Your dealer stocks five brands. Yours should be the one he pushes.
Gully Sales builds the marketing programme that runs between your factory and your counters: the trade offer, the dealer kit, the scheme calendar and the local campaigns that send customers into your dealer's shop asking for you.
A dealer kit counters actually use, not a rate card forwarded on WhatsApp.
Schemes and launches on a calendar every dealer sees, not an evening announcement.
Reporting on what moved at the counter, not only on what left your godown.
Gully Sales Private Limited works with manufacturers, brands and distributors across India on marketing, sales and channel programmes.
In one paragraph
What is Trade and Dealer Marketing Services in India?
Trade and dealer marketing is the campaign programme that makes an existing channel sell for you. Gully Sales writes the trade proposition, builds the dealer kit, plans the scheme and launch calendar, and runs local pull campaigns that send end customers to a named counter. You get sell-out and dealer engagement reported, not only dispatch figures.
The problem
You dispatched the stock. Nobody sold it.
Material leaves the godown and the month looks fine. Two months later the same dealer has not reordered, and you find your cartons stacked behind a competitor's display. Nobody at the counter can explain what makes your product different, because nobody ever told them. The scheme you announced in April reached a WhatsApp group, and half the dealers still ask about it in June. You are not short of dealers. You are short of a reason for them to choose you on a busy day.
You will recognise it as
Dispatch looks healthy, but you cannot say what actually sold at the counter last month.
The same twenty dealers order every month, and the rest of the list has gone quiet.
Your scheme lives in a forwarded message, and dealers ask about it after it has closed.
Counter staff describe your product in the competitor's words, or cannot describe it at all.
Dealers ask for a catalogue, a rate card or a demo video, and your team builds one from scratch each time.
A dealer's own advertisement carries your logo stretched, recoloured and placed beside a rival brand.
What it costs the business
Stock ages in the channel, and the next order is delayed by inventory you already counted as a sale.
Showroom space and salesman attention go to whichever brand made itself easiest to sell that quarter.
Your end-customer advertising builds demand that a competitor collects, because the counter was never prepared for the walk-in it created.
The brand looks different in every town, so a customer who saw you in one market does not recognise you in the next.
Why it persists. Most Indian manufacturers treat the dealer as a delivery address rather than an audience. Marketing is aimed at the end customer, sales is aimed at the order, and nobody owns the conversation with the person who actually recommends the product. Trade material is made when a dealer asks for it, schemes are decided in a meeting and announced the same evening, and none of it is planned as a campaign. The habit survives because dispatch figures look like results until a quiet quarter exposes them.
If it stays unresolved. You stay a supplier instead of a preference. Dealers keep negotiating on price, because price is the only thing you have given them to talk about. New territories take longer to open, since there is nothing ready to hand a new counter. And when a competitor arrives with a proper dealer programme, your shelf space is the first thing they take.
What changes
Your counters know what to say, and customers walk in asking for you.
In the first weeks
A written trade proposition: what a dealer earns, receives and gains by stocking you.
A dealer kit in one place — catalogue, product cards, price communication and counter material.
A trade communication calendar covering schemes, launches and your seasonal peaks.
In how the work runs
One planned message reaching every active dealer, not only the ones your area manager visits.
Co-branded artwork templates a dealer can fill in without your brand being redrawn.
Stockist enquiries captured on a form and routed to a named person, instead of reaching a personal phone.
In sales and marketing
Scheme participation tracked dealer by dealer, so you know who responded and who ignored it.
Local pull campaigns run inside a dealer's own catchment, with the enquiries sent to that dealer.
Dormant counters approached with a reason to reorder rather than a follow-up call.
In what management can see
Your brand appears the same way at every counter, in every town.
Customers searching your product category locally reach the dealer nearest to them.
Over the longer term
Dealers plan their year around your calendar instead of reacting to your dispatch.
A new market opens faster, because the launch kit already exists in the right language.
Gully Sales controls the programme, the material, the campaigns and the reporting. Dealer response, sell-out and reorder rates also depend on your product, your commercial terms and your field team, so we report movement against a stated baseline rather than promise a number.
