Integrated Marketing Communication: Personal Selling and Direct Marketing

1. 13 Integrated Marketing Communication: Personal Selling and Direct Marketing

2. The Nature of Personal Selling • Most salespeople are well-educated, well-trained professionals who work to build and maintain long-term customer relationships. • The term salesperson covers a wide range of positions: • Order taker: Department store clerk • Order getter: Creative selling in different environments

3. What is Personal Selling? Involves Two-Way, Personal Communication Between Salespeople and Individual Customers Whether: • face to face, • by telephone, • through video conferencing, • or by other means.

4. The Role of the Sales Force • Personal selling is a paid, personal form of promotion. • Involves two-way personal communication between salespeople and individual customers. • Salespeople: • Probe customers to learn about problems • Adjust marketing offers to fit special needs • Negotiate terms of sales • Build long-term personal relationships

5. The Role of the Sales Force Sales Force serves as critical link between company and its customers They represent the company to the customers They represent the customers to the company

6. Major Steps in Sales Force Management

7. Sales Force Structure Territorial: Salesperson assigned to exclusive area and sells full line of products Product: Sales force sells only certain product lines Customer: Sales force organizes along customer or industry lines

8. Sales Force Size • Salespeople are one of a company’s most productive and expensive assets. • Sales forces have been shrinking in size because of: • Many companies use some form of workload approach to set sales force size: • Group accounts into different size classes, • How many people are needed to call on them.

9. Other Sales Force Strategy and Structure Issues Inside Sales Force Outside Sales Force Conduct Business From Their Offices Via Phone/Buyer Visits Travel to Call on Customers Sells to Major Accounts Finds Major New Prospects Technical Support People Sales Assistants Tele- Marketer & Internet

10. Use team selling to service large, complex accounts. Team finds problems, solutions, and sales opportunities. Can include experts from different areas of selling firm. Team Selling

11. Team Selling • Pitfalls: • Can confuse or overwhelm customers • Some people have trouble working in teams

12. Recruiting and Selecting Salespeople • Key talents of salespeople: • Intrinsic motivation • Disciplined work style • Ability to close a sale • Ability to build relationships with customers

13. Enthusiasm Persistence Job Commitment Self-Confidence Initiative Some Traits of Good Salespeople

14. Employment Agencies Classified Ads Search the Web Salespeople from Other Companies Recommendations for Recruiting Salespeople

15. Selecting Salespeople Sales Aptitude Selection Process Usually Evaluates a Person’s Other Characteristics Analytical and Organizational Skills Personality Traits

16. Sales Force Training Goals Learn about and identify with the company. Learn about the company’s products. Learn customers’ and competitors’ characteristics. Learn field procedures and responsibilities.

17. Compensating Salespeople To Attract Salespeople, a Company Must Have an Attractive Plan Made Up of Several Elements Fixed Amount: Usually a Salary Variable Amount: Usually Commissions Or Bonuses Expense Allowance: For Job- Related Expenses

18. Directing Salespeople Identify Customer Targets & Call Norms Time Spent Prospecting for New Accounts Use Sales Time Efficiently Annual Call Plan Time-and-Duty Analysis Sales Force Automation Motivating Salespeople Organizational Climate Sales Quotas Positive Incentives Sales Meetings Sales Contests Honors and Trips Merchandise/Cash Supervising Salespeople

19. How Salespeople Spend Their Time

20. Evaluating Salespeople • Management gets information about its salespeople in several ways: • Sales reports, call reports, expense reports, and • Personal observations, customer surveys, etc. • Formal evaluation of performance can be done qualitatively or quantitatively. • Evaluation methods of performance include: • Comparing salespeople’s performance to others, • Comparing current sales with past sales.

21. Major Steps in Effective Selling

22. The Personal Selling Process Prospecting The salesperson identifies qualified potential customers Preapproach The salesperson learns as much as possible about a prospective customer before making a sales call Approach The salesperson meets the customer for the first time Presentation The salesperson tells the “product story” to the buyer, highlighting customer benefits

23. The Personal Selling Process Handling Objections The salesperson seeks out, clarifies, and overcomes customer objections to buying Follow-up The salesperson follows up after the sale to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business

24. What is Direct Marketing? Direct Marketing Consists of Direct Connections With Carefully Targeted Individual Consumers to Both Obtain an Immediate Response and Cultivate Lasting Customer Relationships.

25. The New Direct-Marketing Model • Some firms use direct marketing as a supplemental medium. • For many companies, direct marketing constitutes a new and complete model for doing business. • Some firms employ the direct model as their only approach. • Some see this as the new marketing model of the next millennium.

26. Benefits and Growth of Direct Marketing Consumer Relationship Building Buyers Benefits Sellers Benefits Reduces Costs Product Access & Selection Increases Speed & Efficiency Abundance of Information Provides Flexibility Interactive & Immediate

27. Benefits of Direct Marketing • Additional Benefits to Sellers: • Can target small groups or individuals • Can tailor offers to individual needs • Can be timed to reach prospects at just the right moment • Gives access to buyers they could not reach through other channels • Offers a low-cost, efficient way to reach markets

28. Demassification – Focus is Toward Minimarkets The Growth of Direct Marketing Higher Costs of Driving, Traffic and Parking Congestion Consumers Lack of Time Convenience of Ordering From Direct Marketers Growth of Customer Databases

29. Customer Databases • An organized collection of comprehensive data about individual customers or prospects, including geographic, demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data.

30. Database Marketing Identifying Prospects Database Marketing is the Process of Building, Maintaining, and Using Customer Databases and Other Databases for the Purposes of Contacting and Transacting With Customers. How Companies Use Their Databases: Deciding Which Customers Should Receive a Particular Offer Deepening Customer Loyalty Reactivating Customer Purchases

31. Forms of Direct Marketing

32. Telephone Marketing • Accounts for more than 36% of all direct-marketing sales. • Used in both consumer and B2B markets.

33. Direct-Mail Marketing • Involves sending an offer, announcement, reminder, or other item to a person at a particular address. • Accounts for more than 31% of direct-marketing sales. • Permits high target-market selectivity. • Personal and flexible. • Easy to measure results.

34. Catalog Marketing • With the Internet, more and more catalogs going electronic. • Print catalogs still the primary medium. • Expected sales in 2008 = $176 billion. • Harder to attract new customers with Internet catalogs.

35. Direct-Response TV Marketing Direct-Response Advertising

36. Kiosk Marketing • Information and ordering machines generally found in stores, airports, and other locations.

37. Integrated Direct-Marketing • The use of carefully coordinated multiple-media, multiple-stage campaigns.

38. Public Policy and Ethical Issues in Direct Marketing Irritation to Consumers Taking unfair advantage of impulsive or less sophisticated buyers Targeting TV-addicted shoppers Deception, Fraud Invasion of Privacy