The Role of Personal Selling within the Overall Marketing Strategy - Term Paper Example

Sales Planning and Promotion s PASS CRITERIA 0The role of personal selling within the overall marketing strategy 1.1Personal selling Personal selling is a very crucial component of promotional mix as promotional tool. It is regarded as flexible tool of personal communication when compared to impersonal and mass communication of advertising (Kotler & Keller, 2009:56). The roles of personal selling: prospecting by trying to search for find new customers; communicating with the existing and potential customers in relation to the product range; and selling of the products by persuading customer to purchase the products; gathering of information with regard to the market to feedback into the process of marketing planning; lastly, allocating where during periods of product shortage, the sales force might have a significant effect in the manner in which available stocks are allocated. Most importantly, personal selling has been found to lead to an actual sale. Personal selling is divided into three tasks (Schwartz, 2006:35): Order getting Order taking Support personnel The information gathered by the salespeople can be utilised to improve the aggregate sells and production. The information also the firm maintains equilibrium between supply and demand. Besides, the information is also used to comprehend the customer’s needs and behaviour. 1.2 Sales people and buyer behaviour The stages of decision making process include problem recognition, evaluation of alternatives, evaluation of the decision, search process, and selection stage (Pride & Ferrell, 2012:23). When purchasing a high-level product such as a house, the salesperson has higher chances of influences the buyer’s decision by providing more benefits of the house. In this case, the prospective clietnt will be easily persuaded to buy the house. The salespeople ensure that the need of the customer is met, thus revising the price of the product upwards. In relation to low-level products such as a newspaper, the chances of influencing the consumer purchasing behaviour are low since the products are of low risk. Besides, the decisions of purchasing the product is a routine (Kotler & Keller, 2009:134). 1.3 Role of Halford’s sales team The responsibilities of Halfords sales team that sells cycling and motoring products and services comprise of the following: establishing personal deliverables, improving targets and charter, having knowledge your firm’s products and services, accepting the quota responsibility my mapping out how one will attain goals, customer contacting, account management by managing account asset, executing the sales process, and opportunity management. The roles of the sales team comprise include managing the resources of the sales support, making periodic account and territory review presentations, offering of timely management reports, and finally, segmentation by industry (Bacon, 1999). 3.0 Understand the role and objectives of sales management 3.1 Sales strategies and corporate objectives In relation to sales strategies, the development of proper sales strategy assists in providing better solutions in order to outdo competitors by enhancing the product differentiation. The business strategies entail the way in which corporate objectives will be attained. Corporate objectives are what the organization needs to achieve. Sales strategies are usually developed in line with corporate objectives so as to ensure that the firm meets it goals by gaining market share. For instance, a firm comes up with marketing plan that will ensure the firm it gains competitive advantage. Therefore, it aligns its sales strategy with the corporate objectives is considered as an essential step towards making sure that the firm is financially healthy. The salespeople usually carry out the activities that support the corporate objectives if their sales plans are in alignment. 3.2 Recruitment and selection Since the firm manufactures medical equipments that are technologically advanced, it requires a highly trained and dedicated staff. Elearn (2009) defines recruitment as the process of establishing that the firm requires employing qualified people through competitive application. On the other hand, selection entails the processes of selecting applicant (s) who is/are suitable candidate(s) to fill a post. In this perspective, considering that the firm specialises in production of sophisticated medical equipment, it requires that employees be hired on a competitive basis in order to have an employee base that is highly competent. This needs a rigorous recruitment and selection process. 3.3 Role of remuneration, motivation, and training on sales management. Motivation is what makes people to have that drive to do something. As a result it initiates, guides and maintain the goal oriented behaviours (Laubly, 2005:13). Employees are usually motivated either by financial or non-financial rewards. Non-financial rewards such as team building and target setting have been found to motivate employees making them to be retained longer in the business, something which financial incentives can not do. Therefore, team building and target setting can be utilised retention strategies by Virgin Media. In this respect, provision of training opportunities assists the sales personnel to improve their product knowledge, thus being motivated to stay longer at the firm to learn even more through further training (Asghar & Akram, 2012:114). When employees are motivated, their job performance and satisfaction are enhanced. This can be attained through financial incentives and salary based remuneration. 