The document discusses personal selling and direct marketing. It covers the key aspects of the personal selling process, including prospecting, presenting, persuading, closing, and servicing. It also discusses how to design an effective sales force through objectives, strategy, structure, size, and compensation. Additional sections cover managing the sales force through recruiting, training, productivity, motivation, and evaluation. The document concludes with an overview of direct marketing channels like direct mail, catalog marketing, telemarketing, and infomercials.
Best Practices in Marketing Budgeting for Improved ROI with IDC, VMWare and A...Allocadia Software
Watch a best practices webinar in marketing budgeting with leading industry analyst IDC and billion-dollar tech cloud and virtualization software company, VMWare.
3 Key Takeways:
1: Best Practices in Marketing Budgeting: Best practice insights and industry trends from the Head of IDC's CMO Advisory Council on managing marketing operating budget allocations
2: Global Budgeting Case Study: How VMWare manages their global marketing investments and budgets across their worldwide marketing organization
3: Building Alignment & ROI: How you can build alignment across your marketing organization to increase marketing's credibility, drive better ROMI, and impact the bottomline
Best Practices in Marketing Budgeting for Improved ROI with IDC, VMWare and A...Allocadia Software
Watch a best practices webinar in marketing budgeting with leading industry analyst IDC and billion-dollar tech cloud and virtualization software company, VMWare.
3 Key Takeways:
1: Best Practices in Marketing Budgeting: Best practice insights and industry trends from the Head of IDC's CMO Advisory Council on managing marketing operating budget allocations
2: Global Budgeting Case Study: How VMWare manages their global marketing investments and budgets across their worldwide marketing organization
3: Building Alignment & ROI: How you can build alignment across your marketing organization to increase marketing's credibility, drive better ROMI, and impact the bottomline
Introduction to Integrated Marketing Solutions (IMS)IMS
IMS is a leader in providing innovative solutions that ignite brand performance.
We are a seasoned team of Solutionists with the experience and expertise to improve the performance of brands and brand teams.
We simplify the process of developing solutions that matter. We bring proven methods and deep expertise to help clients tackle challenges in key areas that are essential to brand performance: Strategy, Activation, Transformation and Advisory Services.
We welcome you to take a few moments to learn more about our firm.
Influencing the Enterprise: Driving Strategic Impact Through Marketing Operat...ClearAction Continuum
For an updated version of this presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/clearaction/influencing-the-enterprise-driving-strategic-impact-through-marketing-operations-127189822
How Marketing Operations can help your business overcome silos and achieve a higher ROI.
See https://ClearAction.com
For an updated version of this presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/clearaction/marketing-operations-the-engine-behind-predictive-analytics-127189835
Presented by Gary Katz at Predictive Analytics World, February 18, 2009 San Francisco, Calif.
See https://ClearAction.com
Nurturing. Another of those words we hear again and again. What’s so great about nurturing?
With so much of the buying journey unassisted by sales, marketing needs to be able to accompany buyers through their journey with the right content. The delivery of the right content at the right time is the role of nurturing. And that works equally well when we’re nurturing a prospect towards an initial sale – as it does when we’re nurturing customers towards repeat or additional purchases.
In this presentation, we will cover topics such as:
• What the buyer journey looks like, pre- and post-sale
• Ways to maximise customer lifetime value
• What content works at each stage of the buyer journey
• Marketing automation and CRM systems: what are they good for?
• Marketing automation: don’t get carried away by hype
• What should we be measuring and when
“You can download this product from SlideTeam.net”
Showcase your proficiency in business communications and gain the client’s attention by using our topic-specific Marketing Strategy Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Slides. Explain the proficiency that your company holds in business communication, marketing factors, and advertisements that help your clientele in increasing brand awareness in different geographies. Illustrate the customized plans that your business offers like product development, market research, branding, online and offline advertising, public relations, and content marketing. Use this presentation template to portray your project summary, problem statement, proposed solutions, proposed channels for marketing, marketing approach, marketing project timeframe, future action metrics, client testimonials, payments terms, etc. With the aid of our reliable marketing plan proposal PPT theme, you can impress your clients by focusing on different strategies your workforce use for a successful product launch in the market. State the advantages your clients will get from these marketing plans offered by your company. Bring the attention of your business clients to your proposal by describing the various advanced services along with their communication methods to approach different segments in the market. Employ this creatively designed target market proposal PowerPoint presentation template and throw some light on your online and offline marketing strategies that include social media, webinar, e-mail, online conferences, online advertising, blogs, networking, speaking, meetings, print publications, trade shows, print advertising, etc. Use this PPT template to elaborate on the various analytical tools your company provides for measuring and assessing results. This information will help in landing more customers. Take the assistance of our interactive market strategy proposal PowerPoint graphic to illustrate your planning, execution, and evaluation program that gives your business partners more clarity about discovery, creation, pre-motion, live fundraising, post-campaign, and analysis of the product. You can download our ready-to-use market planning proposal PPT theme to create a positive impact on your prospects that turn into clients. https://bit.ly/3FIJiNY
2023 is here…how is your brand going to evolve?
