MODULE I

Personal Selling: People Power

Personal selling uses in-person interaction to sell products and services. This type of communication is
carried out by sales representatives, who are the personal connection between a buyer and a company or a
company’s products or services. Salespeople not only inform potential customers about a company’s
product or services, they also use their power of persuasion and remind customers of product
characteristics, service agreements, prices, deals, and much more. In addition to enhancing customer
relationships, this type of marketing communications tool can be a powerful source of customer feedback,
as well. Later we’ll cover marketing alignment with the sales process in greater detail. This section
focuses on personal selling as one possible tool in the promotional mix.

Effective personal selling addresses the buyer’s needs and preferences without making him or her feel
pressured. Good salespeople offer advice, information, and recommendations, and they can help buyers
save money and time during the decision process. The seller should give honest responses to any
questions or objections the buyer has and show that he cares more about meeting the buyer’s needs than
making the sale. Attending to these aspects of personal selling contributes to a strong, trusting
relationship between buyer and seller.[1]

Common Personal Selling Techniques

Common personal selling tools and techniques include the following:

 Sales presentations: in-person or virtual presentations to inform prospective customers about a

product, service, or organization
 Conversations: relationship-building dialogue with prospective buyers for the purposes of
influencing or making sales
 Demonstrations: demonstrating how a product or service works and the benefits it offers,
highlighting advantageous features and how the offering solves problems the customer encounters
 Addressing objections: identifying and addressing the concerns of prospective customers, to
remove any perceived obstacles to making a purchase
 Field selling: sales calls by a sales representative to connect with target customers in person or via
phone
 Retail selling: in-store assistance from a sales clerk to help customers find, select, and purchase
products that meet their needs
 Door-to-door selling: offering products for sale by going door-to-door in a neighborhood
 Consultative selling: consultation with a prospective customer, where a sales representative (or
consultant) learns about the problems the customer wants to solve and recommends solutions to the
customer’s particular problem
 Reference selling: using satisfied customers and their positive experiences to convince target
customers to purchase a product or service

Personal selling minimizes wasted effort, promotes sales, and boosts word-of-mouth marketing. Also,
personal selling measures marketing return on investment (ROI) better than most tools, and it can give
insight into customers’ habits and their responses to a particular marketing campaign or product offer.

When to Use Personal Selling

Not every product or service is a good fit for personal selling. It’s an expensive technique because the
proceeds of the person-to-person sales must cover the salary of the sales representative—on top of all the
other costs of doing business. Whether or not a company uses personal selling as part of its marketing mix
depends on its business model. Most often companies use personal selling when their products or services
are highly technical, specialized, or costly—such as complex software systems, business consulting
services, homes, and automobiles.

In addition, there are certain conditions that favor personal selling: [2]

 Product situation: Personal selling is relatively more effective and economical when a product is
of a high unit value, when it is in the introductory stage of its life cycle, when it requires personal
attention to match consumer needs, or when it requires product demonstration or after-sales
services.
 Market situation: Personal selling is effective when a firm serves a small number of large-size
buyers or a small/local market. Also, it can be used effectively when an indirect channel of
distribution is used for selling to agents or middlemen.
  Company situation: Personal selling is best utilized when a firm is not in a good position to use
impersonal communication media, or it cannot afford to have a large and regular advertising
outlay.
 Consumer behavior situation: Personal selling should be adopted by a company when purchases
are valuable but infrequent, or when competition is at such a level that consumers require
persuasion and follow-up.

It’s important to keep in mind that personal selling is most effective when a company has established an
effective sales-force management system together with a sales force of the right design, size, and
structure. Recruitment, selection, training, supervision, and evaluation of the sales force also obviously
play an important role in the effectiveness of this marketing communication method. [3]

Advantages and Disadvantages of Personal Selling

The most significant strength of personal selling is its flexibility. Salespeople can tailor their presentations
to fit the needs, motives, and behavior of individual customers. A salesperson can gauge the customer’s
reaction to a sales approach and immediately adjust the message to facilitate better understanding.