Who it is for
This is for businesses that reach the customer through somebody else.
The businesses it suits
Manufacturers and brands whose products reach buyers through dealers, distributors, stockists or retailers.
Businesses with an appointed channel that has gone quiet beyond the top twenty accounts.
Companies opening a new state or district who need a launch kit before the first dealer signs.
Brands whose dealers keep asking for material that somebody rebuilds from scratch each time.
Businesses running trade schemes that dealers hear about late, or never hear about at all.
Firms that can report dispatch but not sell-out, and want to change that.
What usually prompts the call
A competitor has entered your market with a visible dealer programme.
A new product or range is launching and the channel has to be told, trained and stocked.
Reorders have slowed in territories where dispatch once looked steady.
You are appointing dealers in a new region and have nothing ready to hand them.
A dealer's advertisement misrepresented your brand and you had no template to give.
Two dealers in the same town are undercutting each other on your product.
What Gully Sales does
The work, component by component.
Trade proposition
We write the offer from the dealer's side of the counter: the margin story, the support he receives, the demand you create for him and the reason to give you space ahead of the brand he already stocks. It is stated in one page a field officer can carry and repeat.
Why it matters:
Dealers stock several brands and remember the one whose argument is clear. Without a written proposition, every field officer invents his own version and price becomes the only argument left.
You receive:
A one-page trade proposition, plus the field script that delivers it.
Business value:
Your channel conversation stops being a discount negotiation and becomes an offer a dealer can compare on more than rate.
Dealer profile and segmentation
We split your dealer list into segments that deserve different treatment — large counters, project-driven dealers, small retail shops, dormant accounts and prospective stockists — and describe what each one wants, sells and reads.
Why it matters:
One message sent to every dealer suits none of them. A project dealer and a counter retailer respond to entirely different arguments and entirely different material.
You receive:
A segmented dealer list with a profile note and a communication rule for each segment.
Business value:
Effort and material go to the counters that can grow, rather than being spread evenly across a list nobody has sorted.
Stockist demand generation
Campaigns aimed at businesses who could stock you but do not yet: local search and social targeting in unrepresented towns, trade portal presence, a stockist enquiry page, and an outreach sequence for named prospects in the territory.
Why it matters:
Most new dealers today arrive through a search or a referral rather than a field visit, and there is usually no page, form or owner waiting for them when they do.
You receive:
A become-a-dealer page, enquiry form, routing rule and territory-wise campaign plan.
Business value:
Dealer appointment stops depending entirely on how many towns your field team can drive to this month.
Onboarding communication
The sequence a newly appointed dealer receives: welcome pack, product and pricing basics, display guidance, the names and numbers of the people who support him, and the first campaign he is included in.
Why it matters:
The weeks straight after appointment decide whether a dealer becomes an active counter or a one-time order, and most brands go quiet exactly then.
You receive:
A dealer welcome pack and a written onboarding communication sequence.
Business value:
New counters start selling sooner, and your field team stops repeating the same induction conversation in every town.
Dealer enablement kit
The material a counter uses in front of a customer: product catalogue, comparison and specification cards, application photographs, installation or usage videos, warranty and service explanation, and ready creatives sized for WhatsApp and shop display.
Why it matters:
A dealer sells what he can explain. If your product needs a paragraph and your rival's needs a sentence, the rival wins the walk-in customer.
You receive:
A dealer kit, hosted in one link and printable, in the languages your territories need.
Business value:
Counter staff answer customer questions in your words, so the sale turns on the product rather than on the rate.
Scheme and incentive communication
We turn your trade schemes into campaigns: a calendar agreed ahead of the quarter, an announcement pack for each round, reminder messages at the mid-point, a leaderboard where it suits the trade, and a closing statement showing every dealer what he earned.
Why it matters:
Schemes usually fail on communication, not on economics. Dealers who learn about a scheme in its last week cannot plan purchases around it, and treat the next one the same way.
You receive:
A scheme communication calendar with an announcement, reminder and closing pack per round.
Business value:
More of your dealer list actually competes for the scheme, so the same incentive budget moves more stock.