This is what you should be asking yourself:
Have we audited our brand?
Do we have a brand strategy?
Is our brand strategy part of our organisational fabric / DNA?
Do we know what our brand’s biggest challenges are and how to solve them?
Do we have clarity on our stakeholders, integrating ESG or DEI into our brand strategy and optimising our overall customer experience?
How are we using data, what can we automate and how do humanise our brand and communications?
Does our branding team, marketing team, board and management have the right skills and knowledge?
SEO as the Backbone of Digital MarketingFelipe Bazon
In this talk Felipe Bazon will share how him and his team at Hedgehog Digital share our journey of making C-Levels alike, specially CMOS realize that SEO is the backbone of digital marketing by showing how SEO can contribute to brand awareness, reputation and authority and above all how to use SEO to create more robust global marketing strategies.
Introduction to Integrated Marketing Solutions (IMS)IMS
IMS is a leader in providing innovative solutions that ignite brand performance.
We are a seasoned team of Solutionists with the experience and expertise to improve the performance of brands and brand teams.
We simplify the process of developing solutions that matter. We bring proven methods and deep expertise to help clients tackle challenges in key areas that are essential to brand performance: Strategy, Activation, Transformation and Advisory Services.
We welcome you to take a few moments to learn more about our firm.
Influencing the Enterprise: Driving Strategic Impact Through Marketing Operat...ClearAction Continuum
For an updated version of this presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/clearaction/influencing-the-enterprise-driving-strategic-impact-through-marketing-operations-127189822
How Marketing Operations can help your business overcome silos and achieve a higher ROI.
See https://ClearAction.com
For an updated version of this presentation: https://www.slideshare.net/clearaction/marketing-operations-the-engine-behind-predictive-analytics-127189835
Presented by Gary Katz at Predictive Analytics World, February 18, 2009 San Francisco, Calif.
See https://ClearAction.com
Nurturing. Another of those words we hear again and again. What’s so great about nurturing?
With so much of the buying journey unassisted by sales, marketing needs to be able to accompany buyers through their journey with the right content. The delivery of the right content at the right time is the role of nurturing. And that works equally well when we’re nurturing a prospect towards an initial sale – as it does when we’re nurturing customers towards repeat or additional purchases.
In this presentation, we will cover topics such as:
• What the buyer journey looks like, pre- and post-sale
• Ways to maximise customer lifetime value
• What content works at each stage of the buyer journey
• Marketing automation and CRM systems: what are they good for?
• Marketing automation: don’t get carried away by hype
• What should we be measuring and when
“You can download this product from SlideTeam.net”
Showcase your proficiency in business communications and gain the client’s attention by using our topic-specific Marketing Strategy Proposal PowerPoint Presentation Slides. Explain the proficiency that your company holds in business communication, marketing factors, and advertisements that help your clientele in increasing brand awareness in different geographies. Illustrate the customized plans that your business offers like product development, market research, branding, online and offline advertising, public relations, and content marketing. Use this presentation template to portray your project summary, problem statement, proposed solutions, proposed channels for marketing, marketing approach, marketing project timeframe, future action metrics, client testimonials, payments terms, etc. With the aid of our reliable marketing plan proposal PPT theme, you can impress your clients by focusing on different strategies your workforce use for a successful product launch in the market. State the advantages your clients will get from these marketing plans offered by your company. Bring the attention of your business clients to your proposal by describing the various advanced services along with their communication methods to approach different segments in the market. Employ this creatively designed target market proposal PowerPoint presentation template and throw some light on your online and offline marketing strategies that include social media, webinar, e-mail, online conferences, online advertising, blogs, networking, speaking, meetings, print publications, trade shows, print advertising, etc. Use this PPT template to elaborate on the various analytical tools your company provides for measuring and assessing results. This information will help in landing more customers. Take the assistance of our interactive market strategy proposal PowerPoint graphic to illustrate your planning, execution, and evaluation program that gives your business partners more clarity about discovery, creation, pre-motion, live fundraising, post-campaign, and analysis of the product. You can download our ready-to-use market planning proposal PPT theme to create a positive impact on your prospects that turn into clients. https://bit.ly/3FIJiNY
2023 is here…how is your brand going to evolve?