3.3 Sales Memo To: From: Sales Director, Virginia media Date: April 04, 2014 Subject: Organization of sales activities It has been noted that organization is very crucial especially in sales management. Prospecting is regarded as the most crucial responsibility of a sales person. A salesperson also needs have a definitive plan for prospecting daily. The following are laid out suggestions for the composition of a prospecting plan: first is working out the procedure for choosing a prospect; secondly, the need to work out an effective qualifying process; thirdly, following of some form of referral routine; the sales team needs to incorporate people from all other departments; the need to strengthen the customer relationship. In order for the firm to post growth prospects, the sales department needs to be well organised since it is tasked with sourcing the market for the company’s products. The company needs to adopt customer based structures in order to create a deep relationship. In relation to controlling the sale of outputs, it is essential that all measures employed be geared towards profit retention. Another measure is setting of performance standards which ensure the sales personnel attain a minimum sales level. Sales performance goals are measures can be applied in order to incentivize salespeople and establish achievement-based compensation. Next is coming up with a sales budget that will ensure that all the sales accrued are documented for further analysis, whereby all the concrete results would be compared with the budgets. The sales budget ensures that the firm has enough cash to fund the future projects. 3.5 The use of databases in effective sales management. Database building in sales management is regarded as very vital since it provides a faster way of effectively managing the sales accrued. By making use of an application that has been particularly designed for pipeline tracking, forecasting, collaboration, and contact management (Duval, 2013). Database management is very essential in the following ways: it allows the firm to get out of the react mode, assists one to properly manage the customers. The other benefits are that using database management in sales management improves the internal process, and improve customer communication, as well as collecting accurate and relevant data of the firm’s customers. Besides, it also increases sales by offering information that will enable the salespeople to determine and exploit the new marketing opportunities. Furthermore, it also enhances marketing communication through increasing communication’s quality level with the existing customers (Duval, 2013). However, it is usually affected by some security risks that compromise the integrity, confidentiality and availability of data. Some of the security risks are: unauthorised database users and administrators such as hackers, malware infections, physical damage to the database servers, and data corruption. The database protection can be ensured by allowing legitimate users and administrators, reducing malware infections, ensuring safety of the database servers, and preventing corruption of data. With regard to hackers, data safety is ensured through network security measures, for example, network-based intrusion detection systems and firewalls. 4.0 Sales Plan Words 4.1-4.3- Sales plan Sleek Fashions, London. Sleek Fashions is based in Westfield Shopping Center in London is an upscale clothing line targeted at both men and women. Sleek Fashions both develops the clothing line and supports it with promotion and advertising campaigns. Target market The target markets are adults, both men and women. The shop would provide its consumers with organic denim that are produced with an emphasis on designing for fit while at the same time providing custom fit solutions. Age: 19-65 Social media savvy: active on popular social networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram Twitter, and Pinterest. Fashion forward: having a keen eye on their daily wear. Eco-friendly: They feel will have a feeling that their clothes were manufactured sustainably with regular cotton. Competition The major competitors of the firm include: Next- based in France, the firm has been in the market for 2001 selling men and women, while at the same time dealing in children ware. M&S-based in the United Kingdom, the firm operates in a small town that has been known as an epicentre for apparel industry. Currently, if offers a wide variety of clothing targeted for the youth and men, making only 100 pairs weekly for the women. TopShop- It is headquartered in Berlin, Germany, and attained its goal of launching organic dresses and jeans in 2013. It has an array of sustainable efforts that range from offering a fair living wage to all who are involved Branding The firm is planning to strengthen its partnership with retailers by developing brand awareness. Sleek Fashions also intends to market its apparel as a means of differentiating itself through exclusiveness, marketing strategies and high brand awareness. This will ensure that the firm gets more revenue. Future prospects The firm has a diverse promotional plan that includes a wide variety of marketing communications. Therefore, in future, Sleek Fashions hopes to develop lines of accessories for the youth and children. These accessories will comprise of the following: jewellery, cologne/perfume, eyewear, watches, among many others. Increasing sales internationally The recent advancements in technology have seen the revolution of international business. The emergence of the internet, computers and mobile phones has made business transactions much easier (Lokken, et al., 2009). The business entity plans to increase the number of prospective buyers that will access the firm’s items,as well as gaining a significant market share in the main categories of men and women wear. This will be attained through the use of social and internet media. One of the most important and obvious benefit of online social media marketing is convenience (Bellenger & Korgaonkar, 2011). The use social media is much cheaper than the traditional promotional and