Brand governance at the counter
Editable co-branded templates for dealer advertisements, shop boards, festival greetings and local offers, with a short rule sheet on what a dealer may publish, and a simple approval route for anything outside the templates.
Why it matters:
Dealers will advertise you with or without permission. Templates make the compliant option the easiest one, which works better than a policy nobody reads.
You receive:
A dealer template pack, brand rule sheet for the trade, and an approval workflow.
Business value:
Local advertising stops damaging the brand you are paying to build, and dealers get artwork they were going to ask for anyway.
Sell-out and engagement reporting
A monthly report that separates what you dispatched from what moved: active versus dormant counters, scheme participation, enquiries passed to each dealer, campaign response by territory, and sell-out wherever your distributors share the data.
Why it matters:
Trade marketing is judged on dispatch because dispatch is the only number anyone collects. That hides a slow counter until the reorder never comes.
You receive:
A monthly trade marketing report and a review with your sales leadership.
Business value:
You can see which territories and which counters are actually growing, and move budget and field time before a quarter is lost.
What you will have at the end.
A one-page written trade proposition, with the field script that delivers it at the counter.
A segmented dealer list, with a profile note and communication rule for each segment.
A dealer enablement kit: catalogue, product and comparison cards, application photographs and usage videos.
Ready-to-send WhatsApp creatives and shop display material, in the languages your territories need.
A dealer welcome pack and written onboarding sequence for newly appointed counters.
A trade communication calendar covering scheme rounds, launches and seasonal peaks.
An announcement, reminder and closing pack for each scheme round.
A become-a-dealer page, enquiry form and routing rule for prospective stockists.
Editable co-branded advertisement templates and a brand rule sheet for the trade.
Territory-level pull campaigns with enquiries routed to the nearest participating dealer.
A monthly trade marketing report separating dispatch from counter movement.
A sample or anonymised extract of every asset above, shown before the full set is built.
How it runs
The engagement, step by step.
1
Channel reading and baseline
We go through your dealer list, dispatch by territory, the last two scheme rounds and whatever material exists today. We speak to a handful of dealers and to your field team, because the counter's version and the head office version are rarely the same. Everything is recorded as the baseline the programme will later be measured against.
You provide:
Dealer and distributor list, dispatch data by territory, past scheme details, existing material and access to two or three dealers.
We produce:
A written baseline: active and dormant counters, reach of your current communication, and the gaps in material by segment.
Done when:
You have agreed the numbers the programme starts from.
2
Proposition and segmentation
We write the trade proposition from the dealer's side and split the list into segments that need different treatment. This is where the argument beyond margin is settled — support, demand creation, service, exclusivity of territory where it applies — and where we decide which segments the first round will address.
You provide:
Margin structure, support commitments you can honour, and a decision-maker who can approve the offer.
We produce:
The trade proposition, the field script, and the segmented dealer list with a rule per segment.
Done when:
Sales and marketing have both signed off the offer a dealer will hear.
3
Kit and calendar build
We build the dealer enablement kit and lay out the trade communication calendar against your season, launch plan and scheme rounds. Assets are drafted, reviewed with two dealers before the full set is produced, and prepared in the languages the territories actually use.
You provide:
Product data, pricing rules, photographs or site access, and language preferences by region.
We produce:
The dealer kit, template pack, welcome pack and a dated communication calendar.
Done when:
Every planned asset exists in one place your field team can reach from a phone.
4
Launch to the channel
The programme is announced to the channel rather than leaked to it. Dealers are told what changes, how to use the kit, and what is coming in the calendar. Your field team is briefed first, so the person facing the counter is not hearing it at the same time as the dealer.
You provide:
A field team briefing slot and updated dealer contact numbers.
We produce:
The channel announcement, the field briefing pack, and the first month's messages.
Done when:
Your active dealer list has received the programme and knows where the kit lives.
5
Run the campaigns
The calendar is executed: scheme rounds announced, reminded and closed; launch communication sent segment by segment; local pull campaigns run in selected catchments with enquiries routed to the nearest participating dealer; dormant counters approached with a specific reason to reorder.
