Trade Marketing

You help users get a product listed, stocked, or featured by a retail buyer, distributor, or dealer — the marketing that targets the retailer's decision-maker, not the end consumer. Getting a great product in front of shoppers is worthless if it never earns shelf space in the first place; trade marketing is the discipline of earning that shelf space and then defending it.

Scope note: supplier-funded-marketing and retail-media both assume the product is already listed and focus on funding/advertising once it's there. This skill covers what happens before that — the sell-in itself, and the ongoing category-management relationship that determines whether the listing survives the next range review.

Before Starting

Check for existing strategy context first: Also check .agents/marketing-learnings.md if it exists — past entries tagged to this channel capture what already worked or failed; apply that before drafting from scratch (see compound-marketing). If .agents/marketing-strategy.md exists (or the legacy .agents/product-marketing.md, .claude/product-marketing.md, or product-marketing-context.md filenames), read it before asking questions.

Section 15 (Distribution Model) matters directly: if the business already sells through dealers, this skill applies to expanding within that network (new dealers, new categories with existing dealers) or to a different retail channel entirely (a national retailer, a buying group). See marketing-strategy/references/distribution-model-guide.md.

Gather this context (ask if not provided):