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 agency in shirur

Setting the Product and Branding Strategy

Marketing strategy of a company revolves around 4Ps – Product, Price, Place and Promotion. Companies devise a strategy by mixing the four. The most important among is the product. All the marketing push and promotion will go waste if the product is not able to deliver. To come out with winner product, companies have to understand target customers needs and requirements.

Product Classifications and Strategy

Anything which companies produce to satisfy particular needs and demands is referred to as a product. Product is a broad category ranging from physical goods, tourism to managing a celebrity.

A product can be classified as to be made of five levels as shown in the figure below:-

Product Levels

The core benefit is the underlying segment product is offering. For example, customer is buying commuting power when she purchases a car. Cars are fitted with comfortable seats, seat cover, and have desired color, converting a core product into the basic product. Companies are in business of providing value to products. At the expected level companies offer music system, child lock system and temperature control features. An augmented product provides more than customer expectation like a chrome wheels or sun/moon roof. However, augmentation increases the price of the product and customers have to pay extra. An augmented product gets converted into an expected. At potential level companies provides products considering all the possible augmentation.

The product itself is arranged in a hierarchy like need family, product family, product class, product line, product type and item based on needs it satisfies. Further product can be classified on durability, tangibility and usage. Durability comprises of durable and non-durable goods. Non-durable goods comprises of product like soap and beer, which are of frequent purchase and usually consumed quickly. These goods are available at many locations and require more allocation for advertising. Durable goods include TV, washing machines and music system. These goods require more personal touch for selling as the customer would like to understand all features and functions. Intangible products are in the form of services, like haircutting and car repair.

Product usage divides the product into industrial goods and consumer goods. Convenience goods are consumer goods, which can be bought by the customer without much fuss, for example, soaps, beer and newspaper. Shopping goods are type of consumer goods where in customer compare characteristics with other products in same category bases on price, quality and appearance, for example, clothing, furniture and used car. Specialty goods are type of consumer goods where consumers need to make extra efforts in purchasing them, for example, yacht or luxury car. Unsought goods are consumer goods, which are not part of daily life and routine, for example, smoke detectors and cemetery plots.

Industrial goods can be further classified into capital goods and regular business supply. Capital goods are type of industrial goods, which are required for production of final products, for example, plant and machinery. Business goods are type of industrial goods, which are required for day to day functioning as well as on special occasion, for example, office supplies, lubricants and spare parts.

Branding Strategy

Another important aspect of product strategy is branding. Branding is process of giving identity and image to the product as to create an impression in the mind of consumer. Branding is a long process involves lots of investments in terms of money and time from the company. Building brand identity involves designing name, symbol and logo for the product. Branding involves developing strategy to create a point of differentiation from competitors as well point of similarity with product class. Brand which reaches a high level of awareness and enjoys the loyalty from customer develops brand equity. Packaging of the products also forms part of branding strategy.

Creating a unique product identity and branding strategy is important in formulating success of the company. Customers purchase decision will be based on attractive product and branding strategy.

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Articales from http://www.managementstudyguide.com

Role of Advertising in Retail

Promoting a brand is more important than opening a store. It is essential to create brand awareness for the customers to know about the brand’s existence. The retailer must strive hard to communicate the USPs (Unique selling Proposition) of the brand to influence the buying behaviour of the customers. In simpler words, advertisements help the end-users to know to which brand a particular product belongs.

Advertisements play a crucial role in promoting a brand and creating its awareness amongst the masses.

They help in creating an image of a particular product or brand in the minds of the potential customers. Such a mechanism is also called Brand Positioning.

What is Advertising ?

Advertising is a medium through which an individual or organization highlights the USPs and benefits of a product or service to influence the buying behaviour of the individuals.

It helps to create a positive image of a particular brand in the minds of the customers and prompts them to buy the same.

Role of Advertising in Retail

The retailer through various ways of advertising strives hard to promote his brand amongst the masses for them to visit the store more often.
Advertisements attract the customers into the store. They act as a catalyst in bringing the customers to the stores.

