Satisfied customers should be asked if they know of anyone who may be interested in the products being sold. Sales people should also ask if the customer’s name can be used as an example of a satisfied customer. Salespeople can offer some incentives to customers for providing names of prospective customers. But the best chance of obtaining such a list from customers is when they are satisfied with the services and behavior of the salesperson.

These provide means of prospecting. These directories give names, addresses, telephone numbers, size of firms and products they make. But a salesperson cannot rely on this source exclusively. The data may be too large and unqualified and the salesperson will have to make a lot of cold calls and visits. Enquiries from prospective customers can be stimulated by advertising, direct mail or exhibitions. Such enquiries should be dealt with promptly and checked to establish their seriousness and worth.
Category: Service Marketing | 2 C

Dissatisfied customers tell six other people on an average about their cause of complaint. Dealing with complaints quickly and efficiently is a key aspect of selling. The ability of a sales team to empathize with customers and react sympathetically creates goodwill. When the sales team promptly solves customer problems, the complainants will now spread the news of how well they have been treated. More important than finding a solution to the customer problem, which is obviously important, is to reduce the anxiety of the customers, which in most cases can be done by reaching the customer site as soon as possible.

This process of checking leads to establish their potential is called qualifying. Advertisements of a prospective customer may reveal their expansion plans that may suggest potential business for the company. Articles in scientific, professional and business publications may reveal new products being developed by companies that may require the salesperson’s company products. This involves calling on prospects that may or may not need the product.

Cold canvassing may become frustrating at times but a salesperson must always remember that most cold calls always provide some information about the prospective customers which will be helpful in tracking them for future business. But it is important that a salesperson maintains a record of the interaction he had with the customer, no matter how uninterested the customer sounded at the time of the interaction.

It is much cheaper to reach a business customer through advertising than through a salesman’s visit, a letter, or a phone call. But even a very effective advertisement is not likely to close a sale. Follow-up action is necessary. But advertising pre-sells the product and when a salesman visits a business customer, the latter is positively predisposed towards the salesman’s product if he has liked what he has seen in the advertisement.

Advertisements also generate inquiries from business customers. Advertising of business products is also important because there are many people in the buyer’s organization who influence the buying decision and the salesman cannot know who they all are, and what are their respective interests in the purchase. Advertisement reaches these people, and moreover people who set specification for the product that the company proposes to buy refer to advertisements to know what is being offered in the market.

In press advertisements, spontaneous recall of a brand name can be measured before and after a press campaign. Readers of periodicals in which the advertisement appeared could be asked to recall the advertisements they saw. And specific questions can be directed at the test ad and its content. Press ads that incorporate coupons to promote inquiries or actual sales can be evaluated by totaling the number of enquiries or value of sales generated. It still may not be possible to measure the real effectiveness of an advertisement because other communications are reaching the customers simultaneously and it is impossible to isolate the effect of the advertisement. But it helps to have in place a system of measuring advertising effectiveness. The advertisers become clear about what they have to achieve for the brand, and they realize that they cannot spend their client’s money to pursue their own creative urges.

Marlboro has a growing database of 26 million of its customers who are sent greetings on several occasions besides exclusive offers various events. Customers do not treat Marlboro as a brand; it is like an exclusive club of which they are all devoted members. The anniversary bash held by Marlboro is a significant event. Marlboro faithful are rewarded with special gifts and trips with lavish spreads that competitors find hard to match. These sweepstakes together with many contests and events sponsored by Marlboro brings the smoking community together. These experiences are shared by loyalists, and contests attract a big online community of smokers. Customers get to know each other and become friends. Similarly, news and developments about Marlboro are transmitted to millions of consumers in no time.

Marlboro is strengthening its brand by resorting to buzz marketing. The legendary brand Marlboro is now 50 years old. When the brand had started out, it used mass marketing to reach out to its consumers. The image of the rugged cowboy epitomizing freedom and cool attitude were etched in the memories of consumers. But now Marlboro is actively using buzz marketing to remain at the top. In the tobacco industry characterized by heavy restrictions on advertising, Marlboro has done an admirable job of strengthening its brand image. This is in contrast to the rest of the industry. Its new age tactics include marketing at “live” events that encourage internet chat, sign-ups for promotional offers, and a website where smokers sign up for discounts, price promotions and direct mail.

