Personal selling

This is the most effective form of promotion because it allows your approach to be tailored to the needs of an individual customer. Getting a sale is ultimately extremely important, but the process involves a lot more than this. It is about having a constructive dialogue with customers to listen to their needs, promote product and company benefits on an individual basis, answer any questions, resolve any problems and get their feedback before clinching a sale.

Face-to-face, a sales person can build a relationship with the customer - understanding their needs and feeding back this knowledge to the business to improve products, customer service standards, competitor knowledge etc. Employing a sales person is a costly exercise in the first instance, but it is one that will provide a pay back, usually within 1-2 years.

For owner/managers of small businesses who may not have sufficient resources to employ such staff, do not forget that a personal approach to customers is still appreciated and is an important part of any business development strategy. Active networking with existing customers, suppliers, business associations and specialised industry groups can also play a valuable role in promoting your business to a wider target audience and the value of this activity should not be underestimated.

Research shows that people need to see an advertisement at least seven times before it starts to mean anything to them. So, to be effective, advertising needs to be conducted regularly in a consistent and 'recognisable' manner.

It can therefore be quite costly. Typical advertising media include Yellow Pages, local newspapers, radio, trade journals, exhibitions and websites. It is also difficult to assess how much business is achieved through 'paid-for' advertising unless you include some form of monitoring scheme (such as a discount voucher) within the advertisement.

What to do now

Once you have completed the plan for your promotional mix, you need to plan and undertake specific promotional activities and make sure they meet your objectives.

• Advertising programmes - These can be expensive and need to be planned ahead in order to meet publishing deadlines.
• Public relations - A campaign will only be a success if it has been planned, coordinated and measured against a desired set of results.
• Sales promotions - These need to be effectively managed by setting objectives for each promotion and evaluating the results after the event.
• Direct marketing - Weigh up the benefits of using your own list against a bought-in list and whatever choice you make, be prepared to follow-up your activity to create the sale.
• Sales representatives - A sales force needs to be motivated and managed to achieve sales targets. They require time and resources for training, motivation and personal development before they become fully effective.