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. 

Managing Mass Communications: Advertising, Sales Promotions, Events and Experiences, and Public Relations

Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of a product by an identified sponsor. In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must always start by identifying the target market and buyer motives. Then they can make the five major decisions, known as "the five Ms": Mission, Money, Message, Media, and Measurement.

Setting the Objectives

An advertising objective (or advertising goal) is a specific communications task and achievement level to be accomplished with a specific audience in a specific period of time. We can classify advertising objectives according to whether their aim is to inform, persuade, remain, or reinforce.

• Informative advertising aims to create brand awareness and knowledge of new products or new features of existing product.
• Persuasive advertising aims to create liking, preference, conviction, and purchase of a product or service.
• Reminder advertising aims to stimulate repeat purchase of products and services.
• Reinforcement advertising aims to convince current purchasers that they made the right choice.

Deciding on the Advertising Budget

Here are five specific factors to consider when setting the advertising budget.

1. Stage in the product life cycle -- New products typically merit large budgets to build awareness and to gain consumer trial.
2. Market share and consumer base -- High-market-share brands usually require less advertising expenditure as a percentage of sales to maintain share. 
3. Competition and clutter -- In a market with many competitors and high advertising spending, a brand must advertise more heavily to be heard.
4. Advertising frequency -- The number of repetitions needed to put the brand's message across to consumers has an obvious impact on the advertising budget.
5. Product substitutability -- Brands in less-differentiated or commodity-like product classes (beer,soft drinks), require heavy advertising to establish a unique image.

Developing the Advertising Campaign

In designing an ad campaign, marketers employ both art and science to develop the message strategy or positioning of an ad -- what the ad attempts to convey about the brand -- and its creative strategy -- how the ad expresses the brand claims. Advertisers go through three steps: message generation and evaluation, creative development and execution, and social-responsibility review.

Deciding on Media and Measuring Effectiveness

After choosing the message, the next task is to choose media to carry it. The steps here are deciding on desired reach, frequency, and impact; choosing among major media type; selecting specific media vehicles; deciding on media timing; and deciding on geographical media allocation. Then the marketer evaluates the result of these decisions.

Sales Promotion

Sales promotion, a key ingredient in marketing campaigns, consists of a collection of incentive tools, mostly short term, designed to stimulate quicker or greater purchase of particular products or services by consumers or the trade. Whereas advertising offers a reason to buy, sales promotion offers an incentive. Sales promotion includes tools for consumer promotion (samples, coupons, cash refund offers, prices off, premiums, prizes, patronage rewards, free trials, warranties, tie-in promotions, cross-promotions, point-of-purchase displays, and demostrations), trade promotion (prices off, advertising and display allowances, and free goods), and business and sales force promotion (trade shows and conventions, contests for sales reps, and specialty advertising).

Sales Promotion Objectives

Sales promotion can be used to achieve a variety of objectives. Sales promotions often attract brand switchers, who are primarily looking for low price, good value, or premiums. In addition to brand switching, consumers may engage in stockpiling -- purchasing earlier than usual (purchase acceleration) or purchasing extra quantitie\s -- although sales may then hit a postpromotion dip.

Advertising versus Promotion

Several factors have contributed to the growth of sales promotion expenditures as a percentage of the overall communication budget, particularly in consumer markets. Promotion became more accepted by top management as an effective sales tool, the number of brands increased, competitors used promotions frequently, many brands were seen as similar, consumers became more price-oriented, the trade demanded more deals from manufacturers, and advertising efficiency declined. Small-share competitors may find it advantageous to use sales promotion, because they cannot afford to match the market leaders' large advertising budgets, nor can they obtain shelf space without offering trade allowances or stimulate consumer trial without offering incentives. The upshot is that many consumer-packaged-goods companies feel forced to use more sales promotion than they wish.

 

Major Decisions

In using sale promotion, a company must establish its objectives, select the tools, develop the program, pretest the program, implement and control it, and evaluate the results.

Events and Experiences

Becoming part of a personally relevant moment in consumer's lives through events and experiences can broaden and deepen a company or brand's relationship with the target market. Daily encounters with brands may also affect consumers' brand attitudes and beliefs. Atmospheres are "packaged environments" that create or reinforce leanings toward product purchase.

