Marketing and Sales Management: Approaches to Satisfy Customers

This essay provides an overview of marketing and sales management, focusing on strategies to satisfy customers and influence buyer behavior. It discusses traditional and modern marketing and sales policies, including customer retention, resource management, and database management. The essay also analyzes various marketing and sales techniques, such as product marketing, value-added approaches, and customer relationship management, highlighting their impact on attracting buyers from specific consumer groups. Furthermore, it explores how information technology and e-commerce have transformed sales processes and customer interactions, emphasizing the role of CRM in building stronger customer relationships and improving sales outcomes. The paper concludes by reiterating the importance of understanding and adapting to changing market dynamics to achieve successful marketing and sales strategies.

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Marketing and Sales Management
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Table of Contents
Introduction.................................................................................................................................................2
Different Approaches to Satisfy Customers.................................................................................................2
Various Marketing and Sales Techniques....................................................................................................3
Marketing and Sales Strategies to Influence Buyer's Behavior....................................................................5
Conclusion...................................................................................................................................................7
References...................................................................................................................................................8

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Introduction
The article will evaluate the nature and the role of salespersons connected with the marketing
planning. The traditional and new marketing and sales policies will be discussed such as
consumer retention and costing and management of resources needed in the application of the
marketing and sales policies. The different approaches will be adopted to satisfy the customers
and business purchasing demands. The paper also analyses the various marketing and sales
techniques, so that the buyers are attracted from the particular consumer's groups. It will also
explain the use of marketing and sales strategies to influence the customer and business
purchaser behavior.
Different Approaches to Satisfy the Customers
The different approaches to the satisfaction of the customers are as follows:
 Consumer Retention Approach - There are two types of customers mentioned in the
article; business to business (B2B) customers and business to consumer (B2C) customers.
Most of the firms had found that 80% of their sales had come from 20% of their clients
(Möller and Parvinen, 2015). So it is important to allocate the considerable amount of
resources to retain their high potential and profitable consumers. Account management has
become an essential part of the sales so that the sales teams could concentrate on the essential
consumers. On the other hand, the firms had found that some of the small consumers are the
actual price of the company's investment. It is due to the distribution and servicing of the
goods provided to those consumers who might generate revenue beyond the expectations.
 Database Management -The sales team had to learn the usage and creation of client's
databases as well as the utilization of the internet to support the sales works. The sales teams
in the past used to record the details of the consumers in cards and sent the orders by post to
the head office. But at present, due to the technical development like the email, smartphones
and video conferencing, the method of collecting the customers' details has changed
(Johnston and Marshall, 2016). Computers and laptops help the salesperson to store the data
of the clients and the competitors and create presentations and interact with the head office
by digital means. Moreover, the data provided by the organization like the catalogs and price
lists could also be held digitally.

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 Customer Relationship Management - The customer relationship management has to make
sure that the sales team concentrates on the long-term and not only on closing the next sale
(Solomon, 2016). The importance has to be on creating successful circumstances with the
consumers so that both the parties are on the favorable terms and continue their relationship.
It might also engage the dedicated sale teams to the service and maintenance of every aspect
of the business relationship.
 Product Marketing -The sales teams are engaged in a much more full range of activities
along with the preparation and presentation of the sales work. The face-to-face presentations
have changed into the web pages presentations and email attachments which provides the
updated information to the consumers on several topics more quickly and more conveniently
than the face-to-face communications (Järvinen and Taiminen, 2016). Most the current sales,
specifically in the case of B2B customers, the salesperson acts as a consultant to recognize
the issue of the consumers, decide the requirements the customers and offer and apply the
efficient solutions.
 Value-added Approach - A salesperson should have the capability to recognize and satisfy
the needs of the consumers. Some of the consumers do not understand their own need. In
these situations, it is the responsibility of the salesperson to help the customers realize their
need. As, customers do not know that the older and less technically developed machines
manufacture low productivity (Agnihotri, Dingus, Hu, and Krush, 2016). A salesperson must
alert the consumer about the issue and to convince them that they need to modernize the
production method. In the whole process, the salesperson would have added value to the
business of the consumers by decreasing the costs and creating a prosperous circumstances
for their consumers and their organization.
Various Marketing and Sales Techniques
The main job of the salesperson is to close a sale successfully. This task of the salesperson
includes recognition of the needs of the consumers, demonstration and presentation, bargaining,
controlling the objections and concluding the sale (Jobber and Lancaster, 2015). Self-
management is vital for the salesperson as they often work individually under personal
supervision. A salesperson has to make their strategy, which might consist of divisions of the
territory into sections, which has to cover regularly and then decide the best route to follow
between the calls (Rodriguez, Peterson and Ajjan, 2015). Most of the salespersons believe that