Advertising is often used to build brand image. Image means personality. Brand personality is the message that the advertisement seeks to convey. It includes the brand name, symbols, advertising style, packaging, price and the nature of the product that is being sold. Brand personality acts as a form of self expression, reassurance, a communicator of the brand’s function and as an indicator of trustworthiness. The value of the brand personality to consumers will differ by product category. In self expressive product categories such as perfumes, cigarettes, clothing, brands act as badge for making public an aspect of personality. Brand personality can also act as a reassurance. The personality of a mass brand may convey sophistication and upper class which may not necessarily correspond with the type of people who buy the brand. What the imagery is doing is providing the reassurance that the brand is socially acceptable.

Standardizing advertising is a growing preoccupation of multinational companies. Proponents of standardization point to customer convergence, who shares common experience, needs and motivations. Even while adapting advertising messages when trying to penetrate foreign markets, advertisers tend to use stereotypical images of the people in these countries or simply assume that the type of advertising message that is appropriate in the home country would be relevant in foreign markets as well. Multinational companies will have to reconsider their strategy of standardizing advertising messages. Whatever the commonality between customers of different countries, regions, and cultures, there is and always will are significant differences between them. Advertisements will have to address these differences than ride roughshod over them. A strong brand is built by addressing itself to differences between segments. A brand that ignores differences between segments provides opportunities to competitors to creep in and design brands to address these differences.

Sometimes, when marketers are selling parity products or products where superiority may be extremely insignificant or difficult to convey, it may suffice to make the message clearer, more honest and more informative than the competitors. More persuasive communication may work better than emphasizing a ‘better’ product because there is really no ‘better’ product.

A company has to select the target market in which it will offer its products. It will have to determine the differential value that it will provide to customers to make the product attractive to them, and communicate to customers the differential value it intends to provide to them.

Target Market:

Where does the company want to compete? The company has to select the segments to which it will offer its products. It is very tempting to select the largest segment or the most profitable segment. The company should possess special competencies and resources to serve its target market, which means that before a company can zero on to its target markets it, should have done a comprehensive research of requirements of customers of various segments, and an honest audit of its own resources and competencies. But it is never easy. A company should have a clear road map of how it will acquire or develop the required competencies and resources.

Undifferentiated Targeting:

A company using an undifferentiated targeting strategy essentially adopts a mass-market philosophy. It views the market as a single unified big market with no segments. The company uses one marketing mix for the entire market. The company assumes that individual customers have similar needs that can be met with a common marketing mix. The first company in an industry normally uses an undifferentiated targeting strategy. There is no competition at this stage and the company does not feel the need to tailor marketing mixes to the needs of market segments.

Multi-segment Targeting:

A company following multi-segment targeting strategy serves two or more well-defined segments and develops a distinct marketing mix for each one of them. Separate brands are developed to serve each of the segments by most companies following this strategy. It is the most sought after target market strategy because the strategy has the potential to generate sales volume, higher profits, larger market share, and economies of scale in manufacturing and marketing. The car market is most clearly segmented. There are segments for small cars, luxury cars, sports utility vehicles, etc.

The purpose of evaluating market segments is to choose one or more segments to enter. Target market selection is the choice of which and how many market segments the company will compete in. There are four generic target marketing strategies.

Undifferentiated Marketing:

There may be no strong differences in customer characteristics. Alternatively, the cost of developing a separate marketing mix for separate segments may outweigh the potential gains of meeting customer needs more exactly. Under these circumstances a company will decide to develop a single marketing mix for the whole market. There is absence of segmentation. This strategy can occur by default. Companies which lack a marketing orientation may practice this strategy because of lack of customer knowledge. It is convenient since a single product has to be developed.

Differentiated Marketing:

When market segmentation reveals several potential target segments that the company can serve profitably, specific marketing mixes can be developed to appeal to all or some of the segments. A differentiated marketing strategy exploits the differences between marketing segments by designing a specific marketing mix for each segment. Several segments may be identified but a company may not serve all of them. Some may be unattractive or be out of line with the company’s business strengths. A company may target just one segment with a single marketing mix.

The strategy is suited for companies with limited resources as these resources may be too stretched if it competes in many segments. Focused marketing allows R&D expenditure to be concentrated on meeting needs of one set of customers and managerial activities are devoted to understanding and catering to their needs. In some markets, the requirements of individual customers are unique and their purchasing power is sufficient to make designing a separate marketing mix for each customer a viable option. Many service providers such as advertising, marketing research firms, architects and solicitors vary their offerings on a customer to customer basis. They will discuss face to face with each customer their requirements and tailor their services accordingly.