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Marketing Using Personal Interactions

by William Dupree

In today's world there are too many marketing messages for prospects and customers to remember. It is essential that marketers create a memorable message. One way of accomplishing this is by creating personal interaction with your prospects. These interactions can be through a website, personal selling, sponsoring key events, trade show attendance, and seminars.

1) Websites. Your website should not only provide information on the products and services that you are offering, but allow prospects to request information by e-mailing you with questions or concerns that they may have. Your reply to these e-mails should be prompt, not more that 24 hours. You should show prospects how to find information, such as article on the subject, and provide links to these articles on your website.

Your website should articulate and provide support for all the functional goals that your prospects can have for your product. An example of this would be purchasing a boat. You could purchase it to go fishing, to have day trips on a local lake with family and friends, or boating could be a hobby that the prospect simply enjoys. Each one of these activities would require you to provide different information to the potential customer. The more functional goals you can demonstrate and provide support for will increase the market size for that product.

Create personal connections with prospects and clients. Reach out to your prospects and customers with up-to-minute information on the products and services that you are selling. Use e-mail and your website to give prospects and customers a resource that will help them solve their problems and help you establish a positive, and trusting relationship with them.

2) Personal selling. Personal selling involves face-to-face relationship between sellers and potential customers. This allows you to interact with your prospects directly with a need satisfying approach to selling your product or service.

Personal selling can use the "black box" approach; which is asking questions to the prospect looking to get a "yes", "yes" response to gain information allowing you to make the sale.

You can use the selling formula approach, where only the outline is set. This requires only a little knowledge of the prospects business.

3) Sponsoring key events. Sporting goods stores sponsor sporting events for their customers. Service or professional businesses may sponsor forums or panel discussions at association meetings. These are two examples of events that a business runs to gain exposure, build credibility, and find new prospects through these social interactive activities. Event marketing is also being used by prospects when they run their own sports tournaments, take customers to sporting events, or sponsor a show or musical tour.

Game manufactures frequently introduce a game by sponsoring contests where people playing their games can win prizes. That type of contest can generate free publicity and can draw big crowds.

4) Trade show attendance. Trade shows are a great way to interact with prospects. You can demonstrate your product and answer directly any question that any potential prospect has about the product or service.

The gathering of current and potential customers at a trade show allows you to build relationships with your current clients, and look to establish new ones with new clients.

Trade shows allow you to do an in depth demonstration of what your product can do to solve a potential clients problem, and allows you to explain in depth all the functional goals of your product.

5) Seminars. For a business a well publicized seminar does several things. It produces a large number of quality leads and builds credibility. By putting your business or service in a position to educate potential clients you now have the opportunity to interact with them in a positive way.

By conducting research to find out what information your target customer group wants to know, and needs to know to satisfy their needs, you will be able to hold seminars that will best serve your clients and potential clients.

You can hold seminars along with other companies, with a local association, with a university professor, or on your own on any topic of importance to your customers.

In today's crowded market place staying on top of the competition isn't something that will just happen. The use of interactive marketing strategies is the best way to market products and services today. These techniques will allow you to deliver the right product to the right customer at the right price, and create an impact on customers that they will remember.

William Dupree who has over 20 years of experience in interactive marketing. He is the owner of Interactive Marketing & Promotional Solutions located in New York City, which specializes in developing interactive marketing strategies for small businesses.

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