This is what you should be asking yourself:
Have we audited our brand?
Do we have a brand strategy?
Is our brand strategy part of our organisational fabric / DNA?
Do we know what our brand’s biggest challenges are and how to solve them?
Do we have clarity on our stakeholders, integrating ESG or DEI into our brand strategy and optimising our overall customer experience?
How are we using data, what can we automate and how do humanise our brand and communications?
Does our branding team, marketing team, board and management have the right skills and knowledge?
SEO as the Backbone of Digital MarketingFelipe Bazon
In this talk Felipe Bazon will share how him and his team at Hedgehog Digital share our journey of making C-Levels alike, specially CMOS realize that SEO is the backbone of digital marketing by showing how SEO can contribute to brand awareness, reputation and authority and above all how to use SEO to create more robust global marketing strategies.
Mastering Local SEO for Service Businesses in the AI Era is tailored specifically for local service providers like plumbers, dentists, and others seeking to dominate their local search landscape. This session delves into leveraging AI advancements to enhance your online visibility and search rankings through the Content Factory model, designed for creating high-impact, SEO-driven content. Discover the Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy, a cost-effective approach to boost your local SEO efforts and attract more customers with minimal investment. Gain practical insights on optimizing your online presence to meet the specific needs of local service seekers, ensuring your business not only appears but stands out in local searches. This concise, action-oriented workshop is your roadmap to navigating the complexities of digital marketing in the AI age, driving more leads, conversions, and ultimately, success for your local service business.
Key Takeaways:
Embrace AI for Local SEO: Learn to harness the power of AI technologies to optimize your website and content for local search. Understand the pivotal role AI plays in analyzing search trends and consumer behavior, enabling you to tailor your SEO strategies to meet the specific demands of your target local audience. Leverage the Content Factory Model: Discover the step-by-step process of creating SEO-optimized content at scale. This approach ensures a steady stream of high-quality content that engages local customers and boosts your search rankings. Get an action guide on implementing this model, complete with templates and scheduling strategies to maintain a consistent online presence. Maximize ROI with Dollar-a-Day Advertising: Dive into the cost-effective Dollar-a-Day advertising strategy that amplifies your visibility in local searches without breaking the bank. Learn how to strategically allocate your budget across platforms to target potential local customers effectively. The session includes an action guide on setting up, monitoring, and optimizing your ad campaigns to ensure maximum impact with minimal investment.
Short video marketing has sweeped the nation and is the fastest way to build an online brand on social media in 2024. In this session you will learn:- What is short video marketing- Which platforms work best for your business- Content strategies that are on brand for your business- How to sell organically without paying for ads.
Digital marketing is the art and science of promoting products or services using digital channels to reach and engage with potential customers. It encompasses a wide range of online tactics and strategies aimed at increasing brand visibility, driving website traffic, generating leads, and ultimately, converting those leads into customers.
https://nidmindia.com/
Digital Commerce Lecture for Advanced Digital & Social Media Strategy at UCLA...Valters Lauzums
E-commerce in 2024 is characterized by a dynamic blend of opportunities and significant challenges. Supply chain disruptions and inventory shortages are critical issues, leading to increased shipping delays and rising costs, which impact timely delivery and squeeze profit margins. Efficient logistics management is essential, yet it is often hampered by these external factors. Payment processing, while needing to ensure security and user convenience, grapples with preventing fraud and integrating diverse payment methods, adding another layer of complexity. Furthermore, fulfillment operations require a streamlined approach to handle volume spikes and maintain accuracy in order picking, packing, and shipping, all while meeting customers' heightened expectations for faster delivery times.