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the most efficient routing strategy is to drive out to the farthest consumer and then back to home
base. But it had revealed that adopting a round-trip method results in a low mileage. It has been
found that the only 20-30% of the salesperson spent most their day in facing the clients. Another
aspect of the salesperson is taking decisions on the call frequency. It is sensible to categorize the
clients by their potentiality (Homburg, Jozić and Kuehnl, 2017). This concept applies to all
types of sales, but it is sensible to either left it to the salesperson's decisions or arranged centrally
as a sales manager. The risk involved in this method is that the overfriendliness with the clients
rather than the actual possibility of the sales. But it is also true that the salespersons are in the
best position to decide for themselves regarding the need of the time to spend with the clients.
The salesperson working in the same organization for several years depends mostly on some
fixed clients to give the same orders repeatedly instead of searching for new customers. It is a
fact that the salesperson is more comfortable to depend on old customers. However, the nature of
industrial sales is that due to the long product life, the growth of sales relies on seeking and
selling the products to the new consumers (Cummins et al., 2016). The salespersons are in a
better position to give the facility of the consultation to the clients. As they are meeting several
clients each year, they know the solutions to every issue related to the customers. The
salesperson might advise the clients for the improvement of the products or reducing the price.
The salesperson is in charge of the sales and marketing techniques made by the management.
The misunderstanding in the plan could have a severe effect on sales. The credibility of the
minimum cost and higher position in the market could be seriously affected due to the over-
eagerness of the sales teams to provide large discounts on the minimum price. It could be solved
by determining the discount at the managerial level by the sensitivity of the cost of the different
market segments. The sales teams will then decide the cost of the discount for each category of
consumers. This means that the policy of positioning of products will remain the same and
permit the sales teams to implement the required discount. The successful application could
bring the difference between winning and losing new accounts. An efficient method of gaining
an account at the time of severe competition is the diversion (Katsikea and Skarmeas, 2015). The
target is to distract the competitors from focusing its efforts on saving one account and avoid the
others.

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Marketing and Sales Strategies to Influence the Buyer’s Behavior
The internet, e-commerce, information technology (IT), wireless technology and mobiles, each
of these have a significant effect on the productivity and management of the sales teams as well
on the consumer’s behavior (Madhavaram et al., 2017). As, the IT system has rapidly changed
the working and social lives of peoples with the invention of ATMs, laptops, computers, and
household appliances. Landline phones and letters were the media of communication until the
recent past along with the fax and pagers. The smartphones and emails emerged, and the
interaction among the businessmen had become almost instantly. In the past, the salespersons
used the traditional ways to confirm their arrangements and quotations by raising the letters to
close their simple business deals. Firstly these had taken place by fax and then by web-based
purchasing and emails. Also, the role of the secretary had almost disappeared as most of the
salespersons are generating their letters with the help of templates and quotation software. In the
transactional purchases, the consumers could show their quotations by clarifying some criteria by
the web-based purchasing method. The different fields are entered, and automatically the
quotations are produced by the method of web-based purchasing, which is according to the laws
of the organization. At present most of the data are accessed with the help of IT, laptops and
PDAs, not only by the sales teams or the managers, but anybody in the organization who need to
know about the previous agreement with the clients like the customer service or the technical
help (Tarkiainen et al., 2015).
The important benefits of this are that any details related to a client could be entered in their file
so that all would be alert about the discussions, remarks or offers made with the customer. These
methods are currently widely utilized, specifically in larger companies trying to control their
details of the consumer more effectively and with less dependence on paper or human brain
(Arnett and Wittmann, 2014). The Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is widely used in
sales related areas like the banks, manufacturing firms, catalogs and taxi companies where the
record of all previous transactions, explorations, buying profiles and other communications are
preserved. As, the details of related to the family anniversaries, hobbies, likes and dislikes of the
pets could be entered to help in building a more common bond between the salespersons and the
clients involved in the sales procedures. The CRM process provides many benefits in handling
the clients, and recognizing the micro-segments in the entire base of the clients, for highly
concentrated campaigns and advertisement of the marketing (Gammoh et al., 2018). These

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methods are also able to understand and create actual profit and loss statements on the individual
accounts. The competence of the salesperson and the whole firm deals with each customer
separately.

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Conclusion
The paper had explained the nature and the role of salespersons connected with the marketing
planning. The traditional and new marketing and sales policies had been discussed such as
consumer retention and costing and management of resources needed in the application of the
marketing and sales policies. The different approaches had been adopted to satisfy the customers
and business purchasing demands. The article had also analyzed the various marketing and sales
techniques so that the buyers are attracted from the particular consumer's groups. Moreover, it
had explained the use of marketing and sales strategies to influence the customer and business
purchaser behavior.

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References
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