Personal selling also minimizes wasted effort. Advertisers can spend a lot of time and money on a mass-
marketing message that reaches many people outside the target market (but doesn’t result in additional
sales). In personal selling, the sales force pinpoints the target market, makes a contact, and focuses  effort
that has a strong probability of leading to a sale.

As mentioned above, an additional strength of personal selling is that measuring marketing effectiveness
and determining ROI are far more straightforward for personal selling than for other
marketing communication tools—where recall or attitude change is often the only measurable effect.

Another advantage of personal selling is that a salesperson is in an excellent position to encourage the
customer to act. The one-on-one interaction of personal selling means that a salesperson can effectively
respond to and overcome objections—e.g., concerns or reservations about the product—so that the
customer is more likely to buy. Salespeople can also offer many customized reasons that might spur a
customer to buy, whereas an advertisement offers a limited set of reasons that may not persuade everyone
in the target audience.

A final strength of personal selling is the multiple tasks that the sales force can perform. For example, in
addition to selling, a salesperson can collect payments, service or repair products, return products, and
collect product and marketing information. In fact, salespeople are often the best resources when it comes
to disseminating positive word-of-mouth product information.

High cost is the primary disadvantage of personal selling. With increased competition, higher travel and
lodging costs, and higher salaries, the cost per sales contract continues to rise. Many companies try to
control sales costs by compensating sales representatives through commissions alone, thereby
guaranteeing that salespeople are paid only if they generate sales. However, commission-only salespeople
may become risk averse and only call on clients who have the highest potential return. These salespeople,
then, may miss opportunities to develop a broad base of potential customers that could generate higher
sales revenues in the long run.

Companies can also reduce sales costs by using complementary techniques, such as telemarketing, direct
mail, toll-free numbers for interested customers, and online communication with qualified prospects.
Telemarketing and online communication can further reduce costs by serving as an actual selling vehicle.
Both technologies can deliver sales messages, respond to questions, take payment, and follow up.

A second disadvantage of personal selling is the problem of finding and retaining high-quality people.
Experienced salespeople sometimes realize that the only way their income can outpace their cost-of-living
increase is to change jobs. Also, because of the push for profitability, businesses try to hire experienced
salespeople away from competitors rather than hiring college graduates, who take three to five years
to reach the level of productivity of more experienced salespeople. These two staffing issues have caused
high turnover in many sales forces.
Another weakness of personal selling is message inconsistency. Many salespeople view themselves as
independent from the organization, so they design their own sales techniques, use their own
message strategies, and engage in questionable ploys to generate sales. (You’ll recall our discussion in the
ethics module about the unique challenges that B2B salespeople face.) As a result, it can be difficult to
find a unified company or product message within a sales force or between the sales force and the rest of
the marketing mix.

A final disadvantage of personal selling is that sales-force members have different levels of motivation.
Salespeople may vary in their willingness to make the desired number of sales calls each day; to make
service calls that do not lead directly to sales; or to take full advantage of the technologies available to
them.

How IMC Supports Personal Selling[4]

As with any other marketing communication method, personal selling must be evaluated on the basis of
its contribution to the overall marketing mix. The costs of personal selling can be high and carry risks, but
the returns may be just as high. In addition, when personal selling is supported by other elements of a
well-conceived IMC strategy, it can be very effective indeed.