Events Objectives

Marketers report a number of reasons to sponsor events:

1. To identify with a particular target market or lifestyle -- Customers can be targeted geographically, demographically, psychographically, or behaviorally according to events.
2. To increase salience of company or product name -- Sponsorship often offers sustained exposure to a brand, a necessary condition to reinforce brand salience. 
3. To create or reinforce perceptions of key brand image associations -- Events themselves have associations that help to create or reinforce brand associations.
4. To enhance corporate image -- Sponsorship can improve perceptions that the company is likable and prestigious.
5. To create experiences and evoke feelings -- The feelings engendered by an exciting or rewarding event may indirectly link to the brand.
6. To express commitment to the community or on social issues -- cause-related marketing sponsors nonprofit organizations and charities. 
7. To entertain key clients or reward key employees -- Many events include lavish hospitality tents and other special services or activities only for sponsors and their guests, to build goodwill and establish valuable business contacts.
8. To permit merchandising or promotional opportunities -- Many marketers tie contests or sweepstakes, in-store merchandising, direct response, or other marketing activities with an event. 

Major Sponsorship Decisions

Marketing sponsorships successful requires choosing the appropriate events, designing the optimal sponsorship program, and measuring the effects of sponsorship.

• Choosing event opportunities -- The event must fit with the brand's marketing objectives and communication strategy, attract the desired target market, generate sufficient awareness and favorable attributions, posses the desired image, and be capable of creating the desired effects.
• Designing sponsorship programs -- Many marketers believe the marketing program accompanying an event sponsorship ultimately determines its success.
• Measuring sponsorship activities -- It's a challenge to measure the success of events. The supply-side measurement method focuses on potential exposure to the brand by assessing the extent of media coverage, and the demand-side method focus on exposure reported by consumers, as well as resulting attitudes and intentions toward the sponsor. 

Creating Experiences

A large part of local, grassroots marketing is experiential marketing, which not only communicates features and benefits but also connects a product or service with unique and interesting experiences. "The idea is not to sell something, but to demonstrate how a brand can enrich a customer's life." Consumers seem to appreciate that.

Public Relations

Not only must the company relate constructively to customers, suppliers, and dealers, it must also relate to a large number of interested publics. A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest or impact on a company's ability to achieve its objectives. Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs to promote or protect a company's image or individual products. They perform the following five functions:

1. Press relations -- Presenting news and information about the organization in the most positive light
2. Product publicity -- Sponsoring efforts to publicize specific products
3. Corporate communications -- Promoting understanding of the organization through internal and external communicatons
4. Lobbying -- Dealing with legislators and government officials to promote or defeat legislation and regulation
5. Counseling -- Advising management about public, issues, and company position and image during good times and bad

Marketing Public Relations

Many companies are turning to marketing public relations (MPR) to support corporate or product promotion and image making. MPR, like financial PR and community PR, serves a special constituency, the marketing department. MPR goes beyond simple publicity and plays an important role in the following tasks:

• Launching new products.
• Repositioning a mature product.
• Building interest in a product category.
• Influencing specific target groups.
• Defending products that have encountered public problems.
• Building the corporate image in a way that reflects favorably on its products.

Major Decisions in Marketing PR

In considering when and how to use MPR, management must establish the marketing objectives, choose the PR messages and vehicles, implement the plan carefully, and evaluate the results.

 

Summary

Advertising is any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of a product by an identified sponsor. In developing an advertising program, marketing managers must always start by identifying the target market and buyer motives. Then they can make the five major decisions, known as "the five Ms": Mission, Money, Message, Media, and Measurement. Sales promotion, a key ingredient in marketing campaigns, consists of a collection of incentive tools, mostly short term, designed to stimulate quicker or greater purchase of particular products or services by consumers or the trade. Becoming part of a personally relevant moment in consumer's lives through events and experiences can broaden and deepen a company or brand's relationship with the target market. Daily encounters with brands may also affect consumers' brand attitudes and beliefs. Atmospheres are "packaged environments" that create or reinforce leanings toward product purchase. Not only must the company relate constructively to customers, suppliers, and dealers, it must also relate to a large number of interested publics. A public is any group that has an actual or potential interest or impact on a company's ability to achieve its objectives. Public relations (PR) includes a variety of programs to promote or protect a company's image or individual products. 

Personal Point of View

These marketing and sale promotion are trying to related consumer's personal experiences and lifestyles. Consumers remembers brand images when it is related to their life experiences. Public relation is really important because a product needs to be place in the mind of consumers. Product placement comes in hand in hand with public relations. Events are as much important as experiences because consumers want to feel and experience personal in real life before they make their final decision. 

