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Personal Sales
In addition to conversation with employees, word-of-mouth communication can occur
in more structured selling situations. Salespeople in stores are trained to answer
product questions and help customers find things.
Retail sales employees use personal communication to relay information about a
product and give reasons to buy it. These reasons can be personalized to match the
person and his or her interests.
In B2B marketing, sales reps often work from a scripted sales message to make sure
they hit on the right selling points and convey the most important strategic
information. They also are provided with sales kits that contain product
specifications, photos, diagrams, and other information useful in decision making by
business customers. More recently, all these data are available online and may be
given to the prospect on a DVD or flash drive.
Sales kits are packets of information prepared to support personal sales efforts. A
sales rep who covers a region or several states will carry along all the information
needed to make a pitch to a prospective customer. Sales kits can contain a variety of
materials; they include such materials as selling strategies, presentation materials,
information about the customer, profiles of the customer’s market, and pricing charts.
They can appear in print, on flash drives, or online.
Media sales reps in advertising will have media kits that include profile information
about the people who watch, listen, or read the medium, along with numbers
describing audience size and geographical coverage.
Training Materials
Training materials are used to train B2B sales reps or other employees. Employee
training materials may contain information about new projects or products or special
promotions with presentation visuals, exercises, and background data. They can be in
print, but most professional training sessions use PowerPoint slides, and the materials
may be distributed online or on a flash drive.
Customer Service
Customer Serviceor tech support in the technology industries, is another environment
where personal communication is critical. Effective communication can cement
customer satisfaction or dissatisfaction. What makes customer service different from
other forms of commercial media is that customers can initiate the dialogue either in
person, by phone or online.
Principle: If it’s a positive experience, customer service can strengthen the brand
relationship; if it’s negative, it can lead to or increase customer dissatisfaction.
Customer service is the front line of consumer attitude change about a brand
experience. Traditional media used to elicit customer feedback are shoppers’ surveys
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and comment cards. Mystery shoppers, a proactive form of customer service, are
used to personally analyze and report on the shopping experience in a store.
More recently, customer service is being driven by social media and cell phones.
Customer service is a specific department that handles questions and complaints, but
it also refers to a company’s attitude toward customers during these interactions. How
the company behaves in solving a problem and the way the interaction is handled
send some of the most impactful brand messages that customers receive.
If the interactive experience in either sales or customer service is positive, it can
strengthen the customer’s long-term relationship with the brand; if it is negative, it
can weaken or even destroy a customer’s brand relationship. Because customers have
so many choices of brands and shopping outlets, how a company treats customers can
be the major reason for choosing one over the others.
Principle: Brand communication planners don’t manage customer service, but they
can monitor the messages being sent and identify potential problems.
Interactive Promotional Material
Brand-sponsored gatherings connect people who are customers, prospective
customers, employees, suppliers, or other types of stakeholders. An interesting
variation on interactive advertising is “live” or performance-based where traveling
performers present live infomercials from mobile stages to a large and growing
population of international brand-focused customers. Promotional efforts also involve
campaigns for good causes.
Speeches, Conferences, and Tours
These are events that can generate questions and answers about an organization’s
programs, policies, and actions. An informational tour involves stakeholders in
personally engaging situations. A grand opening for a new airport or concert hall, for
example, may include tours with trained guides to explain the building’s functions
and design.
There are interactive publicity media, news conferences, for example, that are
designed as interactive experiences for the news media. Press representatives are
invited to hear a spokesperson present information on some newsworthy topic or
event and answer media questions.
Media tours are a conference on wheels for media representatives that involve an
itinerary and a traveling spokesperson. They may tour a location associated with a
news topic, such as a new office or manufacturing plan that has achieved an award for
its energy efficiency.
Other types of promotional media engage people in interactive experiences.
Sampling, for example, is a way for the consumer to try a product or service before
buying it. The food-sampling tables at stores like Costco, for example, are staffed by
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people who prepare the food samples and provide information about the product and
how to buy it, as well as answer consumer questions.
Trade Shows, Displays, and Exhibits
A trade show is a promotional event where B2B companies within the same industry
gather to present and sell their merchandise, demonstrate their products, and take
orders. Displays and exhibits along with product literature and signage are the media
used in these sales and meeting events. Booths are spaces that are designed to
showcase the product and allow salespersons to speak personally to attendees. A
conference sponsored by an organization may be a named brand event.
Many types of media are used to publicize and support the event—name tags,
programs, publicity materials, bags, and all kinds of take-home tchotchkes (samples,
trinkets, and souvenirs), to name just a few.
Displays and exhibits may be important parts of sales promotions, events, and public
relations programs. Displays include signage and booths, racks, and holders for
promotional literature. Exhibits tend to be larger than displays; they may have
moving parts, sound, or video and usually are staffed by company representatives
who deliver personal sales messages and demonstrate the product.