Consider the following example of Audi, which set out to build a customer-relationship program:

Audi’s goal was to not have the relationship with the customer end after the sale was made. Operating on
the assumption that the company’s best potential customers were also its existing customers, the company
initiated an online program to maintain contact, while allowing its sales force to concentrate on selling.
Based on its television campaign for the new A4 model, Audi offered a downloadable screensaver that
frequently broadcasted updated news and information automatically to the consumers’ computers. After
displaying the screensaver option on its Web site, Audi sent an email to owners and prospects offering
them the opportunity to download it. More than 10,000 people took advantage of the offer. Audi then
began to maintain a continuous dialog with the adopters by sending them newsletters and updates. Click-
through rates ranged from 25 to 35 percent on various parts of the site—well exceeding the standard rates
—and car sales were 25 percent higher than they were the previous year, even in a down economy. [5]

As a result of several coordinated communication methods (TV advertising, email, downloadable

screensaver, newsletters, and product information) and presumably a well-designed customer relationship
management (CRM) system, Audi helped its sales force be more effective (by freeing it up to focus on
sales and by connecting it with more prospective customers), which, turn, meant higher profits.

1. http://smallbusiness.chron.com/strategic-selling-techniques-15747.html   ↵
2. http://www.smetimes.in/smetimes/in-depth/2010/Sep/02/personal-selling-when-and-
how500001.html ↵
3. http://www.smetimes.in/smetimes/in-depth/2010/Sep/02/personal-selling-when-and-
how500001.html ↵
4. http://www.zabanga.us/marketing-communications/how-companies-integrate-personal-
selling-into-the-imc-program.html ↵
5. http://www.zabanga.us/marketing-communications/how-companies-integrate-personal-
selling-into-the-imc-program.html ↵
 MODULE II
Guide on Planning a successful business
A successful marketing plan is an essential and powerful business tool.
Not only does it focus on the why, how, when, where, who and what of your marketing, but also  outlines
the specific, measurable steps you need to take to achieve your goals.
AND, it will give your tourism business the power to:
 Plan for business growth
 Meet and exceed industry benchmarks
 Uncover gaps, opportunities and trends
 Keep your mission at the core of all activities
 Focus your resources and inspire your staff
 Create content and track, test, and tweak the ROI (return on investment)
 Measure the effectiveness of each marketing campaign
 Reach more of your target audience
 Boost your customer base
 And ultimately, increase sales
Marketing and specifically, having a PLAN for your marketing is crucial to the success of your tourism
business. Think of it as your roadmap to success.
Sadly, many small tourism businesses settle for the less than inspiring goal – “sell more this year than
last year so we don’t go broke”.
The reasoning behind this attitude is most likely because they don’t know where to start with a marketing
plan or know how powerful a business tool it really is.
To help your business succeed, we suggest working your way through these ten simple, yet highly
effective steps below.
Within a short-time you will have created your 2020 Tourism Marketing Plan.

Step 1 – Reflect on the Previous Year

According to Harvard Business School, reflecting on what we’ve done teaches us to do it more effectively
the next time around.
Conduct a marketing review of what worked, what did not, what could be improved and what scope you
have for new initiatives. You’ll most likely be amazed at how much you did accomplish in 2019!
Also, use your history to work out your numbers – month on month income, room occupancy, new vs
returning – whatever figures are important to your unique tourism business. These figures will become a
driving factor in what defines the success of your marketing in 2020.
TIP:
Use this review to create in-house benchmark figures for crucial elements such as customer attraction,
satisfaction and loyalty – whatever results you’d like to exceed.

Step 2 – Research Your Industry

Researching the current market trends and actual figures in tourism helps gauge the climate in which you
are doing business.
By reviewing your industry trends, competitor successes and failures you can avoid repeating any
mistakes made and capitalise on any successful initiatives.
You can also benchmark your unique tourism offering against industry standards to provide another
measurement for success.
TIP:
To gain this type of information you may need to undertake the research yourself. However, first stop is
your regional Visitor Information Centre, as well as local and state Tourism Industry Associations.
 Information supplied by South Australian Regional Tourism Profiles