 

Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Communications

Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers -- directly or indirectly - about the products and brands they sell. They represent the voice of the company and its brands and help the firm establish a dialogue and build relationship with consumers. They can contribute to brand equity -- by establishing the brand in memory and creating a brand image -- as well as strengthen customer loyalty, drive sales, and even affect shareholder value.

The Changing Marketing Communications Environment

Technology and other factors have profoundly changed the way consumers process communications, and even whether they choose to process them at all. Commercial clutter is rampant. Marketing communications in almost every medium and form have been on the rise, and some consumers feel they are increasingly invasive. Therefore, marketers must be creative in using technology without intruding in consumers' lives.

Marketing Communications, Brand Equity and Sales

The marketing communications mix consists of eight major modes of communication:

1. Advertising -- Any paid form of nonpersonal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor.
2. Sales promotion -- A variety of short-term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of a product or service.
3. Events and experiences -- Company-sponsored activities and programs designed to create brand-related interactions.
4. Public relations and publicity -- Programs directed internally or externally to promote or protect a company's image or its individual product communciations.
5. Direct marketing -- Use of mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, or Internet to communicate directly with or solicit response or dialogue from specific customers and prospects.
6. Interactive marketing -- Online activities and programs to engage customers or prospects and directly or indirectly raise awareness, improve image, or elicit sales.
7. Word-of-mouth marketing -- People-to-people oral, written, or electronic communications that relate to the merits or experiences of purchasing or using products or services.
8. Personal selling -- Face-to-face interaction with one or more prospective purchasers for the purpose of making presentations, answering questions, and procuring orders.

Communications Process Models

Marketers should understand the fundamental elements of effective communications. Two models are useful: a macromodel and micromodel. Two represent the major parties -- sender and receiver. Two represent the major tools -- message and media. Four represent major communication functions -- encoding, decoding, response, and feedback. The last element is noise, random and competing messages that may interfere with the intended communication.

 

Fig. Elements in the Communication Process

Developing Effective Communications

Developing effective communications requires eight steps. The basics are

1. Identifying the target audience -- potential buyers of the company's products, current users, deciders, or influencers, and individuals, groups, particular publics, or the general public.
2. Determining the objectives -- category need, brand awareness, brand attitude, brand purchase intention.
3. Designing the communications -- message strategy (management searches for appeals, themes, or ideas that will tie in to the brand positioning and help establish points-of-parity or points-of-difference), creative strategy (the way marketers translate their messages into a specific communication) and message source (messages delivered by attractive or popular sources can achieve higher attention and recall, which is why advertisers often use celebrities as spokespeople).
4. Selecting the channels -- means to carry the message becomes more difficult as channels of communication become more fragmented and cluttered.
5. Establishing the budget -- industries and companies vary considerably in how much they spend on marketing communications. Expenditures might be 40 percent to 45 percent of sales in the cosmetics industry, but only 5 percent to 10 percent in the industrial-equipment industry, with company-to-company variations.
6. Deciding on the media mix -- companies must allocate the marketing communications budget over the eight major modes of communication: advertising, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, events and experiences, direct marketing, interactive marketing, word-of-mouth marketing, and the sales force.
7. Measuring the results -- after implementing the communications plan, the company must measure its impact by asking members of the target audience whether they recognize or recall the message, how many times they saw it,what points they recall, how they felt about the message, and what are their previous and current attitudes toward the product and company.
8. Managing integrated marketing communications (IMC) -- defines as "a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant to that person and consistent over time." This planning process evaluates the strategic roles of a variety of communications disciplines -- and skillfully combines these disciplines to provide clarity, consistency, and maximum impact through the seamless integration of messages.

Coordinating Media

Media coordination can occur across and within media types, but marketers should combine personal and nonpersonal communications channels through multiple-vehicle, multiple-stage campaigns to achieve maximum impact and increase message reach and impact. Many companies are coordinating their online and offline communications activities.

Implementing IMC

Integrated marketing communications can produce stronger message consistency and help build brand equity and create greater sales impact. It gives someone the responsibility -- where none existed before -- to unify brand images and messages through thousands of company activities. IMC should improve the company's ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time and place.