Owned Digital Media
Let’s review the evolution of this technology and how its various formats are used in
corporate-owned brand communication.
E-Mail
It evolved from the days when we used to log on and off our computers and check
messages in bursts. Someusers still operate that way, but with newer technologies,
many users are always online, and messages are constantly streaming into their
personal media. That has changed the function as well as the speed of online
connections.
One of the attractive features of using e-mail for brand communication is that it is
inexpensive. All it takes is a list of e-mail addresses and an Internet connection.
Constant Contact is an e-mail service provider that distributes group e-mails and
handles the back end of correspondence with prospective customers.
An example of a branded e-mail effort is the announcement by Amazon of the
Kindle Fire, which featured a contest to win the new device. Amazon users received
e-mails with the announcement, photos, product specifications, and contest
information.
This interactive capability has grown exponentially when mobile phones, called
smart phones, began to act like mini-computers.
Websites
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A company’s website is a communication tool that blurs the distinction between
marketing communication forms, such as advertising, direct marketing, and public
relations. It is the online face the organization presents to the world. In some cases, it
looks like an online corporate brochure, or it may function as an online catalog or
shopping site for e-commerce.
The Web reaches people with specific interests. In fact, the Internet is the ultimate
niche medium in that people turn to it to find out about any topic that interests them.
The website can also be an information resource with a searchable library of stories
and data about products, product categories, and related topics
Principle: A website’s critical function is to support an organization’s identity and
reinforce the brand image and position.
Forrester Research has developed methods for evaluating the brand-building function
of websites. The company tracks effectiveness of website performance not only in
terms of making a brand promise but also in terms of also delivering easy-to-find and
easy-to-use information. Research has found that, on average, sites did a better job of
making the brand promise than they did of meeting customer needs. An explanation
of how this research is used is explained in this chapter’s A Matter of Practice
feature.
Whether or not the website is effective depends on several factors—one is stickiness,
and the other is its ease of navigation. A “sticky” website is one that is engaging—it
encourages visitors to “stick around” instead of bouncing to another site because it is
interesting and offers meaningful interactivity. The interest level is determined by
what’s “above the fold,” to use a newspaper metaphor. Decisions about whether to
leave or stay and investigate the site’s content depends on what’s visible without
scrolling downward. Research has shown that 75 percent of the content “below the
fold”—that you have to scroll down to see—goes unnoticed.
Some people may find a marketer’s website after doing a search using a search
engine; others may come across the website address in some other communication,
such as an ad or brochure, often with QR codes that link cell phone users directly to
the website. But another way is to encounter a link on a related site usually in the
form of an ad with enough impact to entice the visitor to leave the original site and
move to this new one. Internet strategists are keenly aware of the difficulty of enticing
people to click-through to a different website.
Blogs
Some 100 million digital essayists worldwide create Web blogs to talk about things
that interest them. Historically, bloggers used their blogs for creative expression and
opinion pieces for a generally anonymous audience. Some are interested in making
money, and others are into news or politics. These personal publishing sites also
contain links to related sites the bloggers consider relevant. Most blogs also invite
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comments that are shared with other readers stimulating conversations, if not debates,
among them.
Bloggers often have higher levels of credibility than ads or corporate websites.
Corporations use blogs to engage stakeholders of all kinds. Corporate blogs are a way
to keep employees and other stakeholders informed, but employees may also be
encouraged to have personal blogs.
Sales staffs have found that blogs are changing the sales process by making more
experiences with a product available to prospects and keeping customers current with
fast-changing technological trends. A problem with blogs is that they are sometimes
criticized as “stealth advertisers.”
Paid posts, where bloggers plug a product in return for cash or freebies from the
company, have caught the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. These
endorsements are being addressed by new advertising guidelines that require bloggers
to post “clear and conspicuous” disclosures that they have received compensation or
freebies.
Socialtizing
This refers to the use of the media of social marketing as a promotional tool. It’s a
hybrid between advertising and corporate-driven social chatter. Facebook and Twitter,
are sites that allow users to share personal information with friends. But a Facebook
site can also be set up by a company to feature a brand with a brand profile just like
any other member. Some 11 million businesses have Facebook pages. Facebook
marketers hope to make friends with interested consumers who visit their sites.
Services like Off-the-Wall software by Resource Interactive make it possible for
companies to sell directly from their Facebook wall, which expands a social media
presence into e-commerce.
Principle: Organizations use social media to engage customers and create
relationships as well as reach a network of people.
To successfully place a brand within a communication environment like Facebook,
planners have to think strategically about the unique voice of the brand. The point is
that every brand has a personality—caring and committed, off- the-wall zany, or
badass—and that needs to come through in online posts. Some brands use one person
who knows exactly how to speak in the persona of the brand; others use a team of
employees who know how to match dialogue to the brand personality. In all cases,
these people need to “stay on brand” as they explore the give- and-take of social
communication.