Step 3 – Analyse Your Competitors

With the advent of technology and the online world, small tourism operators can know more about their
competition than ever before.
A competitive analysis covers the strengths and weaknesses of your competition.
By performing a thorough competitor analysis, you will be able to:
 Identify gaps in the market
 Develop new products and services
 Uncover further market trends
 Market and sell more effectively
Keep in mind, there are two types of competitors you may be facing.
1. Direct competitors are businesses that offer a product or service that could pass as a similar substitute
for yours, and that operate in close proximity.
2. Indirect competitors provide products that are not the same as yours, but could satisfy the same
customer need or solve the same problem.
TIP:
These are some common questions to ask yourself when undertaking a marketing competitor analysis:
 Who are your competitors – direct and indirect?
 What is their product or service offering?
 How much market share do they have?
 What were their past marketing strategies?
 Are they using the same strategies now?
 How aggressive are they on the advertising front?
 How competitive are they?
 Are their strengths and weaknesses the same as yours?
 How big of a threat are they to you?
 How do their strategies affect your business?

Step 4 – Write Your Mission Statement

While so often overlooked, your mission statement is crucial as it shapes the culture of your individual
business.
It is what you do/the core of the business and from it comes the goals and finally, what it takes to reach
those goals.
It drives the business by conveying your reason for being to your staff, stakeholders and guests.
Every piece of content you create should be rooted in your mission statement, from the tone of voice to
the call-to-action.
Mission statement questions look like:
 What do we do?
 Whom do we serve?
 How do we serve them?
Examples from the tourism industry
TripAdvisor
“To help people around the world plan and have the perfect trip.”
Virgin Atlantic Airways
“To embrace the human spirit and let it fly.”
Tourism Australia
“To make Australia the most desirable destination on earth.”

TIP:
Your marketing and content strategy should support your business mission statement — think of it as the
HOW of what you do.
This helps you stay on track, true to your brand and true to your goals.

Step 5 – Undertake a SWOT Analysis

A SWOT analysis refers to strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats and is a simple yet
powerful planning tool.
It is one of the easiest ways to learn more about your business and where it sits in the external and internal
environment.
SWOT divides an overall environmental analysis into two components: internal issues (strengths and
weaknesses) and external issues (opportunities and threats).

TIP:
This level of analysis enables a tourism business to determine whether there are factors present that will
aid in the achievement of specific marketing objective (due to an existing strength or opportunity) or if
there are obstacles that must be overcome before the desired outcome can be realised (due to weaknesses
or threats).

Step 6 – Determine Your Ideal Target Audience

An essential element in your marketing plan is knowing who you want your marketing campaigns to
connect with.
You don’t just want anyone and everyone – you want to create a very clear picture of who your ideal
customers are.
They’re the ones your marketing messages will hit home with, who love and appreciate what you offer
and will happily pay the price you charge.
You may have several audiences, but the clearer you become, the easier it is to:
 Understand their why for choosing your tourism business
 Shape your product and service offering
 Set your price points
 Align the efforts of your management, marketing, sales and customer service teams
 Know what types of marketing campaigns will be most attractive
 Understand and easily hone in on particular benefits and features in your marketing
 Create key messages and content that truly resonates and connects with your ideal audience

TIP:
Start by creating an ideal customer avatar for your tourism business offerings. This will enable you to
relate on a personal level to your target audience and will set the tone, content and marketing strategies. A
great place to start is by using The HubSpot Ideal Customer Avatar (Free Tool).

Step 7 – Define Your 4Ps

Your marketing mix is the combination of factors your small tourism business can control to promote
your brand, attract and influence customers to purchase your product.
The 4Ps are a central part of your marketing plan and are made up of:
 product
 price
 place
 promotion
The easiest way to define your 4P’s is to ask yourself a series of questions relating to each element.
Product
 What does your customer want from your product or service? Does it satisfy a specific need?
 How and where will your customer use your product?
 What features and benefits does your product have?
 How is your product different from the offerings of your competitors?
 What does your product look like in terms of colour, shape and size?
 What is the name of your product?
 How will you brand your product?
Price
 What is the customer’s perceived value of your product?
 Are there established price points for the product or service you offer?
 How will a small increase or decrease in price affect bookings and sales?
 Are your customers price sensitive?
 Can you undercut your competition without hurting your bottom line?
 What discounts can you offer?
 Can you offer extra value that will allow you to charge more for the product?
Place
 Where do people look for products such as yours?
 Who offers products similar to yours?
 What distribution channels do you need and how can you access them?
 Do you need a sales force or intermediaries to help you sell?
 Where are your competitors selling their products?
Promotion
 Can you reach your customers through traditional advertising channels such as TV, radio, press
or outdoor advertising?
 How can you promote your business to consumers online & using social media?
 Are there certain times of the year when your customers are more likely to buy?
 How do your competitors promote their products?
 What ideas of your competitors can you use?
 How can you promote your products differently than your competitors?
TIP:
You can use the above questions to help you define your 4 P’s. Your answers in turn will help you
determine which direction to take in terms of marketing strategy and tactics.