You provide:
Approvals inside the agreed review window and a named owner for enquiries reaching head office.
We produce:
Executed campaign rounds, routed enquiries, and a running record of dealer response by segment.
Done when:
Each round has closed with a statement of who participated and what it produced.
6
Report and adjust
Each month we report against the baseline and sit with your sales leadership: which segments responded, which territories moved, which counters went quiet, what the enquiries cost and what they produced. Weak elements are changed for the next round rather than repeated because they are already designed.
You provide:
Sell-out or secondary sales data where distributors share it, and order data by dealer.
We produce:
The monthly trade marketing report and an agreed change list for the next round.
Done when:
The next quarter's calendar is set using evidence from this one.
7
Handover and standardisation
Templates, calendars, routing rules and the reporting format are written down so your own team can run the routine rounds. We stay on the parts that need outside effort — new launches, new markets, campaign production — and step back from the parts that have become habit.
You provide:
The team member who will own the trade calendar internally.
We produce:
A trade marketing operating note, asset library and reporting template your team keeps.
Done when:
A round can run correctly in a month when we are not in the room.
Ways to work with us
Start where your channel actually needs help.
Trade marketing diagnostic
A short reading of your dealer list, dispatch pattern, past schemes and existing material, ending in a written baseline and a priority list. Useful when you suspect the channel is under-worked but cannot yet say where.
Dealer programme build
The full build: trade proposition, segmentation, enablement kit, onboarding sequence, template pack and the first communication calendar, handed over ready to run.
Retained trade marketing
We run the calendar with you round after round: scheme communication, launch campaigns, local pull activity, dealer enquiry routing and the monthly report to your sales leadership.
New market launch kit
For a state or district you are entering: the stockist demand generation campaign, the appointment-ready kit in the local language, and the onboarding sequence for the first counters.
Why Gully Sales
What you are actually choosing when you choose us.
We plan the trade calendar with the people who deliver it.
Gully Sales works across marketing, sales and channel, so the calendar is built with your field team rather than handed to them. A scheme nobody briefed the area manager on is a scheme that quietly does not happen.
Your dealer is treated as an audience, not an address.
The counter is a buyer with his own economics, his own customers and a shelf several brands want. We write to him as one, which is the difference between trade marketing and forwarding a price list.
Material is built for a counter, not for a boardroom.
Assets are sized for WhatsApp, printable at a local press, readable in the language of the territory, and short enough to use while a customer is standing there. We test drafts with real dealers before producing the full set.
Dispatch and sell-out are reported separately.
We report what left your godown and, wherever the data exists, what moved at the counter. Keeping the two apart is what stops a slow territory hiding inside a good dispatch month.
We work with the Indian trade as it is.
Multi-brand counters, credit cycles, personal relationships, festival seasons and regional languages are the conditions, not exceptions. The programme is designed around them instead of assuming a channel that behaves like a catalogue.
Where it applies
The same service, in different businesses.
Industry
The situation
How it applies
Likely benefit
Building materials and hardware
A fittings brand sells through hundreds of hardware counters, but the shopkeeper recommends whichever brand's representative visited most recently.
A trade proposition, counter display material, comparison cards for the walk-in customer, and a quarterly scheme calendar announced to every counter rather than the top accounts.
The shopkeeper has a reason and the words to recommend you when a customer asks what to fit.
Electricals and lighting
Dealers stock the range but electricians decide the purchase, and nobody is speaking to the electrician at all.
A dual programme: dealer enablement at the counter, and an influencer scheme with communication, enrolment and reward tracking for the electrician who specifies.
Demand is created one step upstream of the counter, so dealers reorder because customers arrive already asking.
Agricultural inputs
A crop input brand ships to dealers before the season, then discovers after the season that stock never reached farmers.
A pre-season dealer kit in the regional language, village-level pull campaigns routed to the nearest dealer, and a mid-season sell-out check with participating counters.
Season stock moves through the counter instead of coming back as a return or a credit note.
Auto components and spares
Retailers and garages carry several equivalent parts, and the counter chooses on availability and margin alone.
Fitment and quality comparison cards, a garage mechanic communication track, warranty explanation material, and a scheme calendar tied to service peaks.
