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.

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Developing Price Strategies and Programs

Marketing mix for companies comprises of 4 Ps Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Price is directly related to bottom-line of any business. Profitability of product is required for future operation of the company. Price strategy should communicate to the customer the value company is providing.

There is in-numerable price related challenges in the market for companies. Furthermore, with the advent of internet customer awareness for pricing information has improved. Sites like Priceline and eBay are encouraging customer to name their price for products as well as services.

Pricing strategy is dynamic in nature and should reflect changing condition in competition as well as the market. Overall price strategies follow six step model:

Step 1: Pricing can facilitate in achieving the positioning objectives of the company. If the company is facing tough competition or running at over capacity then price would be set taking into account the variable cost and some part of fixed cost. This strategy is a short term in nature. If the company is looking forward to maximizing profit then it sets higher price by considering competition and cost. This strategy has risk of running into trouble with consumer or legal issue. If the company is looking forward to improving and maximize market share then it will set lower price as to generate maximum volume. Companies looking forward to introducing new technology and revolutionary product look to set market skimming price.

Step 2: Law of economics says that at every price level, there is a definite demand for the product. However, this law varies with nature of product, for example, commodity demand will fall with the rise in the price and for luxury good demand will rise with a price increase. Companies need to plot the demand curve with respect to price as to understand price sensitivity. This demand curve can be estimated using statistical methods by analyzing historical data or by perform price related experiments to understand what customers are willing to pay or through market research and putting the question directly to the customer.

Step 3: companies need to manage cost for to be left with respectable margin of profit. Companies need to establish a level of production at which fixed and variable cost can be maintained. Generally, it is observed that production level increase cost per unit decreases owing to the learning curve effect which comes through experience. Activity based costing is getting in prominence as to allocate the cost properly which helps in estimation profit correctly. Another way of cost setting is through the target costing, made famous by Japanese companies. In target costing companies set price and profit level. After which they concentrate on cost as to maintain the profit level.

Step 4: companies need to pay particular attention to what competition is doing with respect to price, cost and promotional offer. Companies need to be aware by how much competitors can vary their price against the price set by the company.

Step 5: There are various method used to the set the price. Most common is the mark up method where price is set at a desired profit level. Target return pricing method talks about setting price based on return on investment set by the company. Perceived value pricing method talks about setting price based on the perceived value in consumer price and companies ability to deliver that value. In value pricing method, companies charge lower price for high quality product from loyal customers. This method is usually seen in the super market. Auction type pricing, going rate pricing and group pricing are other pricing methods.

Step 6: following above the five steps companies can now make the final choice of price. This final price is set looking at consumer perception towards quality and product. Positioning as per the marketing and advertising campaign also determine final price.

Pricing should adapt to factors like geographical location, market segment and economic conditions. Companies should remain flexible towards pricing policy and change as per market dynamics. Companies should also not react blindly to price change by competition rather should focus on analyzing the underlying motives.

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Articales from http://www.managementstudyguide.com

Role of Coupons in Retail Marketing

What is Retailing ?

The sale of products to the customers from a fixed location (malls, department stores, super markets and so on) in small quantities for their end use is called as retailing.

Coupons play an important role in promoting the retail stores and making the brand popular amongst the masses.

What are Coupons ?

Any document which can be presented to the retailer to gain some kind of financial benefit in the form of discount on any product is called a coupon. Customers can get the coupons redeemed at the specific retail outlets to avail relevant discounts and rebates in shopping.

Role of Coupons in Retail Marketing

Coupons play an important role in attracting the customers into the store.
Coupons help in furthering the brand image of the retail store without huge investments. It makes the brand popular among the end-users. Individuals talk more about the brand, thus making it a hit amongst the masses.

What is Guerrilla Marketing ?

The concept of promoting products and brands on an extremely low budget is called as Guerrilla Marketing. Guerrilla marketing does not involve huge investments and is one of the most effective ways of creating brand awareness amongst the consumers.

Coupons are an effective tool for Guerrilla Marketing. The retailers can actually create brand awareness amongst the end users without spending much with the help of coupons.

How does Coupons help in Guerrilla Marketing ?