advertising activities because it very convenient and flexible. As cited by Babbie (2009), online markers and shoppers have the advantage of flexibility as one can easily sell and buy without necessarily having to meet each other. With internet availability, one can sell and order products globally thus driving brand awareness. Trade fairs and exhibitions In relation to trade fairs and exhibitions, the key message that is associated with Sleek Fashion line is classy, versatility, upscale, and expensive clothing, it plans to increase its sales through trade fairs and exhibition. This because those people who attend trade fairs are mostly fashion oriented. MERIT 1 & 3 How social media can be used as a sales tool Introduction We are living in the era of information technology, and the advancements in technology are inevitable. The emergence of the internet has encouraged web-based marketing social networks, blogs and internet comment boxes. As a result, it has created diversification of business entities (Cheung, et al., 2003). It is perceived that ICT has had pervasive effects on the modern society. It has greatly changed where and how we shop, work, and in other ways live our lives (Cao, Xu, & Douma, 2012). The report will analyse the benefits and limitations of using social media as a marketing tool. Discussion The most frequently used forms of social media globally include social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn), video-sharing sites (YouTube), micro-blogging sites (Twitter), and photo sharing (Instagram), among many others. Social media has served as an important source for news, information, business ideas, cultural production, entertainment, current trends in fashion, and politics. The use of online selling techniques poses more benefits than limitations. The most common advantage of online selling through social media is convenience and flexibility by both the customer and the seller. To the salesperson, the use of social media has made researching of the customers much easier, thus having knowledge of what makes them to purchase. According to Koo (2013), the use of social media permits the salespeople to view what their prospect’s opinions are, in relation to their brands and competitors. The other advantage is that it is a great way of carrying out a research by salespeople on the target market and initiate a conversation that could lead up to a sale. Next, one can create deeper relationships with the existing clientele, as well as generating new leads with customers that drives them purchase again. Through social media one can easily locate and compare the product you are looking for (Gould & Golob, 2009). The shopper simply opens two or more browsers to easily locate and compare item.The other benefit is that the use of social media as a marketing tool is that it provides additional information that you will not find in the static research sites. As cited by Sandler (2014), the use of social media as marketing tool eliminates the middlemen-women. Lastly, (Rogue, 2012) argues that social media drives sales. Mandrusiak, (2011) argues that there various limitation of using social medias a sales tool. First, commitment; firms need to have someone who is designated to maintain the social media pages. Second, it is only limited to people wo have access to internet thus overlooking the other clientale base. Third, the use of social media is also time consuming. This is because a firm would need to have a designated person who would constantly feeding the profile and the pages with the relevant content. Lastly, the risk of negative comments. This can actually demoralise the salespeople. Conclusion The internet has a wealth of information. In that respect, blog platforms and Facebook have proven to be very essential to the salespeople. The sales person can contact the customers through Facebook. This has freed the customer from personally visiting the physical stores.Each and every salesperson knows that information is power.The advent of the internet and the subsequent social media networks has made researching of the customers easier. It is also considered as low cost market MERIT 2 3.4 Qualitative and quantitative sales management techniques For a business to succeed in its initiatives, it needs to incorporate both qualitative and quantitative techniques. These techniques are applied in forecasting the sales of the business. Both of them are used to establish the current state of a firm. Qualitative techniques are usually more subjective since they express the qualities of a company. Greggs plc used qualitative techniques in the earlier of the product cycle. This method was utilized when there was less data on the quantitative methods. The firm pointed out the technique was quite expensive On the other hand, quantitative sales management techniques are objective oriented since they offer the analyst with the real number to present. The quantitative techniques can either be time-series forecast such as projection of the past into the future, and forecast that are based on associative models, for example they are based on one or more models. The business owners of Greggs plc preferred the explanatory method due to the fact that it takes into consideration more than just sales numbers. For example, on a sunny day, the firm used historical data from the previous sunny in order to make an accurate forecast (Cavanagh, 2014). Reference List Abrons, R. (2014). Chron. Retrieved April 3, 2014, from The Disadvantages of Using Social Networks as Marketing Tools: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/disadvantages-using-social-networks-marketing- tools-20861.html Asghar, A., & Akram, M. N. (2012). Impact of Financial Rewards on Employee Motivation and Satisfaction. Global Journal of Mnagement of Business Research , 12 (17), 112-153. Bacon, T. R. (1999). 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