Step 8 – Set your SMART Goals

Your marketing goals need to be tied in to your overall business goals.
Examples might include:
  Increase brand advocacy and awareness – growing the number of people that know about your
tourism business.
 Enhance market penetration – selling more to existing customers.
 Increase lead acquisition – capturing details so you can remarket.
 Market development – selling to new target markets.
However, you need to then go one step further and turn them into tourism SMART goals.
These are:
 Specific
 Measurable
 Achievable
 Relevant
 Time-bound
“If it can’t be measured it can’t be managed” – Peter Ducker
By having clear and manageable goals, you can more effectively direct your resources and most
importantly, you can measure the success of your marketing strategy.
TIP:
What is so wonderful about the digital age is that your online marketing efforts can now be measured so it
is easy to create SMART goals. Examples include – Increase website traffic by 30% by the end of 30
June 2019. Increase email subscribers each month by 100.

Step 9 – Outline Your Strategies & Tactics

Now that your SMART goals for your tourism business are set, you can then create the strategies and
tactics you will use to reach these goals.
Put simply, the strategy is HOW you will achieve your goal and the tactic is the WHAT.
This forms the actionable steps of your marketing plan and the timing to put them into place.
Your strategies could be achieved by using any or all of the following:
 Printed marketing collateral
 Signage
 Online & digital marketing
 Social media
 Websites
 PPC advertising
 Traditional media (press, radio, TV, outdoor)
 Trade shows and events
 Public relations
 Email marketing
 Referral campaigns & word of mouth
 Lead generation
You may find it easiest to list your tourism SMART goals and then make bullet points of what strategies
can support each goal, as well as what target audience you’ll reach.
From this, you can then expand into each tactic and explain the actions needed – for example this could
include your social media calendar or your content marketing plan.
Let’s take the first SMART goal in Step 8 – to achieve this you may need to create regular content and
post on social media. You may also wish to create a PPC campaign.
TIP:
When creating your action plan for executing your strategies and tactics, make sure you include what
metrics you will use to measure your success! If you don’t analyse your campaigns, you’re wasting your
precious dollars.

Step 10 – Set Your Budget

In your business plan, you detailed the entire financial side of your business.
But in your marketing plan, stay focused strictly on marketing related activities.
How much do you plan to spend on marketing and promotion throughout the next year, and how much
will the action items you listed above cost you?
And where will this money come from?
TIP:
Make sure that you are realistic about what tactics you can employ in the coming year – keeping in mind
what internal and external resources you have available.
It is one thing to clearly identify your target market, objectives, strategies and action plan – but you need
to ensure you can pay for the resources to get it done!

Step 11 – Get to It!

Once you’ve worked your way through these steps, your successful tourism marketing plan will include
the following elements:
 Executive Summary (write this last)
 Mission Statement
 Industry & Competitor Review
 SWOT Analysis
 Target Audience
 Marketing Mix
 Objectives & SMART goals
 Strategies & Action Plan
 Budget
 Evaluation & measurement
Of course, now you have a marketing plan, don’t let it sit in a draw and gather dust. Put it into action and
review it monthly and quarterly.
If a strategy is not working, review and refine it.
And remember, if you don’t have a plan – all roads lead there!