 Summary

Marketing communications are the means by which firms attempt to inform, persuade, and remind consumers -- directly or indirectly - about the products and brands they sell. They represent the voice of the company and its brands and help the firm establish a dialogue and build relationship with consumers. Technology and other factors have profoundly changed the way consumers process communications, and even whether they choose to process them at all. Commercial clutter is rampant. Marketing communications in almost every medium and form have been on the rise, and some consumers feel they are increasingly invasive. Therefore, marketers must be creative in using technology without intruding in consumers' lives.They can contribute to brand equity -- by establishing the brand in memory and creating a brand image -- as well as strengthen customer loyalty, drive sales, and even affect shareholder value. Integrated marketing communications can produce stronger message consistency and help build brand equity and create greater sales impact. It gives someone the responsibility -- where none existed before -- to unify brand images and messages through thousands of company activities. IMC should improve the company's ability to reach the right customers with the right messages at the right time and place.

Personal Point of View

The most crucial fact for me is the intent of the message the marketer wants to send out to the target segment carries a company's image, product and brand value. After being carefully evaluated the messages, we can emphasis on the type of the media that we are going to use to reach out the target segment. These days, reaching out to the target media is a lot easier than before with the improved and developed technologies. 

Managing Retailing, Wholesaling, and Logistics

Retailing includes all the activities in selling goods or services directly to final consumers for personal, nonbusiness use. A retailer or retail store is any business enterprise whose sales volume comes primarily from retailing. Any organization selling to final consumers - whether it is a manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer - is in retailing.

Types of Retailers

Consumers today can shop at store retailers, nonstore retailer, and retail organization. Different formats of store retailers will have different competitive and price dynamics. Retailers can position themselves as offering one of four levels of service:

1. Self-service - is the cornerstone of all discount operations. Many customers carry out their own "locate-compare-select" process to save money.
2. Self-selection - customers find their own goods, although they can ask for assistance.
3. Limited service - these retailers carry more shopping goods and services such as credit and merchandise-return privileges. Customers need more information and assistance.
4. Full service - salepeople are ready to assist in every phase of the "locate-compare-select" process. The high staffing cost, along with the higher proportion of specialty goods and slower-moving items and the many services, result in high-cost retailing.

Nonstore retailing has been growing much faster than store retailing. It has four major categories (1) direct selling, a multibillion-dollar industry with hundreds of companies (such as Avon) selling door-to-door or at home sales parties; (2) direct marketing, with roots in direct-mail and catalog marketing, also includes telemarketing and Internet selling (1-800-FLOWERS); (3) automatic vending used for impulse items such as soft drinks and cosmetics; and (4) buying service, a storeless retailer serving a specific clientele that is entitled to discounts in return for membership.

Retailer Marketing Decisions

• Target Market - Until it defines and profiles the target market, the retailer cannot make consistent decisions about product assortment, store decor, advertising messages and media, price, and service levels.
• Channels - Based on a target market analysis and other considerations, retailers must decide which channels to employ to reach their customers.
• Product Assortment - The retailer's product assortment must match the target market's shopping expectations in breadth and depth. Another challenge is to develop a product-differentiation strategy by offering brands not available at competing stores, featuring mostly private-label goods, presenting distinctive merchandise events, changing merchandise frequently or offering surprise merchandise, featuring new merchandise, offering customizing services, or offering a highly targeted assortment.
• Procurement - The retailer must establish merchandise sources, policies, and practices for procurement. Stores are using direct product profitability (DPP) to measure a product's handling costs from the time it reaches the warehouse until a customer buys it in the store.
• Prices - Prices are a key positioning factor and must be set in relationship to the target market, product-and-service assortment mix, and competition. Retailers generally fall into the high-markup, lower-volume group (fine specialty stores) or the low-markup, higher-volume group (discount stores).
• Services - Retailers must decide on the services mix to offer customers. Prepurchase services include accepting telephone and mail orders, advertising, window and interior display, and fitting rooms. Postpurchase services include shipping and delivery, gift wrapping, adjustments and returns, and alterations.
• Store Atmosphere - Atmosphere is another differentiation tool. Every store has a look, and a physical layout that make it hard or easy to move around. 
• Store Activities and Experiences - The growth of e-commerce has forced traditional brick-and-mortar retailers to respond.
• Communications -Retailers use a wide range of communication tools to generate traffic and purchases, including advertising, special sales, money-saving coupons, frequent-shopping rewards, and in-store food sampling. 
• Location - The three keys to retail success are "location, location, and location." Retailers can place their stores in the following locations:
• Central business districts: the oldest and most heavily trafficked city areas, often known as "downtown."
• Regional shopping centers: large suburban malls containing 40 to 200 stores, a mix of smaller stores and one or two nationally known anchor stores or a combination of big-box stores.
• Community shopping centers: smaller malls with one anchor store and 20 to 40 small stores.
• Shopping strips: a cluster of stores, usually in one long building, serving a neighborhood's needs for groceries, hardware, dry cleaning, and more.
• A location within a larger store: concession space rented by McDonald's or another retailer within a larger operation, such as an airport or a department store.
• Stand-alone stores: free-standing retail sites not directly connected to other stores.