Amid these operational challenges, customer data has emerged as an important strategy. By focusing on personalization and enhancing customer experience from historical behavior, businesses can deliver improved website and brand experienced, better product recommendations, optimal promotions, and content to meet individual preferences. Better data analytics can also help in effectively creating marketing campaigns, improving customer retention, and driving product development and inventory management.
Innovative formats such as social commerce and live shopping are beginning to impact the digital commerce landscape, offering new ways to engage with customers and drive sales, and may provide opportunity for brands that have been priced out or seen a downturn with post-pandemic shopping behavior. Social commerce integrates shopping experiences directly into social media platforms, tapping into the massive user bases of these networks to increase reach and engagement. Live shopping, on the other hand, combines entertainment and real-time interaction, providing a dynamic platform for showcasing products and encouraging immediate purchases. These innovations not only enhance customer engagement but also provide valuable data for businesses to refine their strategies and deliver superior shopping experiences.
The e-commerce sector is evolving rapidly, and businesses that effectively manage operational challenges and implement innovative strategies are best positioned for long-term success.
Mastering Multi-Touchpoint Content Strategy: Navigate Fragmented User JourneysSearch Engine Journal
Digital platforms are constantly multiplying, and with that, user engagement is becoming more intricate and fragmented.
So how do you effectively navigate distributing and tailoring your content across these various touchpoints?
Watch this webinar as we dive into the evolving landscape of content strategy tailored for today's fragmented user journeys. Understanding how to deliver your content to your users is more crucial than ever, and we’ll provide actionable tips for navigating these intricate challenges.
You’ll learn:
- How today’s users engage with content across various channels and devices.
- The latest methodologies for identifying and addressing content gaps to keep your content strategy proactive and relevant.
- What digital shelf space is and how your content strategy needs to pivot.
With Wayne Cichanski, we’ll explore innovative strategies to map out and meet the diverse needs of your audience, ensuring every piece of content resonates and connects, regardless of where or how it is consumed.
AI-Powered Personalization: Principles, Use Cases, and Its Impact on CROVWO
In today’s era of AI, personalization is more than just a trend—it’s a fundamental strategy that unlocks numerous opportunities.
When done effectively, personalization builds trust, loyalty, and satisfaction among your users—key factors for business success. However, relying solely on AI capabilities isn’t enough. You need to anchor your approach in solid principles, understand your users’ context, and master the art of persuasion.
Join us as Sarjak Patel and Naitry Saggu from 3rd Eye Consulting unveil a transformative framework. This approach seamlessly integrates your unique context, consumer insights, and conversion goals, paving the way for unparalleled success in personalization.
Core Web Vitals SEO Workshop - improve your performance [pdf]Peter Mead
Core Web Vitals to improve your website performance for better SEO results with CWV.
CWV Topics include:
- Understanding the latest Core Web Vitals including the significance of LCP, INP and CLS + their impact on SEO
- Optimisation techniques from our experts on how to improve your CWV on platforms like WordPress and WP Engine
- The impact of user experience and SEO
In this presentation, Danny Leibrandt explains the impact of AI on SEO and what Google has been doing about it. Learn how to take your SEO game to the next level and win over Google with his new strategy anyone can use. Get actionable steps to rank your name, your business, and your clients on Google - the right way.
Key Takeaways:
1. Real content is king
2. Find ways to show EEAT
3. Repurpose across all platforms
Videos are more engaging, more memorable, and more popular than any other type of content out there. That’s why it’s estimated that 82% of consumer traffic will come from videos by 2025.
And with videos evolving from landscape to portrait and experts promoting shorter clips, one thing remains constant – our brains LOVE videos.
So is there science behind what makes people absolutely irresistible on camera?
The answer: definitely yes.
In this jam-packed session with Stephanie Garcia, you’ll get your hands on a steal-worthy guide that uncovers the art and science to being irresistible on camera. From body language to words that convert, she’ll show you how to captivate on command so that viewers are excited and ready to take action.
Digital Money Maker Club – von Gunnar Kessler digital.focsh890
Title One is a comprehensive examination of the impact of digital technologies on
modern society. In a world where technology continues to advance rapidly, this article delves into the nuances and complexities of the digital age, exploring Its implications across various sectors and aspects of life.
