1. Personal Selling & Direct Marketing

2. Personal Selling • Personal presentation by the firm’s sales force for the purpose of making sales and building customer relationships.

3. 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.

4. 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

5. 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”

6. Major Steps in the Selling Process

7. 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

8. 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

9. Personal Selling - Movie

10. 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.

11. Forms of Direct Marketing

12. Advantages 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

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

14. 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

15. 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)

16. 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

17. 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

18. Direct Response TV Marketing • 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. Copyright 2007, Prentice-Hall Inc.

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 Copyright 2007, Prentice-Hall Inc.

20. Kiosk Marketing • Ordering machines generally found in stores, airports, and other locations

21. Question du Jour Why haven’t kiosk marketing and vending machines taken off in the United States?