Experts recommend that a company have a plan for being present regularly on its
social media sites—once or twice a day—and that the interactions be authentic and
relevant both to the brand and to its followers. Posts across various social media
should be unique for each outlet because the sites are used in different ways by people
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with different interests. Scheduling and planning posts can be managed through tools,
such as Hootsuite and Tweetdeck that help manage all the social media outlets in a
coordinated way.
Research on Facebook usage provides interesting insights about how best to post on
the social media site. For example, weekends are better than weekdays and posts at 8
A.M. and before and after lunch are more likely to be shared.
Facebook provides ideas about how to increase engagement (comments, likes, and
sharing) on its site. It suggests that although touchy- feely conversations are okay,
there are stronger responses from posts on topics relevant to the brand. Facebook
finds that photos and videos generate the most sharing, which is more meaningful
because it taps into the friend-of-a-fan network.
Marketers use these new social media tools to promote brands, engage customers, and
create brand relationships—and most of these efforts are cheap compared to other
forms of marketing communication. They are not only a point of connection—a
digital touch point—but they also engage a “social web,” a network of people
connected through the social media site.
Social media sites open up a new environment of conversation-based marketing
communication, creating opportunities for entirely different forms of nearly
instantaneous customer engagement with a brand.
Given that social media generates individual posts, are the numbers of people reached
through social media worth an organization’s time? In an ideal world, Brandon
Bornancin of Resource Interactive estimates that the average Facebook user has 130
friends, and if a brand has 100,000 fans on its e-commerce site, then a brand post
potentially can be shared with 13 million Facebook users. That’s a lot of reach for one
click.
Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing makes the cell phone a personal point-of-sale device with a strategy
designed to contact people on the run. The A Matter of Practice feature in this chapter
explains why this is such an attractive medium for advertisers.
Our Mobile Future
Mobile messaging will continue to evolve. Faster speeds allow for better viewing of
mobile video content, streaming movies, television, and advertising and bring mobile
interactions closer to reality. But faster speeds will come at a cost. All major U.S.
wireless carriers will have high-speed broadband networks by 2014, and new
larger-screen mobile tablets and phones, while improving viewer experiences, will
gobble up larger swaths of expensive bandwidth.
The future of mobile devices is in their role of connecting users with products,
services, and media in an unprecedented way. With branded mobile websites or apps,
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mobile users can access product information and make transactions anywhere and
anytime. Mobile users can compare product prices in stores with offerings online,
which not only creates a new shopping experience for consumers but also intensifies
the competition among different outlets, thus transforming the retailing business
fundamentally.
Mobile devices can serve as a bridge between the users and conventional advertising
media. For example, mobile users can scan a QR code or key in a ** number from a
magazine or billboard to access digital content right on their mobile device.
Texting, for example, is a way marketers can contact customers and customers can
contact companies. Organizations can text their members with announcements which
involves group text messaging software, which moves individualized communication
into a form of mass communication.
Mobile marketing involves more than phone calls and text messages. It is defined as
the use of wireless media, primarily cellular phones and personal digital assistants,
such as RIM’s BlackBerry. The explosion in brand communication possibilities came
with the introduction of Smart phones.Communication planners are interested in
smart phones because they can be used in highly targeted mobile marketing strategies
to deliver personal ads to folks on the go.
Mobile marketers have found several important uses for smart phones with search
advertising claiming 49 percent of the advertising spending. Banner ads are next with
33 percent, followed by messaging at 12 percent and video ads at 6 percent, totaling
$2.6 million in 2012.
Another device in the mobile marketing space is the iPad, which energized the tablet
market. It is a wireless tablet hybrid that has some of the capabilities of smart phones
but also combines some of the features of a laptop or notebook computer as well as an
e-reader (books, newspapers, and magazines), a video viewer, and a video game
player.
Branded apps for cell phones and tablets, which are generally free, prominently link
to a brand. Most new media provide apps that carry news feeds, some with a video.
Even small stores can use apps for in-store customers that let them view merchandise
or bypass the cash register and pay for their products on their mobile phones.
Although cell phone advertising is sometimes seen as an invasion of privacy, that
puzzles marketers because it is an opt-in channel of communication. As in other
forms of advertising, the way to be less intrusive is to be more relevant and offer
opt-in options. Mobile marketing can provide use of wireless communication (WiFi)
combined with GPS locational devices to reach nearby customers with its
geotargeting capabilities. A form of “push marketing,” these opt-in devices increase
engagement between brands and their fans.
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Principle: Through its geotargeting capability, mobile marketing can reach willing
customers in the area with product and promotional news and announcements.
Mobile marketing involves more than just cell phones, it also includes laptop
computers and even portable game consoles as vehicles that can deliver content and
encourage direct response within a cross-media communication program. Mobile
marketing delivers instant messaging, video messages and downloads, and banner ads
on these mobile devices.
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