Private Labels

A private label brand (also called a reseller, store, house, or distributor brand) is a brand that retailers and wholesalers develop.

Wholesaling

Wholesaling includes all the activities in selling goods or services to those who buy for resales or business use. It excludes manufacturers and farmers (because they are engaged primarily in production) and retailers. Wholesalers (also called distributors) differ from retailers in several ways. First, wholesalers pay less attention to promotion, atmosphere, and location because they deal with business customers rather than final consumers. Second, wholesale transactions are usually larger than retail transactions, and wholesalers cover a larger trade area than retailers. Third, wholesalers and retailers comply with different legal regulations and taxes.

Wholesaling Functions

Savvy wholesalers are adding value to the channel by adapting their services to meet their suppliers' and target customers' changing needs. They are increasing asset productivity by managing inventories and receivable better and cutting costs by investing in materials-handling technology and information systems. Yet wholesaling remains vulnerable to one of the most enduring trends - fierce resistance to price increases and the winnowing out of suppliers based on cost and quality.

Market Logistics

Market logistics includes planning the infrastructure to meet demand, then implementing and controlling the physical flows of materials and final goods from points of origin to points of use, to meet customer requirements at a profit. Market logistics planning has four steps:

1. Deciding on the company's value proposition to its customers.
2. Selecting the best channel design and network strategy for reaching the customers.
3. Developing operational excellence in sales forecasting, warehouse management, transportation management, and materials management.
4. Implementing the solution with the best information systems, equipment, policies, and procedures.

Integrated Logistics Systems

The market logistics task calls for integrated logistics systems (ILS), which include materials management, material flow systems, and physical distribution, aided by information technology to shorten the order-cycle time, reduce errors, and improve control. Companies are concerned about the total cost of market logistics, which can amount to as much as 30 percent to 40 percent of the product's cost. Lower market-logistics costs will permit lower prices, yield higher profit margins, or both. Even though the cost of market logistics can be high, a well-planned program can be a potent tool in competitive marketing.

Market-Logistics Objectives

Many companies state their market-logistics objective as "getting the right goods to the right places at the right time for the least cost." Unfortunately, no system can simultaneously maximize customer service and minimize distribution cost. Given the market-logistics objectives, the company must design a system that will minimize the cost of achieving these objectives. Each possible market-logistics system will lead to the following cost:

M = T + FW + VW + S

where M = total market-logistics cost of proposed system
           T  = total freight cost of proposed system
         FW = total fixed warehouse cost of proposed system
         VW= total variable warehouse cost (including inventory) of proposed system
           S  = total cost of lost sales due to average delivery delay under proposed system

Market-Logistics Decisions

The firm must make four major decisions about its market logistics: (1) How should we handle orders (order processing)? (2) Where should we locate our stock (warehousing)? (3) How much stock should we hold (inventory)? and (4) How should we ship goods (transportation)?

Order Processing

Most companies want to shorten the order-to-payment cycle - the elapsed time between an order's receipt, delivery, and payment. The longer this cycle takes, the lower the customer's satisfaction and the lower the company's profits.

Warehousing

Every company must store finished goods until they are sold, because production and consumption cycles rarely match. More stocking locations mean goods can be delivered to customers more quickly, but warehousing and inventory costs are higher. To reduce these costs, the company might centralize inventory and use fast transportation to fill orders.

Inventory

Salespeople would like their companies to carry enough stock to fill all customer orders immediately. However, this is not cost-effective. Inventory cost increases at an accelerating rate as the customer-service level approaches 100 percent. Management needs to know how much sales and profits would increases as a result of carrying larger inventories and promising faster order fulfillment times, and then make a decision.

