Personal Selling & Direct Marketing

Personal Selling

Personal presentation by the Personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the purpose firm’s sales force for the purpose

of making sales and building of making sales and building customer relationships.customer relationships.

The Role of the Sales Force

• The critical link between a company and its customers.Salespeople:– represent the company to the customers.– represent the customers to the company.– strive to achieve customer satisfaction and

company profit simultaneously.

Sale Force Organization

• Territorial– Sales force organized by geographic area

• Product – Salespeople assigned to sell only certain product lines

• Customer– Sales force organized by customer or industry

• Complex– Combination of several types of structures

Team Selling

• Used to service large, complex corporate accounts• Main advantages:– Can find problems, solutions, and sales opportunities that

no single salesperson could– Cross-functional expertise– Goes beyond simple selling of product– More about finding customer solutions to complex issues

• Used primarily by “deep-pocket” companies• Also called “Consultative Selling”

Major Steps in the Selling Process

The Personal Selling Process• Prospecting– Identifying qualified potential customers (prospecting)

• Pre-approach – Learning as much as possible about a prospect before

making the sales call

• Approach– Meeting the customer for the first time

• Presentation – Telling the “product story” to the buyer

The Personal Selling Process• Handling Objections

– Eliciting, clarifying and overcoming customer objections to buying

• Closing – Asking the customer for an order

• Follow-up– Following up after the sale to ensure customer satisfaction &

repeat business

• Transaction orientation vs. relationship orientation

Personal Selling - Movie

Direct Marketing

• Definition– One-on-one communication in which offers are

tailored to the needs of narrowly defined segments.

– Seeks a direct, immediate, and measurable consumer response.

– Can take many different forms.

Forms of Direct Marketing

• Powerful tool for building customer long-term customer relationships

• Enables “true micromarketing” efforts

• Can reach prospects at just the right moment

• Provides access to buyers unreachable through other channels

• Minimizes “wasted reach”

• Effectiveness is easily measured

Advantages of Direct Marketing

Customer Databases

An organized collection of comprehensive data about

individual customers or prospects, including geographic,

demographic, psychographic, and behavioral data.

Telemarketing

• Used in both consumer and B2B markets

• Outbound or Inbound• Inbound consumer

telemarketing and outbound business-to-business telemarketing remain strong despite DNC legislations

Telemarketing – the end of an industry?

• Do-Not-Call legislation forbids most telemarketers to contact phone numbers registered on its Web site

• $11,000+ fine per DNC violation• DNC legislation effectively prohibits cell

phones telemarketing (cannot call cellphones using auto-dialers)

Direct-Mail Marketing• Involves sending a marketing offer to a pre-qualified prospect’s address

• Addresses obtained from customer lists

• List sources– Companies develop their own databases (i.e. Williams Sonoma)– Buy a list from a list broker– Internet accounts and warranty or product registrations

• Higher cost per prospect reached, but yields higher quality prospects than mass media

• Easy to measure results

• The “junk-mail” problem

Catalog Marketing• Originally a way to reach rural and “off-the-beaten-

path” prospects.• Nowadays most paper catalogs have gone digital

(i.e. online)• Expected catalog sales in

2008: $200 billion.• Advantages and disadvantages– Paper vs. Online

Copyright 2007, Prentice-Hall Inc. 13-18

• Direct-Response Advertising:– TV spots that are 60 or 120 seconds long.

• Infomercials:– A 30-minute or longer advertising program for a

single product.

• Home Shopping Channels:– Entire cable channels dedicated to selling multiple

brands, items, and services.

Direct Response TV Marketing

Copyright 2007, Prentice-Hall Inc. 13-19

Direct Response TV

HSN – The Home Shopping Network – is a direct response marketer’s dream. Products shown on the channel can be ordered via a 1-800 number or over the Internet from the HSN Web site.

www.hsn.com

Kiosk Marketing

• Ordering machines generally found in stores, airports, and other locations

Question du Jour

Why haven’t kiosk marketing and vending machines taken off in the United States?