Sales force management is one of the important task for industrial marketing managers where they take great care in selecting the right personnel who can help them to increase their sales. They also give their sales team proper product training, supervise their performance, frequently motivate them by offering compensations, and at the same time control the expenses incurred. There are various steps that are involved in the industrial sales force management. 1. Selection of Sales Personnel Personal selling starts with selecting the salesperson who acts as the representative of an organization. They help to create an image and reputation of the company apart from increasing the sales by offering various products and services to the industrial buyers. In addition to giving the details on product features to their prospective buyers, they offer other services like technical assistance, recommendations, ideas, and sharing their experience. They also posses the skills that are Continue reading
Industrial Marketing Management
Industrial Product Development
Industrial product is defined as a complex set of economic, technical, legal, and personal relationship between the buyer and the seller. A product is a combination of basic, enhanced, and augmented properties. Basic properties are included in the generic product, with fundamental benefits sought by customers. Generic products are made differentiable by adding tangible enhanced properties such as product features, styling and quality. The augmented properties include intangible benefits such as technical assistance, available of spare parts, maintenance and repair services, warranties, training, timely delivery, and attractive commercial terms. The product package as expected by the prospective customers should be well understood by the industrial marketer. Industrial product development is the process by which the product ideas are generated, assessed, directed and converted into products. There are seven stages in the process of industrial product development. Idea Generation: The Industrial marketer should be consciously search for new product idea and Continue reading
Product Life Cycle and Industrial Pricing
Pricing strategies vary as the industrial product moves through its life cycle. The industrial pricing strategy is a key factor in each of the four cells of product life cycle. Introductory Stage Pricing Strategy: There are two pricing strategies available for a new product which is in the introductory stage of its life cycle. These are: (a) Penetration Strategy, and (b) Skimming Strategy. An industrial marketer must analyze the price from the angle of the buyers. How soon the firm should try ton recover the investment on the new product is another important factor to be considered by the industrial marketer. Penetration Strategy: When the price elasticity of demand is high or the buyers are highly price sensitive, strong threat exists from potential competitors and opportunity exists to reduce the unit cost of production and distribution with increase in volumes the penetration strategy is effective. The firm can draw on Continue reading
The Importance of Marketing Communication
Those who practice advertising, branding, direct marketing, marketing, packaging, promotion, publicity, sponsorship, public relations, sales, sales promotion and online marketing are termed marketing communicators. The communication process is sender-encoding-transmission device-decoding-receiver, which is part of any advertising or marketing program. Encoding the message is the second step in communication process, which takes a creative idea and transforms it into attention-getting advertisements designed for various media such as television, radio, magazines, and others. Massages travel to audiences through various transmission devices. The third stage of the marketing communication process occurs when a channel or medium delivers the message. Decoding occurs when the message reaches one or more of the receiver’s senses. Consumers both hear and see television ads. Others consumers handle or touch and read a coupon offer. One obstacle that prevents marketing messages from being efficient and effective is called barrier. Barrier is anything that distorts or disrupts a message. It Continue reading
Pricing of Industrial Products
The industrial marketers should understand the various aspects of the pricing, since pricing is the most critical part of industrial marketing strategy. Different strategies such as market segmentation strategy, product strategy, and promotion strategy are related to pricing strategy. In order to achieve the dual objective such as to meet the company objective and satisfy the market needs, the industrial marketer has to integrate the various strategies. When the members of buying committee of a buying firm, purchase a particular industrial product, they are buying a given level of technical service, product quality, and delivery reliability. The other elements such as the reputation of the supplier, friendship, a feeling of security and other personal benefits flowing from the buyer-seller relationship are also important. The bundle of attributes expecting by the buying committee are fall under three categories. (1) Product specific attributes (2) Company related attributes and (3) Sales personal related Continue reading
Industrial Distribution Channel Management
Channel designing is resorted to by the industrial marketer when he has to develop either a new channel system or modify an existing one. As channel design and management is a difficult and an incessant task, an industrial marketer has to go through certain stages that are involved in designing a superlative channel system. The various steps that are involved in channel design process are analyzing needs of the customer, establishing channel objectives, considering channel constraints, listing channel tasks, identifying channel alternatives, evaluating alternate channels and selecting the intermediaries. The industrial marketer also has to take appropriate decisions on industrial distribution channel management by selecting the right intermediaries based on the various steps. The intermediaries need to be continuously motivated by means of offering them various benefits and facilities. Any conflicts arising between the intermediaries due to various reasons need to be solved by the industrial marketer. Finally, the entire Continue reading