Sales promotion and advertising are the most visible aspects of marketing. They provide the main mechanism for communication between seller and buyer. The representative provides a near ideal basis for the dialogue which helps the company meet customer needs while ensuring that business relationships are developed and orders won. Getting from an advertising company enables the firm to reach many thousands of prospective customers and project information on and images of the company. Through advertisements such as billboard marketing or even mail orders, customers can be won over.
In most small firms, the salesman or owner/director actively engaged in selling leads the firm’s marketing effort. Among the many facets of their work, the ultimate goal is the construction of a good array of profitable accounts. Partly for this reason sales targets are becoming increasingly important. Originally this involved simply setting targets for volume and perhaps profit contribution. Now targets are being designed to include a proportion of new accounts, direction towards key industries, even a profile of the industries or customers a representative should seek out. Despite some criticism, they provide a spur to action, at least when seen as fair by both salesman and manager. Perhaps surprisingly, the best results are often achieved by the owner/director who, leading the sales effort, sets himself these types of target. A giftware manufacturer in the south-west saw his sales increase over 50 per cent within a year of setting himself targets.
Initiatives here call for careful evaluation of current activities. Customer contact time – the potentially profitable time actually spent in front of the prospect – can easily be swamped by costly time in the car, plane or hotel. In some firms, less than 20 per cent of the salesman’s time is spent in front of the prospects.
The calls themselves call for a balance between: (1) cold canvassing, sometimes necessary but never to be the norm; (2) prepared calls for new and established customers; (3) repeat visits with a clear idea of the relationship between customer liaison, business development and order gathering. All need underpinning by effective report back and follow through in the firm.
Too often the sales effort is wasted by inefficient order processing. In fact it has been said that ‘in Britain, the problem is buying not selling’. The participants on one sales training course were shocked by the results of a simple exercise involving the attempt to buy incognito by telephone, a stock item from their firm.
The joint owner and sales director of Hasty Footwear faced his greatest problems when the company grew large enough to employ its first full-time salesman. Recruitment and selection posed problems of job description, finding a sample of good candidates, evaluation and choice. Once the representative was appointed, the almost inevitable problem of the self-motivated entrepreneur in dealing with staff cropped up. He expected the employee’s commitment to be as great as his own. In fact, he was forced to introduce a planned process of management, motivation and control, through involving the salesman in planning and setting targets, close liaison, target-related bonuses and detailed evaluation of his work. In Hasty Footwear, the director’s gradual change in role led to a greater awareness of other aspects of sales promotion and advertising
Advertising can be used in a number of ways: awareness, to establish interest, to stimulate desire and prompt action by customers to buy the product (AIDA). Specific adverts can be geared to do each of these through a mixture of creative input and the right medium. There is an enormous range of media available to the smaller businessman: from television and newspaper advertisements through to exhibitions, mail shots and brochures. As a result, the scope for achieving different results is enormous. Effective advertising management is built on four elements: clear goals, constant monitoring of performance, evaluation of results and a willingness to learn and adapt.
Most small firm managers handle their own advertising effort but there is a massive body of knowledge of and research into this area which should be tapped wherever possible. Much of this accumulated information is in the hands of the advertising agencies. They vary greatly in size from giants like Ogilvy, Benson and Mather to small local firms. Details can be obtained through the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising.
Much discussion of sales promotion and advertising suggests that they are totally separate spheres of action. In fact, they interact powerfully. The buyer who knows the salesman, his firm, its products, the company’s reputation, its other customers and its record will respond to the sales visit. Advertising and other methods of preparing the ground are vital to this.
Public relations can play a major part. Many managers are over-cautious in their media relations. A good relationship with journalists on the local, trade and national media, a system of issuing press releases communicating stories in a simple and pithy form, geared as much as possible to the normal style of the newspaper or magazine, can earn great benefits for any firm. Innovations, major orders and success in any sphere are worth communicating to the media, which will generally handle the topic in a very supportive way.
Sales promotion and advertising provide the firm with the opportunity to direct the process of communication between the firm and its environment. Planning, targets, constant evaluation and updating of knowledge sustained by the vital spark of creativity are the basis of pay-offs here.