Face to Face Marketing and Door to Door Marketing

Nothing beats the reality that one gets when you can interact with potential clients face to face physically moving from door to door within a community or household to household, face to face field marketing is also called personal selling or door to door marketing, customers are met directly in order to sell their products, using this method of field marketing we rely on our skills and persuasive abilities. During the period where we get to interact with the client face to face we get more chance to pass across edible information which would be useful to all our customers at that time and it’s also an opportunity for us to get feedback and to gauge your opinion about our business.

I did door-to-door sales for nine years, in hundreds of different cities and towns all across the india. Through long, hard, agonizing trial and error, I eventually developed enough skill that I could take any product into any area on any day and make sales.

In the beginning, I struggled. But when I was about to give up on myself and quit (like 99.9% of people that try door-to-door sales do within their first few days), experienced salesperson to give me a chance to get on track.

What I saw that day changed my life forever.

I watched as the experienced salesperson drove to an area where he had previous sales success, and listened as he explained to me why he parked his car in the exact spot he did to start his day and laid out his exact plan of attack.
Within the first 10 minutes, I learned a valuable lesson that not only made my door-to-door sales career much easier, but has also been the key to bringing in millions of dollars in revenue for my own companies, and those of thousands of others I’ve consulted to:

A current customer is the easiest person to make a sale to – many, many times easier (and less expensive) than trying to get new customers.

Most business owners operate a risky, day-to-day, transactional business, believing that the reason for getting a customer is to make a sale. That’s their biggest problem: making nothing more than “a” sale to a customer. After that initial transaction, they simply hope that their product or service or location is good enough that they will get a repeat visit from that customer.

On the other hand, sharp business owners (and door-to-door salespeople!) know that the point to making a sale is to get a customer. We have systems put together to maximize the value of that customer by making future offers to them, so that they buy more of the same product or service, or a different version, or even an entirely different product or service.

In other words, we recognize that a current customer is the easiest person to sell to, and a prospect is the hardest and most-expensive person to sell to. Therefore, we concentrate on maximizing the value of every new customer we get.

If you want to grow your business during these challenging economic times (and even during boom times), your time and effort should be invested in working to turn prospects into customers and retain them to market to in the future.
While your marketing is doing its job to get you prospects, you need to be working on turning those prospects into customers. There are a few key ways to draw them in and seal the deal. You need to be:

Inviting
Informative
Enjoyable

The biggest fear of most new customers is the dreaded “buyer’s remorse.” You want to minimize this as best you can, and if you’ve provided a quality product or service that delivers on the marketing claims you’ve made, the risk will be lower.

However, returns can still occur. Here are the two most effective ways to deal with this:

Offer to refund money — no questions asked
Offer a bonus they can keep even if they return the product

These offers alone will also lessen the impact of buyer’s remorse, because the customer will trust you more just because you showed the confidence in your product or service to offer these options in the first place.

There are number of other ways to turn a prospect into a customer:

Offer a special price as an opportunity for them to test the market.
Offer a lower price with a legitimate reason, such as clearing out inventory to pay a tax bill, for your kid’s braces, or another tangible reason. (Added bonus: Customers love you for doing this, because it makes you so much more human to them.)
Offer a referral incentive.
Offer a smaller, less expensive entry-level product to build trust.
Offer package deals.
Offer to charge less for their first purchase if they become a repeat customer.
Offer extra incentives, such as longer warranties or free bonuses, if they order by a certain date.
Offer financing options, if applicable.
Offer a bonus if they pay in full.
Offer special packaging or delivery.
Offer “name-your-own-price” incentives.
Offer comparative data or other comparison tools.
Offer to let them trade up or upgrade to something better if they want.
Offer additional, educational information to help them make the decision.

The options are really only limited by your imagination and marketing skill. You can use these or other ideas to discover what works the best for your specific business, with your specific products, services and target market.

Even if you ever find yourself doing door-to-door sales.

Marketing business in Bavdhan

Questions to ask Yourself and Your Promotional Risk Specialist

Knowing when to seek cover for your promotion is hard enough, without having to figure out what, who and how its covered. The below dispels a variety of myths whilst helping with some frequently asked questions about promotional risk management.

Q: Whats actually covered?

Sales promotion cover is based on a realistic and educated projection of the campaigns performance. With no promotion realistically redeeming 100%, the cover should only cover the promotion to a certain and agreed percentage. Whilst many insurers claim to cover 100%, is that realistic, necessary or even true?

100% protection in some cases, would result in covering tens of millions. Providers wont cover this. For two reasons, they cant afford to and it isnt necessary, as its extremely rare for a promotion to redeem 100%. Realistic cover is a testament to the risk providers authenticity, reliability and experience, so remain vigilant!

Q: What should a promotional risk specialist actually provide?

(Use our TRACE the manager acronym!)

Research your Promotional Risk Manager

Transparency

Indeed, it is a word thrown around too many times, but in this case, its imperative. A good risk provider should walk you through exactly whats covered, what information has been gathered and how they have reached their estimated redemption rate.

Rationale

All assumptions should be based on reason and logic. Ensure your provider is referring to historical data from both your brand and their own database. The justification is paramount to gaining the necessary cover. Without it, wheres the logic in using the service at all?

Assistance

A risk manager shouldnt be seen as a supplier- they should be seen as a partner. Any risk manager worth their salt should be advisory as if it was their own promotion, so they should help guide you towards maximum engagement with minimum risk.

Confidence

By this, we dont mean puffing out their chest and telling you whats, what. But, sticking to their guns when stipulating an estimated redemption rate. When a provider frequently undercuts or changes their facts, alarm bells should be ringing, after all, wheres the value in their projections if they are going to change just to win the business? How much trust can you really place in this providers estimations?

Evidence of stability

Before handing over your promotions liabilities to a promotional risk management company, ensure that they have the financial ability to take on that risk and fulfil your brands promise to its consumers, whatever the redemption levels.

Will they pay? Wheres the legal documentation, are details clearly stipulated?

Q: How do I calculate the risk in my sales promotion?

Example:

Offer

You are offering a £60 cashback on a fridge worth £300.00.

Cost

Cost per redemption X number of redemptions

You calculate the worst case scenario is 100% (30,000 claims). Which will cost you 30,000 X £60= £1,800,000 without any transaction fees.

Using analysis from your previous promotions, you calculate the promotion could redeem around 50%, which is still a cost of £900,000.

However, you are sceptical due to:

The strength of your communication message, with a nationwide campaign via TV, magazine, in-store and leaflet

The fridge is a new product

Your budget cant stretch to anything more

You ask a promotional risk specialist for their advice.

Q: What types of cover are available to me?

You can attain cover from 0-40%, alternatively, you could use over-redemption cover meaning the cover is triggered at a certain percentage to another agreed point. For example, 35-40%.

A promotional risk specialist references their data and estimates 35% redemption.

The provider then agrees to a Fixed Fee Solution and pay for all redemptions to and past this point.

Remember: Promotional cover isnt just for expensive promotions, even a small budget may need covering to keep finance happy.

Q: How can you make the process a success?

Use the risk manager to full advantage risk managers are partners- they know what works and what doesnt

Be prepared to be flexible if your budget isnt

Find out what promotions your brand has run previously

Share your artwork and communications plan

Share sales figures- how can an estimate be agreed without knowledge of the amount sold?

When looking for cover and consulting a promotional risk specialist these are all vital questions which can help attain the right cover for your promotion. For more information, please, download our Promotional Risk Management Dummies Guide here.