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If this PowerPoint presentation contains mathematical equations, you may need to check that your computer has the following installed:
1) MathType Plugin
2) Math Player (free versions available)
3) NVDA Reader (free versions available)
Personal selling is the most effective tool at later stages of the buying process, particularly in influencing buyer preferences, conviction, and action.
Personal selling has three notable qualities:
• It is customized, meaning that the message can be designed to appeal to any individual.
• It is relationship oriented, meaning that personal-selling relationships can range from a matter-of-fact selling relationship to a deep personal friendship.
• It is response oriented, meaning that the buyer is often given personal choices and encouraged to respond directly.
Figure 14.1 shows the steps in effective selling.
The first step in selling is to identify and qualify prospects.
More companies are taking responsibility for finding and qualifying leads so that salespeople can use their expensive time doing what they do best: selling.
Some companies, including IBM, qualify leads according to the acronym BANT: Does the customer have the necessary budget, the authority to buy, a compelling need for the product or service, and a timeline for delivery that aligns with what is possible?
Companies can vary in their purchasing process and company structure. At many large companies, salespeople interact with purchasing departments tasked with procuring goods for the organization.
Many purchasing departments in larger companies have been centralized and elevated to strategic supply departments with more professional practices. Centralized purchasing may put a premium on dealing with larger suppliers that are able to meet all the company’s needs.
At the same time, some companies are decentralizing purchasing for smaller items such as coffeemakers, office supplies, and other inexpensive necessities.
A common way of telling the product “story” to the buyer is captured by the FABV approach, which focuses on articulating the features, advantages, benefits, and value of the company’s offering.
• Features describe the physical characteristics of a market offering. For example, a computer’s features include processing speed and memory capacity.
• Advantages describe why the features give the customer an edge.
• Benefits describe the economic, technical, service, and social payback delivered.
• Value describes the offering’s worth (often in monetary terms).
Selling is not a unidirectional process in which sellers simply present information to buyers. Rather, selling is an interactive process where buyers typically raise questions and pose objections.
Most objections stem from two sources: psychological resistance and logical resistance.
• Psychological resistance includes resistance to interference, preference for established supply sources or brands, apathy, reluctance to give up something, unpleasant associations created by the sales rep, predetermined ideas, dislike of making decisions, and an anxious attitude toward money.
• Logical resistance might consist of objections to the price, delivery schedule, or product or company characteristics.
Closing is an essential component of the selling process. Without closing the deal, there is no sale. A skillful salesperson knows when and how to close the sale in a way that will not only secure the deal at hand but also help establish a long-term relationship with the buyer.
Follow-up and maintenance are necessary to ensure customer satisfaction and repeat business. Immediately after closing, the salesperson should cement any necessary details about delivery time, purchase terms, and other matters important to the customer. When relevant, the salesperson might schedule a follow-up call after delivery to ensure proper installation, instruction, and servicing. In addition, the salesperson might try to detect any potential problems with the offering, suggest solutions, alleviate concerns, and reaffirm the buyer’s positive attitude toward the purchase.
Salespeople working with key customers must do more than e-mail or call when they think customers might be ready to place orders.
They should also get in touch at other times and make useful suggestions about the business to create value. They should monitor key accounts, know customers’ problems, and be ready to serve them in a number of ways, adapting and responding to different customer needs or situations.
A popular approach for managing the sale process is SPIN, an acronym derived from the types of questions that a salesperson should ask prospects: situation questions, problem questions, implication questions, and need-payoff questions.
Figure 14.2 shows the process of designing the sales force.
Salespeople are the company’s personal link to its customers. In designing the sales force, the company must develop sales force objectives, strategy, structure, size, and compensation.
Sales reps need to know how to diagnose a customer’s problem and propose a solution that can help improve the customer’s profitability.
In performing their jobs, salespeople complete one or more specific tasks:
• Information gathering involves conducting market research and doing intelligence work.
• Targeting involves deciding how to allocate their time among prospects and customers.
• Communicating involves conveying information about the company’s products and services.
• Selling entails approaching, presenting, answering questions, overcoming objections, and closing sales.
• Servicing involves providing various services to the customers—consulting on problems, rendering technical assistance, arranging financing, and expediting delivery.