A Coupon is one of the most cost effective ways of promoting the brand with little investment.
Coupons make the brand popular as more and more customers visit the store to redeem their coupons.Example – As a part of their marketing strategy, on every purchase of Domino’s pizza, the company offers discount coupons to the buyers. These discount coupons can be availed next time the customer places his order.
In such a situation, it is more likely that he would visit a Domino’s Outlet again to redeem his coupons and avail the discounts on the pizza. He would generally not prefer any other outlet as here in Domino’s he can get pizza at a lesser price as compared to others.
Dominos in this case used food coupons to attract the customers once again into the store.
Coupons go a long way in influencing the buying behaviour of the customers.
Coupons also bring in new customers to the store. The individuals, who do not even know about a particular brand, visit the store to use their coupons and also check out other options as well.
Coupons also benefit the customers as they can now purchase their desired merchandise at a lower cost.
Coupons increase the store traffic and also result in Impulse Buying.

What is Impulse Buying ?

Any unplanned buying is called as Impulse Buying. An individual might not require a particular product but picks it up out of mere emotions and feelings. Such a buying is called impulse buying. Impulse buying prompts the customer to purchase products which he might not even need that time.

Peter went to a retail store to redeem his discount coupons on shirts. The retailer had smartly displayed perfumes near the cash counter. While paying the bill, Peter could not resist purchasing two perfumes for himself along with the shirts. An example of Impulse Buying.

Steps for More Effective Closing – Sales Solution

Sales people typically want to know how to do three things better:

See more people
Manage their time
Close more business

When we are working with sales professionals during our sales training workshops, closing is one of the last things we get to. Not because effective closing techniques aren’t important to every sales process, but because it isn’t as important as the sales steps leading to the close. However, I’ve decided that, as I was posting the 10 solutions for successful selling, I’d pop “8 Steps for More Effective Closing” in up front so that, with those deals you have in your pipeline today, you might have a slight edge in closing those deals with this information.

Years ago, I was taught that “the close” is an affirmation of the conversations you’ve already had with the prospect – or at least that’s the theory. The theory runs aground, so to speak, if your qualifying steps weren’t as strong as they needed to be and if your set up for the closing wasn’t as strong as it needed to be. Let’s do a quick recap of what should have happened prior to showing up for the close.

A relationship, based on confidence and trust, should have been developed. (check out a brief Seth Godin Blog)
You should have identified the motivation/compelling reason for your prospect to take action.
The prospect should have told you that they wanted to fix a problem or they realize a currently unrealized benefit.
You and the prospect should have agreed to an investment of time, money and resources.
You and the prospect should have agreed to a decision making process that included:
- You would supply a solution that fits their specifications
- You would supply this solution within their budget
- You would be prepared to answer all of their questions
- They would be prepared to make a decision- yes or no
You would have sent an “as we agreed to” letter
You would have followed up the “as we agreed to” letter with a phone call confirming the contents of the letter.

If, in fact, you have done these 6 things, then your close should be an affirmation of everything that you’ve already agreed to. If you haven’t executed on these 6 items, then… well, you are in trouble at time of close.

Here are 8 steps for more effective closing:

Be prepared to be dazzling (10 presentation skills you MUST execute)
You review why you are there to present
- There is a problem that needs to be solved
- There is an “agreed to” investment to solve the problem
- There will be a decision today to either solve the problem or not solve the problem (Tell you yes or no)
You place your 3-page presentation in front of the prospect:
- Page 1 – cover sheet
- Page 2 – list of problems identified in closing process
- Page 3 – bulleted list of solutions to problems
You ask the prospect which problem they want to discuss first
You provide the solution and answer all of their questions
You ask, “On a scale of 1 to 10, with 10 meaning you love it and 1 you hate it, how do you feel about the solution I’ve just presented?” If it is 7 or better, you are in good shape, but the prospect does not have all of the information they need. You now have to ask them, “What information do you need to get to a 10?”
You proceed through each solution the same way
When you finish all of your solutions you ask the question, “What would you like to do now?”

If you have done all of your work the right way, you will get a decision. The challenge here is two-fold:

Did you do all the right stuff?
Are you okay with hearing, “No, I don’t want to do business with you?”

Executing the right stuff and being okay with hearing “no” are two of the things that make selling so damn hard.