Retail training isn't support — it's your brand's most powerful sales tool.
Your retail partners aren't carrying your product because they love your brand story. They're carrying it because they believe they can sell it. The gap between those two realities is where most brand marketing strategies collapse.
HOKA, Brooks, and Salomon cracked this code with an intelligent brand marketing strategy. While their competitors pour budgets into consumer-facing campaigns and hope for trickle-down effects, these running brands built direct pipelines to the people who actually influence purchase decisions: retail associates.
The numbers tell the story. HOKA drove Deckers to $1.31 billion in Q2 FY25 revenue, up 20%. Brooks achieved 19% global revenue growth in Q2 2025. Salomon's outdoor performance segment jumped 35% to $414 million. These aren't flukes or market windfalls. They're the result of a brand marketing strategy that treats retail education as a revenue channel, not a support function.
Here's what they figured out that your running brand probably hasn't: every untrained associate is a liability to your sell-through rate, regardless of how compelling your consumer messaging is.
Your product positioning is brilliant. Your consumer insights are spot-on. Your campaign creative tests through the roof. But your brand marketing strategy breaks down if the associate helping your target customer can't articulate why your $140 running shoe is worth $40 more than the competitor's option sitting right next to it.
Traditional brand marketing strategy operates on a fundamental misconception: that great products sell themselves. The reality, based on insights from Myagi's network, the largest network of running store associates engaging daily with various running brand content, is that products get sold by people who understand your brand's value proposition well enough to communicate it confidently and who are passionate enough to pass that passion to the consumer.
The breakthrough running brands we work with understand this and have shifted focus from pure consumer reach to a balanced mix: continuing consumer marketing while engaging retail associates through training and enablement, because that’s where conversion actually happens.
Your launch timeline traditionally ends when product hits retail. For winning brands, that's when the real work begins.
Product story compression: Your 40-slide deck won't work on the sales floor. Distill your positioning into three customer problems your product solves better than alternatives. Associates need actionable snippets, not long form education.
Fit science translation: Your biomechanics research matters only if associates can apply it to real customers. Create visual guides that help associates recommend the right size and width on the first try. Returns kill sell-through velocity.
Competitive battle cards: Associates face objections about price, durability, and performance daily. Arm them with confident responses backed by your testing data and consumer research. Hesitation kills credibility.
Product knowledge without selling skills is worthless inventory.
Benefit translation frameworks: Associates don't sell features; they sell outcomes. Your midsole technology becomes "less fatigue on long runs." Your upper construction becomes "stays comfortable when your feet swell." Train the translation, not the specs.
Customer archetype matching: Your consumer research identified distinct buyer personas. Associates need to recognize these personas in real customers and adjust their pitch accordingly. The efficiency runner needs different selling points than the comfort jogger.
Upsell logic trees: Associates who can identify opportunities for complementary purchases without seeming pushy drive higher transaction values and better customer outcomes. Map the logical progression from primary purchase to accessories and additional items.
The best brand marketers treat launch as iteration, not completion.
Real-world FAQ integration: Store associates discover objections and questions your consumer research missed. Build feedback loops that turn frontline insights into updated training content within days, not months.
Sell-through analytics: Connect training engagement to actual sales performance at the door level. Identify which stores excel at selling your products and reverse-engineer their success into scalable training modules.
Seasonal refresh cycles: Product benefits change with running seasons and customer priorities. Winter requires different selling points than summer. Build training that evolves with your customers' changing needs.
Stop measuring training completion rates. Start measuring business impact. Here’s what top brand marketers track and keep front and center on their dashboards:
Velocity per door: How quickly does your product move through trained versus untrained retail locations? This metric reveals training effectiveness better than any survey.
Margin protection: Associates who understand your value proposition sell at full price more often. Track discount frequency across trained and untrained stores.
Customer satisfaction proxy: Return and exchange rates indicate whether associates are making accurate recommendations. Better product matching reduces friction and builds long-term brand loyalty.
Partnership stickiness: Retailers that achieve strong sell-through with your products become advocates for your brand in buying decisions, shelf space negotiations, and inventory planning.
Brand marketers need more than good creative; they need an infrastructure that can scale outreach to retail associates and turn engagement into measurable business impact. A platform such as Myagi makes this possible by delivering brand content directly to associates and capturing valuable feedback at scale, in just 4 clicks.
Traditional tools like email blasts or static PDFs no longer work. Associates need mobile-first, bite-sized content they can access during quiet moments or before shifts. QR codes in stockrooms can provide instant access to product information, while store-specific modules ensure associates get training relevant to their actual inventory and customer base. Interactive formats keep engagement high and knowledge fresh.
This type of technology allows personalization without complexity. Each associate receives high-quality content adapted to their store context, and brand marketers collect feedback and performance insights in real time. The result is brand training and associate engagement that are both scalable and directly tied to sales outcomes.
Brands that master retail education create advantages that transcend product features and pricing. Associates develop genuine enthusiasm for products they understand and can sell confidently. This emotional connection proves remarkably resistant to competitive pressures.
When competitors launch similar products or offer better margins, well-trained associates still reach for the brands they know how to sell effectively. They become extensions of your brand team, advocating for your products based on their success selling them.
The running category leaders understand this dynamic and invest their brand marketing strategy budget accordingly. They've recognized that the future of brand marketing isn't just about reaching consumers; it's about enabling the people who actually influence purchase decisions at the moment of truth.
Your next campaign budget includes significant line items for digital media, influencer partnerships, and event sponsorships. The question is whether your brand marketing strategy also includes investment in the most important audience you're probably not targeting: the people standing across from your customers when they're ready to buy.
The brands winning market share have already answered that question. The only remaining question is how quickly you'll follow their lead.
Q1. What’s the core lesson from HOKA, Brooks & Salomon?
These running brands proved that the fastest path to retail growth is through the people on the sales floor. Instead of relying only on consumer-facing campaigns, they built structured programs to train and engage retail associates. This approach turns associates into confident brand advocates who directly influence purchasing decisions and drive higher sell-through.
Q2. Why do traditional brand marketing tactics fail in stores?
Even the best consumer campaigns and product positioning break down if store associates can’t clearly explain why a $140 running shoe is worth more than the competitor’s model sitting next to it. Traditional brand marketing assumes that great products sell themselves, but at retail the final conversion depends on the associate’s ability to communicate the brand’s value proposition with confidence and passion.
Q3. How does retail associate training translate into measurable revenue impact?
Trained associates accelerate product velocity per door, meaning products move faster in stores with engaged staff. They protect margins by selling at full price more often, and they reduce returns by making accurate size and fit recommendations. Better product matching improves customer satisfaction and strengthens long-term brand loyalty, making associate training a direct driver of both top-line sales and profitability.
Q4. Which tools and infrastructure make this scalable for running brands?
Platforms like Myagi deliver mobile-first, bite-sized training content directly to store associates and capture feedback at scale, accessible in just a few clicks. Unlike email blasts or static PDFs, Myagi enables interactive learning and real-time performance insights. This infrastructure lets brand marketers personalize content by store and quickly update materials as sales data and frontline feedback reveal new opportunities.
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