• Allocating involves deciding which customers will get scarce products during product shortages.
An important aspect of developing a sales strategy is deciding whether to use a direct or a contractual sales force.
A direct (company) sales force consists of full- or part-time paid employees who work exclusively for the company. Inside salespeople conduct business from the office and receive visits from prospective buyers, and field salespeople travel and visit customers.
A contractual sales force consists of manufacturers’ reps, sales agents, and brokers who earn a commission based on sales.
Figure 14.3 shows the Break-Even Cost Chart for the Choice between a Company Sales Force and a Manufacturer’s Sales Agency.
Consider the following situation: A North Carolina furniture manufacturer wants to sell its line to retailers on the West Coast. One alternative is to hire 10 new sales representatives to operate out of a sales office in San Francisco and receive a base salary plus commissions. The other alternative is to use a San Francisco manufacturer’s sales agency that has extensive contacts with retailers. Its 30 sales representatives would receive a commission based on their sales. The first step is to estimate the dollar volume of sales each alternative is likely to generate. A company sales force will concentrate on the company’s products, be better trained to sell them, be more aggressive, and be more successful because many customers will prefer to deal directly with the company. The sales agency has 30 representatives, however, not just 10; it may be just as aggressive, depending on the commission level; customers may appreciate its independence; and it may have extensive contacts and market knowledge. The marketer needs to evaluate all these factors in formulating a demand function for the two different channels. The next step is to estimate the costs of selling different volumes through each channel. The cost schedules are shown in Figure 14.3. Engaging a sales agency is initially less expensive than using the company’s sales force, but costs rise faster because the sales agents get larger commissions. The final step is comparing sales and costs. As Figure 14.3 shows, there is one sales level (SB) at which selling costs for the two channels are the same. The sales agency is thus the better channel for any sales volume below SB, and the company sales branch is better at any volume above SB. Given this information, it is not surprising that sales agents tend to be used by smaller firms or by large firms in smaller territories where the volume is low.
The horizontal axis is labeled Level of Sales (dollars), and the vertical axis is labeled Selling Costs (dollars). The graph shows two rising slopes labeled Manufacturer’s sales agency and Company sales force that intersect each other at point S subscript B on the horizontal axis.
The sales force strategy also has implications for its structure. A company that sells one product line to one industry with customers in many locations would organize its sales force around geographic territories.
On the other hand, a company that sells many products to customers with diverse needs might organize its sales force around specific products, services, or customer needs.
Companies must deploy sales forces strategically so that they call on the right customers at the right time in the right way, acting as “account managers” who arrange fruitful contact between people in the buying and selling organizations.
Selling increasingly calls for teamwork and the support of others, such as top management, especially when national accounts or major sales are at stake; technical people, who supply information and service before, during, and after product purchase; customer service representatives, who provide installation, maintenance, and other services; and office staff, consisting of sales analysts, order expediters, and assistants.
Sales representatives are one of the company’s most productive and expensive assets. Increasing their number increases both sales and costs. Once the company establishes the number of customers it wants to reach, it can use a workload approach to establish sales force size.
A streamlined version of this method has five steps as shown on the next slide:
1. Group customers into size classes according to annual sales volume.
2. Establish desirable contact frequencies (number of calls on an account per year) for each customer class.
3. Multiply the number of accounts in each size class by the corresponding call frequency to arrive at the total workload for the country, in sales calls per year.
4. Determine the average number of customer interactions a sales representative can make per year.
5. Divide the total annual calls required by the average annual customer interactions made by a sales representative to arrive at the number of sales representatives needed.
To attract top-quality reps, the company must develop an attractive compensation package.
Sales reps want income regularity, extra reward for above-average performance, and fair pay for experience and longevity.
Management wants control, economy, and simplicity. Some of these objectives will conflict. No wonder compensation plans vary tremendously among, and even within, industries.
Figure 14.4 shows the key activities in managing the sales force.
At the heart of any successful sales force are appropriately selected representatives. It’s a great waste to hire the wrong people. The average annual turnover rate of sales reps for all industries is almost 20 percent.
Studies have not always shown a strong relationship between sales performance, on the one hand, and background and experience variables, current status, lifestyle, attitude, personality, and skills, on the other. More effective predictors of high performance in sales are composite tests and assessment centers that simulate the working environment and assess applicants in an environment similar to the one in which they would work.2
Today’s customers expect salespeople to have deep product knowledge, add ideas to improve operations, and be efficient and reliable. These demands have required companies to make a much greater investment in sales training.