Transportation

Transportation choices affect product pricing, on-time delivery performance, and the condition of the goods when they arrive, all of which affect customer satisfaction. Shippers are increasingly combining two or more transportation modes, thanks to containerization, putting goods in boxes or trailers that are easy to transfer between two transportation modes. Piggyback describes the use of rail and trucks; fishyback, water and trucks; trainship, water and rail; and airtruck, air and trucks. Each coordinated mode offers specific advantages.

Shippers can choose private, contract, or common carriers. If the shipper owns its own truck or air fleet, it becomes a private carrier. A contract carrier is an independent organization selling transportation services to others on a contract basis. A common carrier provides services between predetermined points on a scheduled basis and is available to all shippers at standard rates.

Organizational Lessons

Market-logistics strategies must be derived from business strategies, rather than solely from cost considerations. The logistics system must be information-intensive and establish electronic links among all the significant parties. Smart companies will adjust their logistics strategies to each major customer's requirements. The company's trade group will set up differentiated distribution by offering different bundled service programs for different customers.

Summary

Retailing includes all the activities in selling goods or services directly to final consumers for personal, nonbusiness use. A retailer or retail store is any business enterprise whose sales volume comes primarily from retailing. Any organization selling to final consumers - whether it is a manufacturer, wholesaler, or retailer - is in retailing. Wholesaling includes all the activities in selling goods or services to those who buy for resales or business use. It excludes manufacturers and farmers (because they are engaged primarily in production) and retailers. Wholesalers (also called distributors) differ from retailers in several ways. First, wholesalers pay less attention to promotion, atmosphere, and location because they deal with business customers rather than final consumers. Second, wholesale transactions are usually larger than retail transactions, and wholesalers cover a larger trade area than retailers. Third, wholesalers and retailers comply with different legal regulations and taxes.

Personal Point of View

I believe wholesaling will take another stage in the next century. In the near future, wholesalers will skip the retailers and reach out to customers directly by opening "warehouse club" or "wholesale club." People will start shopping at "warehouse club" or "wholesale club" more frequently than retailers. The weak point is locations and easy access in the community. If wholesalers can open "warehouse clubs" in the every community such as Costco in California, then reality of succeeding in reaching directly out to customers is possible. 

 

Designing and Managing Integrated Marketing Channels

Successful value creation depends on successful value delivery. Holistic marketers are increasingly taking a value network view of their business, examining the entire supply chain that links raw materials, components, and manufactured goods and shows how they move toward the final consumers.

Marketing Channels and Value Networks

Most producers do not sell their goods directly to the final users; between them stands a set of intermediaries performing a variety of functions. These are marketing channels (also called trade channels or distribution channels), sets of interdependent organizations participating in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption.

The Importance of Channels

A marketing channel system is the particular set of marketing channels a firm employs, and decisions about it are among the most critical ones management faces. In managing its intermediaries, the firm must decide how much effort to devote to push versus pull marketing.

A push strategy uses the manufacturer's sale force, trade promotion money, or other means to induce intermediaries to carry, promote, and sell the product to end users. In a pull strategy the manufacturer uses advertising and other communications to persuade consumers to demand the product from intermediaries, thus inducing the intermediaries to order it.

Hybrid Channels and Multichannel Marketing

Hybrid channels or multichannel marketing occurs when a single firm uses two or more marketing channels to reach customer segments. In multichannel marketing, each channel targets a different segment of buyers, or different need states for one buyer, and delivers the right products in the right places in the right way at the least cost. Companies must make sure their multiple channels work well together and match each target segment's preferred ways of doing business.

Value Networks

The company should first think of the target market, however, and then design the supply chain backward from that point, a strategy called demand chain planning. A value network is a system of partnerships and alliances that a firm creates to source, augment, and deliver its offerings.

The Role of Marketing Channels

Through their contacts, experience, specialization, and scale of operation, intermediaries make goods available and accessible to target markets, and usually more effectively and efficiently than the producer can achieve on its own.

Channel Functions and Flows

A marketing channel performs the work of moving goods from producers to consumers. It overcomes the time, place, and possession gaps that separate goods and services from those who need or want them.

Channel Levels

The producer and the final customer are part of every channel. A zero-level channel, also called a direct marketing channel, consists of a manufacturer selling directly to final customers through door-to-door sales, home parties, mail order, telemarketing, TV selling, Internet selling, manufacturer-owned stores, and other methods. A one-level channel contains one selling intermediary. A two-level channel contains two intermediary typically a wholesaler and a retailer. A three-level channel contains three intermediaries. Obtaining information about end users and exercising control becomes more difficult for the producer as the number of channel levels increases.