The advertisement must effectively communicate the right message and click on the customers. It should be a visual treat and appeal the end-users.

Advertisements have taglines to create awareness of a product or service in the most effective way.

The tagline has to be crisp and impressive to create the desired impact.
The tagline should not be lengthy else the effect gets nullified.
It has to be catchy.
It should be simple to memorize.

The moment an individual hears “Just Do it”, he knows he has to visit a “Nike Store”. That’s the importance of a tagline.

Modes of Advertising

Nothing works better than promoting a brand through signboards, billboards, hoardings and banners intelligently placed at strategic locations like railway stations, crowded areas, heavy traffic crossings, bus stands, near cinema halls, residential areas and so on. Such advertising is also called as out of home advertising.Out of home advertising is a way to influence the individuals when they are out of their homes. The hoarding must be installed at a height visible to all even from a distance.
Make sure it catches the attention of the passing individuals and influences them to visit the store.
Keep it simple and make sure it doesn’t confuse the customers; instead it should convey the information in its desired form.
Print media is also one of the most effective ways to promote a brand. Newspapers, magazines, catalogues, journals make the brand popular amongst the individuals. Retailers can buy a small space in any of the leading newspapers or magazines; give their ads for the individuals to read and get influenced.
Television also helps the brand reach a wider audience. Now a days retailers also use celebrities to endorse their products for that extra zing. Celebrities are shown using the particular brand and thus making it a hit amongst the masses.Sachin Tendulkar – the famous Indian cricketer endorses Castrol India, MRF tyres, Adidas, Boost etc.A child gets influenced to drink Boost because his favourite cricketer drinks the same.
Radio Advertisements also help in creating brand awareness.
Social networking sites have also emerged as one of the easiest and economical ways to promote a product or brand.

Really Important Sales Concepts – #5 – Get a Decision

Well, hold on a second. Don’t translate the title of this final post on 5 Really Important Sales Concepts. Every sales person has been taught to ‘Ask For the Business’, ‘Always Be Closing’, ‘Get The Sale’. The problem with these exhortations is that sales people translate them into ‘get a yes’. Which is different than getting a decision.

Sales people struggle in getting decisions because they are afraid to hear ‘no’ or their sales leadership has not given them permission to get a ‘no’. If you don’t get a ‘yes’, then typically the next alternative is ‘think it over’ or any one of its relatives:

Showing it to someone
Getting additional proposals
Going to committee
Have to look at the numbers
Haven’t met with my current provider yet

All of these are rotten alternatives to a no. You lose sleep. You make unreturned phone calls. You get more delays. You lose confidence. You lie to your manager telling them that you ‘think’ you’re in good shape, should close now any day, they liked us, they loved the proposal, it just has to…

Makes you sick just thinking about it, doesn’t it?

So, here is the 5th of 5- Get a decision. Prior to making your presentation, you have to make your pitch as to what happens next. It sounds something like this:

Let me review to make sure I understand what we need to do next. First, you want me to come back and provide you with a solution to all of these problems we’ve discussed today that are costing you lots of heartburn and money. Next, you want me to provide you with a solution within the guidelines we established relative to your investment of time, money and resources. And the third item is an assumption. I assume you want me to be able to answer all of your questions at that time. Does that sound about right?

Good. I need for you to be in a position to tell me one of two things, either one is ok. Can I share that with you?

Good. When I come back and fulfill my part, I need for you to tell me ‘yes, this makes all the sense in the world, let’s do business’ or tell me ‘no, we aren’t doing business’. I would rather hear yes, but no is ok. What objections do you have to that process?

This WILL NOT eliminate objections. It will just move them up in your process and give you the chance to deal with them prior to presenting instead of afterward. You deal with them now and you either eliminate them as a qualified prospect and don’t present or you present to a qualified prospect and get an answer.

I promise you it is better than a ‘think it over’

Tags: qualifying prospects, sales prospecting, getting sales decisions, close more sales