
Marketing Series:
Mastering Face-to-Face Marketing
by Gene Muchanski, Editor
The Dive Industry Professional
One of the best forms of marketing is face-to-face marketing. It is also the oldest form of marketing that has been used in the diving industry for seventy years now. With the accepted use of face-to-face marketing, you would think it is well understood and practiced seamlessly throughout the industry. But that’s not the case. Although some dive marketers use it very successfully, some think it is too costly, time consuming, and unproductive. Some even think because it is an old idea, it is therefore no longer relevant in the modern-day marketing paradigm. Let’s examine some of the components of a face-to-face marketing campaign and I’ll let you decide for yourself.
There are many different types of face-to-face campaigns. I like to compare the advantages and disadvantages of Business to Business, Business to Consumer, and Consumer to Consumer. I bet you never heard of C-to-C selling before? I just made it up.
Business to Business Selling: A popular B-to-B selling method occurs when a sales rep visits their accounts for a sales call. Studies have been done to show how capitally intensive this method is. Sure, it can be effective, but it does take a lot of time, money, and manpower to execute. A more realistic and cost-effective way to succeed at B-to-B selling is by exhibiting at a Trade Show. The event takes place in 1-4 days and has many advantages. Large numbers of accounts visit with their vendors, reestablish relationships, receive updates on programs, products, and services, and write orders on the spot. New Dealers can be acquired by exhibiting vendors at their booths.
The Dive Industry Association has been recommending another way to acquire new dealers and sell to current dealers, at consumer dive shows. When local dive store dealers attend their Regional Dive Shows, they find out that their vendors are exhibiting at the show. I don’t know why these vendors think that only end users of their products are attending the shows? By adding a small trade-focused component to their booth, they can do B-to-B business with their current customers and hopefully gain new dealers.
The same argument holds true for other watersports trade shows. Exhibitors at the Surf Expo have been under the impression that only sporting goods dealers (big box) buy their snorkeling line at the Surf Expo. In recent times, there has been a focus on Freediving and Spearfishing Dealers at Surf. My argument is that Florida has 24% (207 dive stores) of all the Dive Retailers in the United States. That is a pretty big market to exclude, when you are spending so much to exhibit at a very well-attended trade show.
Another twist on business-to-business marketing can be conducted by equipment, training, or travel vendors with their regional dealers, using FAM trips. As a FAM Trip Leader, I have experienced the relationship bonding that takes place when a vendor escorts a group of Qualified Retail Buyers on a 5–7-day familiarization trip. In my opinion, this is face-to-face selling perfected.
Business to Consumer Selling: B-to-C selling is hotly debated in the diving industry for a number of reasons. The major stumbling block is that the diving industry has not yet come to grips with customer centricity. Sure, we all want to reach that elusive six million diver market, but as the band Counting Crows, in their song “Mr. Jones” says, “We all want to be big stars, but we don’t know why and we don’t know how.”
Thank God for Dive Industry Planners. I believe the key to reaching the global diving consumer market is to understand diving consumers and consumer behavior. It’s not all about you and your product, it’s mainly about consumer needs, wants, and desires. It’s about building a Global Diving Business Network that produces the goods and services consuming divers need, want, and are willing to purchase. It’s about meeting their needs so they can actively participate safely in diving and diving related activities.
The first step in developing successful business to consumer campaigns is to understand the difference between marketing and selling. Producers (vendors) of diving and diving related programs, products, and services spend a lot of time, money, and manpower marketing, advertising, and promoting their company and their products. They may call if brand marketing, but we call it for what it is…spending money on advertising with no call to action for the consumer.
The diving industry is made up of buyers and sellers of diving and diving related programs, products, and services. The global diving community relies on the global diving business network to provide them with diving equipment, diving services, training, travel, and lifestyle products so they can safely and enjoyably participate in diving and diving related activities. The diving industry relies on a workable channel of distribution to manage the flow of goods and services from producer to consumer. Ou Industry Marketing Professionals oversee the exchange of goods and services from conception to consumption. The Dive Industry Professionals in our industry support and work in both the supply and demand sides of our economy.
As the diving industry’s premier Membership-Trade Association, the purpose of the Dive Industry Association is to bring buyers and sellers together. Our objective, therefore, is to build the marketing bridge that connects buyers and sellers. It is our call to action to research, study, create, and manage successful, cost-effective ways of communicating, marketing, and selling through the supply and demand chains of our industry.
There are many ways to reach the general public. Some are traditional and some are new because of the age of digitized data, images, and objects. We are at the cross-roads of traditional and digital now and hopefully will be able to develop and recommend a channel of distribution that is amiable to all components in our supply and demand chains.
Consumer to Consumer Selling: Consumer to Consumer? What do you think Opinion Leaders are? How about influencers? Does your company have any Product Ambassadors? Welcome to the day and age where face-to-face meets word of mouth and social media influence all at once. Combine a word of mouth and social media campaign with a call-to-action, and you’ll have the potential to increase your brand recognition and sales conversions using 21st Century marketing tools.
Hybrid Marketing Solutions: If you are using a 20th Century approach to face-to-face marketing campaigns, you may be disappointed in the results. Instead, think of face-to-face as the final part of an integrated marketing campaign. A 21st Century approach utilizes a Customer’s Purchasing Journey format. A customer’s purchasing journey begins as a non-customer and ends with a positive conversion, which we call a sale. A customer’s journey is also referred to as a conversion chain. It starts off with getting a person’s attention in your product or your company and moving them along a path that includes impressions, visits, becoming leads, demonstrating interest, and after following a call-to-action, becoming a customer.
Using modern-day marketing concepts, it is recommended to start a customer’s journey using inbound marketing vehicles that allow your future customer to learn about your company and your product before they meet you in person. Digital marketing vehicles help prepare your customers that you plan to meet in a person-to-person scenario, such as a sales call or dive show, to become familiar with you ahead of time. This way, meeting them at a dive store or dive show will not be a cold call. My favorite magazine advertisement of all times was conducted by McGraw Hill Magazines. It starts off with “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know your company.” And it ends with “Now – what was it you wanted to sell me?” They showed us that sales start before your salesman calls.
Inbound marketing cuts down on the time to a successful conversion in a face-to-face scenario. Your potential customer is already familiar with you, your company, and your product. They may have even progressed from first time impression, through qualified marketing and qualified sales lead. All that is left for you to do is break the ice upon meeting them and moving on to close the sale.
Sales Reps that exhibit at trade and consumer shows know that making appointments with their current customers prior to seeing them in person is extremely beneficial. The same things goes for scheduling meetings with new clients for trade show floor time. Don’t make the mistake of spending thousands of dollars exhibiting at trade or consumer dive shows and not scheduling appointments with potential customers. Having a booth at a dive show that attendees are not aware of gives you only about 3 seconds of time to get a passing-by attendee to notice you and stop at your booth to engage. With proper prior planning, face-to-face marketing can be very successful for you and your company.
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