How is personal selling different from other forms of marketing communications?

Read this section to learn about the sales force. Pay attention to the different sales ads, the types of selling, techniques used, and the selling process as a whole.

Personal Selling and the Marketing Communication Mix

Few companies coordinate marketing communication efforts in support of the sales force. Salespeople are often separated from marketing communications specialists because of both the structure of the business and difference in perspective. Most salespeople view other marketing communication activities strictly as a means to help sell a product or company. Advertisers, sales promotion managers, and public relations experts rarely consider the needs and suggestions of salespeople, and salespeople seldom pay attention to information about a marketing communication campaign.

TABLE 8.5 Public Relations Techniques

Integrating personal selling with other marketing communication elements may seriously affect that salesperson's job. Regis McKenna, international consultant, contends that although marketing technology has made salespeople more effective, it may also decrease the need for traditional salespeople who convince people to buy. As we move closer to "realtime" marketing, he believes customers and suppliers will be linked directly, so that customers can design their own products, negotiate price with suppliers, and discuss delivery and other miscellaneous concerns with producers rather than salespeople. McKenna suggests that the main role of salespeople will no longer be to "close" the sale. Instead it will be to carry detailed design, quality, and reliability information, and to educate and train clients.

Don Schultz, Northwestern University professor of marketing and proponent of IMe, supports this notion of the modem salesperson. "If you create long-term affiliations, then you don't sell. You form relationships that help people buy". He observes that because products have become more sophisticated, the businesses that buy are often smaller than those that sell. "Today, I think the sales force is primarily focused on learning about the product and not about the market. We're talking about flipping that around," he concludes. In short, effective personal selling must focus on customer relationships.

AD 8.6 This ad is typical of Institutional Public Relations advertising.

To integrate personal selling with other marketing communication tools to forge strong customer relationships, top management should lead the integration effort. Unless managers understand what salespeople do, however, integration may not be successful. Before considering how to combine selling efforts with other marketing communication tools, we first examine the job of personal selling.

The underlying rationale for personal selling is facilitating exchange. As suggested by a personal selling expert, it is "the art of successfully persuading prospects or customers to buy products or services from which they can derive suitable benefits, thereby increasing their total satisfaction". A professional salesperson recognizes that the long-term success for the organization depends on consistently satisfying the needs of a significant segment of its target market. This modem view of selling has been called "nonmanipulative selling," and the emphasis of this view is that selling should build mutual trust and respect. between buyer and seller. Benefit must come to both parties. This perspective is developed further in the Integrated Marketing box that follows.