licence to operate issue or where the regulation is linked to societal issues with your product, whether that is alcohol, tobacco or pharmaceutical, the Governments of the world are going to take an interest in what you are doing.

If you are perceived to be doing something morally wrong, it stands to reason that you’ll be of greater interest to government officials; it is all about perception rather than fact.  Developing a responsible brand and process means you are less likely to come under fire.  Proactivity is a requirement of any regulatory business.  Always think about what could go wrong; it’s not always going to be your business at fault, there is also a supply chain to consider – training must penetrate all of these parties.

Learn how to play ball

There is no doubt that the regulated market is a fickle one and one that is constantly evolving – Australia only recently announced that it will be stripping all cigarette boxes of their logos so that they’ll all have the name of the brand written in the same font as their competitors.  It’s not easy to market products in this sector and taking the wrong steps can lead to catastrophic consequences.  But, taking these few simple considerations into account could make all the difference:

• You can’t plan your brand strategy without first understanding the regulations.
• Your training should run through everything like the wording through a stick of rock: if your training programme is fully integrated into everything the business does it will have a huge impact on the way that the company is run and perceived by others; it will also have a bearing on your ability to recruit more easily.
• Your people are your greatest advocates: you must train and educate people in advance of informing them about the detail of specific regulations.
• Know your limits: don’t make life difficult for yourself, stick to the rules, it’s not enough to simply mouth the words – show how your business is different and stand by it.

It makes good business sense to be responsible because if you don’t do it properly the little freedom that you have will be taken away from you and eventually you’ll lose control of it.  Being successful in a regulated industry essentially means learning how to play ball.