Managing Personal

Communications:
Direct and Interactive Marketing,
Word of Mouth,
and Personal Selling
At the end of the presentation, we hope to address the
following questions:

01 02 03
How can companies conduct How can companies carry How does word of mouth
direct marketing for out effective interactive affect marketing success?
competitive advantage? marketing?

04 What decisions do companies

face in designing and
managing a sales force?
05 How can salespeople improve their selling,
negotiating, and relationship marketing skills?
 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.

 Any direct contact your business makes with

existing or potential customers in order to
generate sales or raise awareness.
 Why Use Direct Marketing?
Direct marketing allows you to generate a specific response from targeted groups
of customers. It is a particularly useful tool for small businesses because it allows
you to:

(1) focus limited resources
where they are most likely
to produce results
(2) measure the success of (3) test your marketing - you can
campaigns accurately by target a representative sample of
analysing responses your target audience and see what
delivers the best response rates
before developing a full campaign
Benefits of Direct Marketing
• Targeting: You can send specific messages to particular groups of customers and
potential customers based on demographics and buying behavior. The more targeted your
campaigns, the more successful they are likely to be.
• Personalization: Reach your audience with a personal touch. Direct mail or email can be
addressed to a specific person, and even include details like past orders. A phone call can
engage a customer in conversation to start building a relationship with your business.
• Affordable: Tactics like email marketing or leafleting can be very cost effective. Most
direct marketing will be more cost effective for SMEs than mass media advertising
campaigns.
• Measurable: If your marketing messages ask the recipient to take a particular action or
use a specific voucher code, you can easily track the success of campaigns. This can help
you plan future campaigns.
• Informative: You can deliver detailed information on your products, services and prices.
 Direct Marketing Channels

Direct Mail Other Media for direct-

response marketing
Catalog Marketing Telemarketing
 Direct mail
Direct-mail marketing means sending an offer, announcement,
reminder, or other item to an individual consumer.

Target markets and Offer and testing

Objectives
 to receive an order from
prospects
 produce prospect leads
 Strengthen customer
relationships
 Inform and educate
customers
 Remind customer of offers
 Reinforce recent customer
purchase decisions
prospects
 RFM (recency, frequency,
monetary amount) formula
 direct-mail marketer also
to select customers
 identify prospects on the
basis of age, sex, income,
education, previous mail
order purchases, and
 To better estimate a
occasion.
 customers who have
bought its products in the
past
elements
must choose five
Measuring
campaign success:
components of the mailing
itself: the outside envelope,
sales letter, circular, reply
form, and reply envelope
Lifetime value
promotion’s impact, some
companies measure the
impact of direct marketing
on awareness, intention to
buy, and word of mouth.
 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

Success could depend on the fF:

 managing customer lists carefully to avoid duplication or bad
debts
 controlling inventory
 offering good-quality merchandise so returns are low
 projecting a distinctive image
 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

Types of telemarketing
inbound telemarketing - receiving calls from customers

outbound telemarketing—initiating calls to prospects and

customers
Other Media for Direct-Response Marketing

 Newspapers and magazines carry ads

 Radio ads
 Infomercials - Infomercials promote products that are
complicated or technologically advanced, or that require a great
deal of explanation
 At-home shopping channels
 Public and Ethical Issues in Direct Marketing
 Irritation. Many people don’t like hard-sell, direct marketing
solicitations.

 Unfairness. Some direct marketers take advantage of impulsive

or less sophisticated buyers or prey on the vulnerable, especially
the elderly

 Deception and fraud. Some direct marketers design mailers

and write copy intended to mislead or exaggerate product size,
performance claims, or the “retail price

 Invasion of privacy. It seems that almost every time

consumers order products by mail or telephone, apply for a credit
card, or take out a magazine subscription, their names, addresses,
and purchasing behavior may be added to several company
databases. Critics worry that marketers may know too much
about consumers’ lives, and that they may use this knowledge to
take unfair advantage.

Interactive Marketing
Interactive marketing is a new direction of work with end-users, assuming
direct participation of the consumer in the advertising campaign.

 Interactive marketing relies on customers expressing their preferences so

that marketers can produce more relevant marketing messages.

 Any time a customer is invited to provide feedback, express their personal

preferences, or offer up demographic information, they are providing
information that marketers can use to guide their advertising efforts

 The Internet provides marketers and consumers with opportunities for much
greater interaction and individualization.
 Advantages and Disadvantages of Interactive Marketing
Advantages
 Low Cost
 Provides greater flexibility, allowing the
seller to constantly make adjustments to
their activities
 User Engagement -increases the time
spent on your website and makes the
experience memorable for a customer
 Conversion Improvements - once you have
the attention and interest of a customer, a
conversion is more likely to follow
 Qualified Lead Generation
 Virality and Sharing
 Customer Feedback
 Personalization
Disadvantages
 requires detailed study and constant monitoring
since this form of marketing communications can
have a significant negative impact on the image of
the retailer
 the limited access of some buyers to the Internet,
 the one-sidedness of demographic and
psychological information about buyers, chaotic and
information congestion of the network,
 the probability of penetration of thieves (hackers)
Into a computer network in order to obtain secret
information about the numbers of credit cards and
bank accounts of customers,
 the risk of human rights violations in the process of
creating data banks about buyers.
 Forms of interactive marketing
Search Engine
Marketing/ websites
 This involves everything
from optimizing a site so
that it shows up higher in
search results, to placing
targeted ads on the sides
of results pages.
 Companies must design
Web sites that embody or
express their purpose,
history, products, and
vision and that are
attractive on first viewing
and interesting enough to
encourage repeat visits
Display ads E-mail
 Display ads or banner ads
are small, rectangular  E-mail allows marketers to
boxes containing text and inform and communicate
perhaps a picture that with customers at a fraction
companies pay to place on of the cost of a “d-mail,” or
relevant Web sites. direct mail, campaign
 Interstitials are  Must be timely, targeted, and
advertisements, often with relevant.
video or animation, which
pop up between changes
on a Web site
 Podcasts, digital media
files created for playback
on portable MP3 players,
laptops, or PCs.
 Mobile Marketing

 cellular phones represent a major opportunity for advertisers to reach

consumers on the “third screen” (TV and the computer are first and
second)
 Mobile marketing options: SMS text messages, simple display ads,
mobile apps, loyalty programs, digital in-store signs
 Developing mobile marketing programs: Marketers would be wise to
design simple, clear, and “clean” sites, paying even greater attention
than usual to user experience and navigation.
 Interactive marketing best practices
 Multimedia – Use multiple different kinds of media from pictures, to
text, to video, to games
 Personalization – Make the ad experience unique to each user.
 Opt-In – Respect customer's privacy by only contacting them if they
sign up for a program
 Include A Compelling Offer – Use the targeting abilities of online
advertising to offer customers special deals or offers.
 Tell A Story – Multimedia tools can be used to tell a story which helps
to reinforce the image of the brand in the minds of consumers
 Make It Immersive – The more deeply a customer engages with
advertising the more likely they are to buy a product. Use online tools to
make marketing messages as engaging as possible.
 Usability – Online ads should be intuitive and user friendly.
 Effective ROI – Use any tool that has been shown to deliver a high
return on investment.
 Reshaping The Brand – Plan for and facilitate opportunities for
users to reshape the image of a brand
 Viral Sharing – Make marketing messages easy to share and
transmit through the web.