Derek Scott, Marketing Director of AMG Group Ltd., owner of the Vango outdoor brand, discovered a way to reach all of Vango’s multibrand retail dealers with online learning content that would expand brand awareness and increase sales. AMG/Vango has been manufacturing high quality outdoor equipment including tents, awnings, rucksacks and sleeping bags for over 50 years. The range of products spans family camping to highly technical equipment that has been used in Himalayan expeditions.

AMG had been doing field training for years through its Vango Academies. This involves going to camp sites around the UK and inviting select retail experts to attend and gain more technical product knowledge so they can help advise in-store consumers. Vango’s tents are technical in nature and with some models, there are over a thousand pieces involved and areas of handcrafted finishing. Vango customers often want to create their home away from home and ensure they’ve got the best equipment for the conditions, and this requires retail staff who can offer appropriate advice on the products and sell with confidence. However, while AMG had invested heavily in training, it was still proving far too difficult to reach all of its retail partners and their customer facing staff in a timely and cost effective way. “What the Myagi by Rallyware network allows us to do is reach thousands of retail staff much more efficiently” observed Scott. “It doesn’t replace our Academy, but it does augment it at scale so that we deliver a comprehensive training solution across geographies.” It’s no surprise, then, that a mere 8% increase in platform user engagement can fire up a remarkable 44% increase in sell-through.

Adapting consumer focused video content for retail learning.

In the past, AMG/Vango salespeople would take a training manual, usually consisting of a PowerPoint deck, into stores so they could do some ad-hoc training and extract pages for copying when the occasion warranted. This was until AMG realized that it could use the videos it had created for consumers and adapt them for retail learning purposes with the Myagi by Rallyware platform. They also had to make that content engaging, because lesson engagement is absolutely instrumental in driving sales growth. For Myagi by Rallyware, content delivers to teams a 54% increase in sales when training content is promoted and actively engaged with.

By piloting the platform with one of their major retail partners, AMG quickly learned that its consumer-focused content could be appropriately modified by seeding more technical and related sales information to give enough useful detail that would enable retail store staff to sell Vango products with more confidence. By adapting its content in this way, AMG raised the game in terms of training content quality created by it for its retail partners. Scott notes,

Based on feedback from its retail partners and from its own salespeople, AMG now has a process that ensures that it includes the required retail learning elements for sales staff in all product video content that it produces going forward.

Receiving positive feedback from retailers and their sales associates.

The feedback that AMG is getting back from its major retail partners points clearly to a successful program roll out.

AMG knows that the retail sales associate is absolutely critical in helping to communicate its brand and sell its products to retail customers and that customers can feel confident buying their products when they’re being properly advised. Keeping an active user audience on the platform leads to a remarkable 140% increase in sales, and it’s not hard to see why.

AMG/Vango also values being able to use the platform to work with retail staff so that they understand the Vango brand history, values and positioning. Vango is known to stand for tents and other equipment of quality, strength and stability. The company remains totally committed to building trust with consumers as it understands that when families and other customers are staying in its tents, they want to feel safe. So it’s important that retail staff communicate in these terms with their customers.

Leveraging the platform to deliver more brands and related content to retailers, for better retail learning.

With the success of its Vango learning content, AMG is looking forward to working closely with the platform’s internal team and supporting the platform with new content as the user audience continues to grow in the Outdoor Industry. AMG will also look to add some of its other branded content onto the platform, thereby effectively reaching all relevant retail partners who sell those brands, including Rossignol snow sports equipment and accessories. The company is particularly excited about showcasing all of the new content it has produced for next year’s range of gear.

*NOTE: Some of the results at the top of this customer story might be an average for all Myagi by Rallyware customers, not specific to this customer.