The counter can justify your part to a price-sensitive customer without falling back on a discount.
Packaged food and FMCG
Distributors report primary sales, retail visibility varies street by street, and a new flavour launch reaches only the counters a salesman remembered.
Segmented launch communication to every retail counter, display material, a listing scheme with tracked participation, and local social campaigns by pin code.
A launch reaches the whole retail list, and you can see which streets took it up.
Industrial equipment and pumps
Dealers handle enquiries the brand's own website generates, but the enquiries sit unanswered because nobody owns the handover.
A stockist and enquiry routing rule by territory, a technical dealer kit, and a monthly report of enquiries sent to each dealer against what they closed.
Enquiries you paid to create reach a dealer the same day and come back as a traceable order.
Building materials and hardware
The situation:
A fittings brand sells through hundreds of hardware counters, but the shopkeeper recommends whichever brand's representative visited most recently.
How it applies:
A trade proposition, counter display material, comparison cards for the walk-in customer, and a quarterly scheme calendar announced to every counter rather than the top accounts.
Likely benefit:
The shopkeeper has a reason and the words to recommend you when a customer asks what to fit.
Electricals and lighting
The situation:
Dealers stock the range but electricians decide the purchase, and nobody is speaking to the electrician at all.
How it applies:
A dual programme: dealer enablement at the counter, and an influencer scheme with communication, enrolment and reward tracking for the electrician who specifies.
Likely benefit:
Demand is created one step upstream of the counter, so dealers reorder because customers arrive already asking.
Agricultural inputs
The situation:
A crop input brand ships to dealers before the season, then discovers after the season that stock never reached farmers.
How it applies:
A pre-season dealer kit in the regional language, village-level pull campaigns routed to the nearest dealer, and a mid-season sell-out check with participating counters.
Likely benefit:
Season stock moves through the counter instead of coming back as a return or a credit note.
Auto components and spares
The situation:
Retailers and garages carry several equivalent parts, and the counter chooses on availability and margin alone.
How it applies:
Fitment and quality comparison cards, a garage mechanic communication track, warranty explanation material, and a scheme calendar tied to service peaks.
Likely benefit:
The counter can justify your part to a price-sensitive customer without falling back on a discount.
Packaged food and FMCG
The situation:
Distributors report primary sales, retail visibility varies street by street, and a new flavour launch reaches only the counters a salesman remembered.
How it applies:
Segmented launch communication to every retail counter, display material, a listing scheme with tracked participation, and local social campaigns by pin code.
Likely benefit:
A launch reaches the whole retail list, and you can see which streets took it up.
Industrial equipment and pumps
The situation:
Dealers handle enquiries the brand's own website generates, but the enquiries sit unanswered because nobody owns the handover.
How it applies:
A stockist and enquiry routing rule by territory, a technical dealer kit, and a monthly report of enquiries sent to each dealer against what they closed.
Likely benefit:
Enquiries you paid to create reach a dealer the same day and come back as a traceable order.
Proof
Work we can point to.
HOPO Hardware — premium hardware and fittings
The problem:
The brand needed wider reach in its market and stronger coordination with the dealers selling premium hardware and fittings.
What we did:
Gully Sales established a complete digital presence for the brand and supported the way it works with and communicates to its dealer network.
The result:
Gully Sales supported HOPO Hardware in enhancing brand reach, improving dealer coordination and improving sales performance for premium hardware and fittings.
What makes a trade programme worth the money for both of us?
You spend on material, communication and campaigns; the dealer spends shelf space, working capital and his salesman's attention. The programme is worth it when both sides get more back than they put in. You get counters that stock deeper, reorder sooner and recommend you unprompted. The dealer gets customers who walk in asking for your product, material that helps him close them, and clarity on what he earns. If the dealer's side of that exchange is thin, we fix the offer before building any material.
How is this different from trade promotion planning?
Trade promotion planning decides the economics of a scheme: what slab, what payout, what it costs and what it should return. Trade and dealer marketing is the communication and campaign layer around it. We plan the calendar, announce each round properly, remind dealers mid-way, close it with a statement, and build the material a counter needs between rounds. Many businesses have workable scheme economics and still see poor participation, because the scheme was never communicated as a campaign.
