Deck 18: Relationship Building: Direct Marketing, Personal Selling, and Sales Promotion

Question 1

What are the three things salespeople must do to build relationships?

Answer 1

A company's chief communicators are the salespeople of that company. They are the chief means of communication with customers. To the customer, the salesperson is the company itself. This makes a salesperson very significant in carrying the company's image. The customer builds an impression about the brand based on the salesperson's behavior and attitude.
Salespeople provide for four distinct communications functions namely, gathering information, providing information to the customer and the organization, fulfilling orders, and building long-term relationships with the customers. The role that salespeople play in an organization is vital to the long-term interests of the organization.
When building relationships, salespeople play an important role between the customers and the company. They try to maintain relationships by ensuring the following:
•Keeping up with the company's commitments - salespeople are expected to keep up with the commitments made by the company to the customer and prospects. Companies are required to commit only that which is possible and these commitments are to be clearly comprehended and communicated to the customers by the salesperson.
•Servicing customer accounts - Salespeople are expected to be available to service customer accounts and should be reachable and approachable. Marketers need to ensure that they comprehend the status of the company and need to pitch in to communicate to the company appropriately.
•Solving any open problems - Salespeople are required t be available to customers to understand any problems that they face and to instill a faith in the minds of the customer that the products of the company can help solve their problems.

Question 2

What are the main purposes of sales promotion?

Answer 2

Companies are required to work tirelessly to achieve their objectives and establish a long-term relationship with the customers. It needs to build a strong brand image and ensure that its products/services attract the attention of potential customers. Sales promotion is one of the methods that companies use to ensure long-term relationship with their customers.
Sales promotion refers to a form of direct inducement and often uses both advertising and publicity. It offers extra incentives and offers along the marketing channels to quicken the movement of the product from the manufacturer to the customer. This requires considering the following vital elements:
•Sales promotion could be used anywhere ranging from the manufacturer to the wholesaler, from the wholesaler to the dealer, from the dealer to the customer, or from the manufacturer to the customer.
•Sales promotion efforts involve a direct inducement of gifts, prizes, money, or special products that serve as an incentive to the customer to purchase more products from the manufacturer.
•Sales promotion is designed with the intention of changing the purchase timing or to shift supply to other people in the marketing channel.
Thus, the purpose of sales promotion is to enable the improvement of the brand value and increase sales volume by offering different forms of direct inducement to attract and retain customers.

Question 3

Why is trade promotion controversial?

Answer 3

Companies are required to work tirelessly to achieve their objectives and establish a long-term relationship with the customers. It needs to build a strong brand image and ensure that its products/services attract the attention of potential customers. Sales promotion is one of the methods that companies use to ensure long-term relationship with their customers. Sales promotion refers to a form of direct inducement and often uses both advertising and publicity. It offers extra incentives and offers along the marketing channels to quicken the movement of the product from the manufacturer to the customer.
Trade promotions are a form of sales promotions that are aimed at members of the distribution channel. Marketers use trade promotion to thrust products through the distribution pipeline to gain more shelf space over competing products. This enables companies to secure the assistance of retailers, and guard the product from competing products.
Trade promotions are often seen as being controversial for the following reasons:
•Trade promotions can threaten the loyalty of the brand among customers.
•Trade promotions can often create a trap for marketers and customers who depend too heavily on discounts.
•Trade promotions could result in giving retailers more power and less power to the manufacturers as the retailers have more power to decide on the display of products.
•Retailers could use trade promotions from competing companies to earn maximum revenues in terms of hefty deals and allowances.
•Trade promotions could mislead managers into spending more money on the promotional process resulting in lesser funds for advertising and sales promotions.

Question 4

What are the most common pull strategies Which would you use to launch a new soft drink?

Question 5

Why is there a trend away from push strategies and toward pull strategies?

Question 6

How could you use direct mail in an integrated marketing communications program Give an example.

Question 7

What factors have the greatest influence on the success of a direct- mail campaign?

Question 8

Who are a company's best prospects for additional sales and profits Why?

Question 9

How should a large insurance company view integrated marketing communications?

Question 10

What are the basic strategic and tactical decisions direct marketers face?

Question 11

How can an advertiser use a newspaper for direct-response advertising?

Question 12

What distinct communications functions do salespeople provide?