Service Sector Channels

As Internet and other technologies advance, service industries such as banking and travel are operating through new channels. Marketing channels also keep changing in "person marketing."

Channel-Design Decisions

To design a marketing channel system, marketers must analyze customer needs and wants, establish objectives and constraints, and identify and evaluate major channel alternatives.

Channel-Management Decisions

After a firm has chosen a channel system, it must select, train, motivate, and evaluate individual intermediaries for each channel. It may also modify channel design and arrangements over time.

Channel Integration and Systems
Vertical Marketing Systems

A conventional marketing channel consists of an independent producer, wholesaler(s), and retailer(s). Each is a separate business seeking to maximize its own profits, even if this goal reduces profit for the system as a whole. No channel member has complete or substantial control over other members.

Horizontal Marketing System

A marketing system in which two or more unrelated companies put together resources or programs to exploit an emerging marketing opportunity. Each company lacks the capital, know-how, production, or marketing resources to venture alone, or it is afraid of the risk. The companies might work together on a temporary or permanent basis or create a joint venture company.

Integrating Multichannel Marketing Systems

It is a system in which the strategies and tactics of selling through one channel reflect the strategies and tactics of selling through one or more other channels. One benefit of adding more channels is increased market coverage. Not only are more customers able to shop for the company's products in more places, but those who buy in more than one channel are often more profitable than single-channel customers. A second benefit is lower channel cost - selling by phone is cheaper than personal selling to small customers. A third benefit is more customized selling, such as by adding a technical sales force to sell complex equipment. However, new channels typically introduce conflict and problems with control and cooperation.

Conflict, Cooperation, and Competition

Channel conflict is generated when one channel member's actions prevent other channel member from achieving its goal. Channel coordination occurs when channel members are brought together to advance the channel's goals, as opposed to their own potentially incompatible goals.

Types of Conflict and Competition

Horizontal channel conflict occurs between channel members at the same level. Vertical channel conflict occurs between different levels of the channel. Multichannel conflict exists when the manufacturer has two or more channels that sell to the same market.

Causes of Channel Conflict

One major cause of channel conflict is goal incompatibility. Another cause is unclear roles and rights. Conflict can also stem from differences in perception, as when a producer is optimistic about the economy and wants dealers to carry higher inventory, but its dealers are pessimistic. At times, conflict can occur because of intermediaries' dependence on the manufacturer such as auto dealers are profoundly affected by the manufacturer's product and pricing decisions.

Managing Channel Conflict

Some channel conflict can be constructive and lead to better adaptation to a changing environment, but too much is dysfunctional.

Dilution and Cannibalization

Marketers must be careful not to dilute their brands through inappropriate channels. This particularly important for luxury brands whose images often rest on exclusivity and personalized service.

Legal and Ethical Issues in Channel Relations

Companies are generally free to develop whatever channel arrangements suit them. In fact, the law seeks to prevent them from using exclusionary tactics that might keep competitors from using a channel.

E-Commerce and M-Commerce Marketing Practices

E-Commerce uses a Web site to transact or facilitate the sale of goods and services online. Online retailers compete in three key aspects of a transaction: (1) customer interaction with the Web site, (2) delivery, and (3) ability to address problems when they occur. Pure-click companies are those that have launched a Web site without any previous existence as a firm; brick-and-click companies are existing companies that have added an online site for information or e-commerce.

M-commerce (m for mobile) channels and media can keep consumers connected and interacting with a brand throughout their day-to-day lives. However, mobile marketing and the fact that a company can potentially pinpoint a customer or employee's location with GPS technology also raises privacy issues.

Summary

Successful value creation depends on successful value delivery. Most producers do not sell their goods directly to the final users; between them stands a set of intermediaries performing a variety of functions. These are marketing channels (also called trade channels or distribution channels), sets of interdependent organizations participating in the process of making a product or service available for use or consumption. A marketing channel system is the particular set of marketing channels a firm employs, and decisions about it are among the most critical ones management faces. In managing its intermediaries, the firm must decide how much effort to devote to push versus pull marketing. Three main marketing channels are Horizontal, Vertical, and Integrating Multichannel Marketing systems. Channel conflict is generated when one channel member's actions prevent other channel member from achieving its goal.