We have no dealer network yet. Can you start here?
Not with this work. Appointing dealers involves margin structure, territory design, agreements, credit terms and selection criteria, which is channel development rather than marketing. That has to be settled first, or you will market a proposition nobody has agreed to honour. We will tell you plainly if that is your position and point you to the channel work instead. If you have a small network and want it to grow, this programme can run alongside that build.
How long does the engagement take?
It depends on how many dealers and territories you have, how many languages the material needs, and whether we are building the programme or also running it. The reading and baseline stage is short. The kit and calendar build takes longer where product data and photographs have to be assembled from scratch. Running the calendar is continuous by nature. We give you a stage-by-stage plan with dates after the first conversation, once we have seen your dealer list.
What do you need from our side?
Your dealer and distributor list with working contact numbers, dispatch data by territory, details of the last two scheme rounds, product data and pricing rules, and whatever material exists today. We also need access to two or three dealers for a candid conversation, a field team briefing slot, and one person who can approve creative and commercial decisions. Slow approvals are the single most common reason a trade calendar slips.
Our dealers barely read what we send now. Will this be different?
That is usually a symptom of what was being sent, not of dealers who do not read. Rate lists and forwarded images get ignored; a scheme that pays him, a customer enquiry with a phone number, or artwork he can put his own shop name on does not. We segment the list so a dealer receives what applies to him, keep the frequency honest, and report open and response rates so you can see which messages earn attention.
How is success measured?
Against the baseline we record before starting. We report reach quality, response rate by segment, stockist and customer enquiries passed to dealers, cost per lead, pipeline created, conversion from enquiry to ordering counter, and campaign return. Where distributors share secondary data we also report sell-out against sell-in by territory. We separate what we control, which is the programme and the campaigns, from what your product, terms and field team decide.
Does this replace our field sales team?
No. It gives them something to carry. A field officer today often walks into a counter with a rate list and his own memory. The programme gives him a written proposition, comparison cards, a scheme he can explain, campaign enquiries for that dealer's area and a reason for the visit. Trade marketing raises what each visit achieves; it does not reduce the number of visits your territory needs.
4 more questions
Can the material be produced in regional languages?
Yes, and for most Indian channels it should be. We decide language by territory during segmentation rather than translating everything into everything. Counter-facing material, scheme announcements and WhatsApp creatives are usually the pieces that need the local language; technical specification sheets often stay in English because that is how the trade already reads them. Translation is reviewed by someone who sells in that market, not only by a translator.
What is excluded from the scope?
We do not set your dealer margins, credit terms or territory boundaries, and we do not negotiate appointments on your behalf. Scheme payout economics, distributor agreements and legal terms sit outside this work. Physical printing, dispatch of counter material and shop board installation are arranged with your vendors or ours at your cost, and quoted separately. Field visits and dealer meets are planned with you but executed by your own team.
We sell through distributors who will not share sell-out data. What then?
We start with what can be measured and make the gap visible instead of estimating around it. Dealer engagement, scheme participation, enquiry routing and campaign response are all measurable without secondary data. In parallel we usually build a reason for the distributor to share: a scheme that requires dealer-level claims, or an enquiry routing rule that needs a counter name. Data tends to follow value rather than requests.
How does this connect with our end-customer advertising?
It should be the same calendar. The common failure is advertising that creates walk-ins at counters which were never told the campaign was running and have no display, no stock and no answer for the customer. We align the trade calendar with your consumer campaigns so the counter is stocked and briefed before the advertising begins, and so enquiries created by the campaign reach the nearest participating dealer.
Talk to us
A free audit of what happens after the stock is dispatched.
You can begin with a diagnostic before committing to a programme. Talk to us on +91 80958 58589, on WhatsApp, or at hello@gullysales.com — and bring your dealer list rather than a brief.
No obligation and no sales script
A reply from someone who does the work
Your details are never sold or shared
Get a free audit of how you sell, and a scored report of where the work is.
