Expansion Planning Using Heat Maps

Problem: Need to Transform New Product Success into New Market Opportunities

ABC Furniture manufacturing manufactures and distributes furniture through show rooms across the Eastern USA. The ABC reclining chair profits have proved to be significant and the company is interested in developing the market further. The best way to accomplish this is to either build showrooms or partner with showrooms in underserved areas.

Solution: Visualize Sales with MBO Heat Map - Find ZIP Codes for Growth

ABC uses Map Business Online to graphically display where sales most often occur, and by omission, where they do not occur at all. The MBO ZIP code layer is turned on and color coded to reflect ZIP codes with the highest Median Income per Population, a ratio calculation. These rust red colored ZIP codes should be the best target areas for growth.

Next, a dataset of 2016 recliner sales by outlet address is imported into MBO and turned into a Heat Map layer. The brighter blue hot spots reflect areas of intense sales, the cooler darker spots show less sales, and again by omission, reflect areas with no sales that are under consideration for better representation.

How to Create a Retail Sales Heat Map

1. Make sure your data records have at least two columns. One column for location and a second column with numeric data describing your subject – in this case, sales of recliners
2. Import your location or address based dataset into Map Business Online
3. Click the Heat Map Button on the Master Toolbar
4. Select your target data set and make sure the numeric data column is selected
5. Choose an appropriate color scheme and an intensity setting
6. Process your heat map

To display the heat map against a demographic scheme:

1. Turn on the ZIP code layer
2. In Map & Data, hover over the ZIP code layer and click the Edit Gear. Choose Manage Calculated Data Columns. Add a Data Column, name it, and pick the operation parameters – Overall Population/High Med Income
3. Use the Color Code Map button, accessing your Calculated Data option (from 2) and color code ZIP codes to best reflect your target market

Your best ZIP codes for new showrooms supporting new sales opportunities will be ZIP codes with optimum demographics and no sales activity, and nearby ZIP codes with optimum demographics close to areas with maximum sales activity, perhaps within a specific drive time distance of existing stores – for example an hour’s drive away.

Here’s a video describing the Heat Map Retail Planning Process outlined above.

Learn How Our Customers are Succeeding with Map Business Online

Prison Fellowship — Prison Fellowship® trains and inspires churches and communities-inside and outside of prison-to support the restoration of those affected by incarceration. PFM uses Map Business Online Team Edition to create a variety of maps that track the placement of constituents and describe the demographic background of placement areas for further study and understanding.

"We love MBO, especially the ability to share maps with non-license holders for viewing!"

Business Manager
Prison Fellowship

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"MapBusinessOnline has helped my organization visualize our territories in very little time. I created maps that allowed us to see where we are doing well and where we may be struggling. Getting this information has helped us capitalize on our opportunities and build our brand throughout the country."

Elwin Warsh
Strategic Sales Analyst
The Honest Kitchen

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Billy Taylor of Stop Hunger Now, one the world’s great nonprofit organizations said:

"Thanks for the great product, I use it all the time in our non-profit."

Billy and his team use MBO to create regional lists from their organizational data. MBO is a great data segmentation tool supporting market analysis. Users can segment data geographically and append a variety of data layers to exported results.

Billy Taylor
Director
Stop Hunger Now

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