Personal Point of View

In my opinion, unless a manufacturer is a very well-known brand such as Coca-Cola, most of the brands goes through the middle-man to sell their products. It is a safe pathway to go through from middle channel to reach out to customers because they know which target segments and strings to pull. Majority of customer these days shop online not only because it is convenience but also some sellers do not charge for sale tax. M-Commerce is a good way to lure in more customers to their original website but baby boomers and elderly population will prefer to use the PC and laptop to shop rather than on a mobile due to their declining health restrict them able to see fine prints and details of the products they are looking for. I personally prefer to shop online using my laptop for both security purpose and internet speed of loading web pages. Thus by far, in order to overcome from e-commerce to m-commerce, I think mobile needs the speed which is faster than LTE or 4G otherwise young population will not appreciate the m-commerce shopping.

Designing and Managing Services

A service is any act or performance one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything. Its production may or may not be tied to a physical product. Service industries are everywhere.

Categories of Service Mix

The service component can be a major or minor part of the total offering. Five categories of offerings are:

1. Pure tangible good - a tangible good such as toothpaste, with no accompanying services.
2. Tangible good with accompanying services - a tangible good, like a cell phone, accompanied by one or more services.
3. Hybrid - an offering, like a restaurant meal, of equal parts goods and services.
4. Major service with accompanying minor goods and services - a major service, like air travel with additional services or supporting goods such as drinks.
5. Pure service - primarily an intangible service, such as babysitting or psychotherapy.

Distinctive Characteristics of Services

Four distinctive service characteristics greatly affect the design of marketing programs:

Intangibility - Unlike physical products, services cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before they are bought.

Inseparability - Services are typically produced and consumed simultaneously.

Variability - Services are highly variable because the quality depends on who provides them, when and where, and to whom.

Perishability - Services cannot be stored, so their perishability can be a problem when demand fluctuates.

The New Services Realities
A Shifting Customer Relationships

Savvy services marketers must recognize three new services realities: the newly empowered customer, customer coproduction, and the need to engage employees as well as customers.

Customer Empowerment - customers are more sophisticated about buying support services and are pressing for "unbundled services" so they can select the elements they want.

Customer Coproduction - the reality is that customers do not merely purchase and use a service: they play an active role in its delivery. Their words and actions affect the quality of their service experiences and those of others, and the productivity of frontline employees.

Satisfying Employees as Well as Customers - Excellent service companies know that positive employee attitudes will promote stronger customer loyalty. Employees thrive in customer-contact positions when they have an internal drive to (1) pamper customers, (2) accurately read customer needs, (3) develop a personal relationship with customers, and (4) deliver quality service to solve customers' problems.

Managing Service Quality

Service quality is tested at each service encounter. Two important considerations in delivering service quality are managing customer expectations and incorporation self-service technologies.

Managing Customer Expectations

Customers form service expectations from many sources, such as past experiences, word of mouth, and advertising. In general, customers compare the perceived service with the expected service. If the perceived service falls below the expected service, customers are disappointed. Successful companies add benefits to their offering that not only satisfy customers but surprise and delight them. The service-quality model in the following figure highlights five gaps that can cause unsuccessful service delivery.

Fig. Service-Quality Model

Managing Product-Support Services

Manufacturers of equipment - small appliances, office machines, tractors, mainframes, airplanes - all must provide product-support services, making this a battleground for competitive advantage. Some equipment companies such as Caterpillar and John Deere, make a significant percentage of their profits from product-support services. In the global marketplace, companies that make a good product but provide poor local service support are seriously disadvantaged.

Identifying and Satisfying Customer Needs

In general, customers have three worries about product service. First, they worry about reliability and failure frequency. The second issue is downtime. The third issue is out-of-pocket costs. A buyer considers all these factors and tries to estimate the life-cycle cost, which is the product's purchase cost plus the discounted cost of maintenance and repair less the discounted salvage value. Product companies must understand their strategic intent and competitive advantage in developing services. To offer the best support, a manufacturer must identify the services customers value most and their relative importance. It should also plan for delivering service after the purchase.

Personal Point of View

It is a very hard subject for most companies to approach these days because the consumers are getting greedier and causing all the root problems related to services. Companies need to be more creative in ways to handle the consumers' needs as well as making profits. I personally think, United States consumers are really hard to handle when it comes down to services. They demand more and complain more with hardly satisfying desires.