Norms for Prospect Calls. Left to their own devices, many reps will spend most of their time with current customers, who are known quantities. Reps can depend on them for some business, whereas a prospect might never deliver any.
Using Sales Time Efficiently. Companies constantly try to improve sales force productivity. To cut costs, reduce time demands on their outside sales force, and leverage technological innovations, many have increased the size and responsibilities of their inside sales force.
Sales Technology. Not only is sales and inventory information transferred much more quickly, but specific computer-based decision support systems have been created for sales managers and sales representatives.
Marketers reinforce monetary and nonmonetary rewards of all types. One research study found that the employee reward with the highest value was pay, followed by promotion, personal growth, and sense of accomplishment.
Least valued were liking and respect, security, and recognition. In other words, salespeople are highly motivated by pay and the chance to get ahead and satisfy their intrinsic needs, and they may be less motivated by compliments and security. Some firms use sales contests to increase sales effort.
Compensation plans may even need to vary depending on salesperson type—that is, on whether the salespersons are stars, core or solid performers, or laggards.
Stars benefit from no ceiling or caps on commissions, overachievement commissions for exceeding quotas, and prize structures that allow multiple winners.
Core performers benefit from multitier targets that serve as stepping stones for achievement and sales contests with prizes that vary in nature and value.
Laggards respond to consistent quarterly bonuses and social pressure.
An important source of information about reps is sales reports. Additional information comes through personal observation, salesperson self-reports, customer letters and complaints, customer surveys, and conversations with other reps
Direct marketing is the use of consumer direct channels to reach and deliver goods and services to customers without using intermediaries.
Direct marketing offers companies several advantages. By eliminating the intermediary, it often proves to be more cost-effective than traditional marketing.
Directly connecting with customers also can provide the company with invaluable information about customers’ current and potential needs, the ways in which they use the company’s offerings, as well as what aspects of the company’s offerings they find particularly beneficial and what aspects need improvement. In addition, having the ability to directly interact with customers enables the company to offer a superior service experience and build a stronger brand image.
Direct marketing can reach prospects at the moment they want a solicitation and therefore be noticed by more highly interested prospects. It lets marketers test alternate media and messages to find the most cost-effective approach.
Direct marketing also makes the company’s offer and strategy less visible to competitors. Finally, direct marketers can measure responses to their campaigns to decide which have been the most profitable.
Direct-mail marketing means sending an offer, announcement, reminder, or other item to an individual consumer. Using highly selective mailing lists, direct marketers send out millions of mail pieces each year—letters, fliers, foldouts, and other “salespeople with wings.”
In catalog marketing, companies may send full-line merchandise catalogs, specialty consumer catalogs, and business catalogs, usually in print form but also as DVDs or online.
Telemarketing is the use of the telephone and call centers to attract prospects, sell to existing customers, and provide service by taking orders and answering questions. It helps companies increase revenue, reduce selling costs, and improve customer satisfaction. Companies use call centers for inbound telemarketing—receiving calls from customers—and outbound telemarketing—initiating calls to prospects and customers.
Direct marketers use all the major media. Newspapers and magazines carry ads offering books, clothing, appliances, vacations, and other goods and services that individuals can order via toll-free numbers. Radio ads present offers 24 hours a day.
Some companies prepare 30- and 60-minute infomercials to combine the selling power of television commercials with the draw of information and entertainment. At-home shopping channels are dedicated to selling goods and services through a toll-free number or via the Internet for delivery within 48 hours.
The rise of direct marketing has resulted in an ever-increasing number of market niches.
Consumers short of time and tired of traffic and parking headaches appreciate toll-free phone numbers, always open websites, next-day delivery, and direct marketers’ commitment to customer service.
In addition, many chain stores have dropped slower-moving specialty items, creating an opportunity for direct marketers to promote these to interested buyers instead.
Successful direct marketers view a customer interaction as an opportunity to up-sell, cross-sell, or just deepen a relationship. They make sure they know enough about each customer to customize and personalize offers and messages and develop a plan for lifetime marketing to each valuable customer, based on their knowledge of life events and transitions.