Managing Personal Communications: Direct and Interactive Marketing, Word of Mouth, and Personal Selling

Marketing communications today increasingly occur as a dialogue between the company and its customers.

Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is the use of consumer-direct (CD) channels to reach and deliver goods and services to customers without using marketing middlemen.

Benefits of Direct Marketing
Consumers short of time and tired of traffic and parking headaches appreciate toll-free phone numbers, always-open Web sites, next-day delivery, and direct marketer's commitment to customer service.

Direct Mail
Direct-mail marketing means sending an offer, announcement, reminder, or other items to an individual consumer. Direct mail is popular because it permits target market selectivity, can be personalized, is flexible, and allows early testing and response measurement.

Catalog Marketing
In catalog marketing, companies may send full-line merchandise catalogs, specialty consumer catalogs, and business catalogs, usually in print form but also as DVDs or online. Many direct marketers find combining catalogs and Web sites an effective way to sell, especially internationally.

Telemarketing
Telemarketing is the use of the telephone and call centers to attract prospects, sell to existing customers, and provide service by taking orders and answering questions. Companies use call centers for inbound telemarketing - receiving calls from customers and outbound telemarketing - initiating calls to prospects and customers.

Other Media for Direct-Response Marketing
Direct marketers use all major media. At home shopping channels are dedicated to selling goods and services via a toll-free number or the Web for speedy delivery.

Public and Ethical Issues in Direct Marketing
Critics worry that marketers may know too much about consumers' lives, and that they may use this knowledge to take unfair advantage. Most direct marketers, however, want what consumers want: honest and well-designed offers targeted only to those who appreciate hearing about them.

Interactive Marketing

The fastest-growing channels for communicating with and selling directly to customers are electronic: today, few campaigns are considered complete without an online component. The Internet provides marketers and consumers with opportunities for much greater interaction, and individualization. Some of the main categories of interactive marketing are:

• Web site -- web sites should embody or express the firm's purpose, history, products, and vision; be attractive on first viewing; and encourage repeat visits.
• Search ads -- a hot growth area in interactive marketing is paid search or pay-per-click ads, which account for roughly half of all online ad spending.
• Display ads -- display ads or banner ads are small, rectangular boxes containing text and perhaps an image that firms pay to place on relevant Web sites. The larger the audience, the higher the cost. Interstitials are advertisements, often with video or animation, which pop up between changes on Web site.
• E-mail -- E-mail allows marketers to communicate at a fraction of the cost of direct mail. 
• Mobile marketing -- mobile marketing is growing. Cell phones represent a major opportunity for advertisers to reach consumers on the "third screen". In addition to text messages and ads, much interest has been generated in mobile apps --"bite-sized".

Word of Mouth

Consumers use word of mouth to talk about dozens of brands each day, from media and entertainment products such as movies, TV shows, and publications to food products, travel services, and retail stores. Positive word of mouth may be generated organically with little advertising, but it can also be managed and facilitated. Social media such as online communities and forums, blogs, social networks promote the flow of word of mouth.

Personal Selling and the Sales Force

The original and oldest form of direct marketing is the field sales call. Companies are trying to increase sales force productivity through better selection, training, supervision, motivation, and compensation.

Types of Sales Representatives
The term sales representative covers six positions, ranging from the least to the most creative types of selling:

1. Deliverer -- a salesperson whose major task is the delivery of a product.
2. Order taker -- an inside order taker (behind the counter) or outside order taker (calling on stor managers)
3. Missionary -- a salesperson not permitted to take an order but expected rather to build goodwill or educate the user.
4. Technician -- a salesperson with a high level of technical knowledge.
5. Demand creator -- a salesperson who relies on creative methods for selling tangible products or intangibles.
6. Solution vendor -- a salesperson whose expertise is solving a customer's problem, often with a system of the company's products and services.

Designing the Sales Force
Salespeople are the company's personal link to its customers. The company must develop sale force objectives, strategy, structure, size and compensation.

Managing the Sales Force

Various policies and procedures guide the firm in recruiting, selecting, training, supervising, motivating, and evaluating representatives to manage its sales force.

Recruiting and Selecting Representatives
At the heart of any successful sales force is a means of selecting effective representatives. After management develops its selection criteria, it must recruit by soliciting names from current sales representatives, using employment agencies, placing job ads, and contacting college students.

Training and Supervising Sales Representatives
Today's customers expect salespeople to have deep product knowledge, add ideas to improve operations, and be efficient and reliable. This requires companies to make a much greater investment in sales training. Training time varies with the complexity of the selling task and the type of recruit.

Sales Rep Productivity
The best sales rep manage their time efficiently. Time-and-duty analysis helps reps understand how they spend their time and how they might increase their productivity.

Motivating Sales Representatives
The majority of sales representatives require encouragement and special incentives, especially those in field selling. Most marketers believe that the higher the salesperson's motivation, the greater the effort and the resulting performance, rewards, and satisfaction - all of which increase motivation.

Evaluating Sales Representatives
Good feed-forward requires good feedback, which means getting regular information from reps to evaluate performance. Even a rep who is effective in producing sales may not rate high with customers. Sales performance might also be related to internal factors (effort, ability, and strategy) and/or external factors (task and luck).

Summary

Marketing communications today increasingly occur as a dialogue between the company and its customers. Direct marketing is the use of consumer-direct (CD) channels to reach and deliver goods and services to customers without using marketing middlemen. The fastest-growing channels for communicating with and selling directly to customers are electronic: today, few campaigns are considered complete without an online component. The Internet provides marketers and consumers with opportunities for much greater interaction, and individualization. Salespeople are the company's personal link to its customers. The original and oldest form of direct marketing is the field sales call. Companies are trying to increase sales force productivity through better selection, training, supervision, motivation, and compensation. The company must develop sale force objectives, strategy, structure, size and compensation.

Personal Point of View

I personally think consumer shop more online than in store because of the convenience, free delivery, energy wasting, long line at the check out, traffic and parking and so on. Online shopping take next step and now consumers can even buy Rx drugs and supplies online as well as services. Healthcare system also take advantage of advance technology and use telehealth consults and doctors visit virtually in some of the states. A successful marketer not only need to know their product and target segment but also the world's advanced technologies.