Why are Field Marketing and Channel Development Vital for Businesses?

For every company, there is a distinct commonality in wanting to generate sales and drive growth in business. Finding multiple types of market penetration strategies to achieve these goals, within their business models can be time-consuming.

It is imperative to find appropriate deployable strategies within business, as marketing strategies ideally uphold the game plan for every organization. In this post, we uncover two forms of marketing strategies that have proven instrumental in the success and viability of a business; Field Marketing and Channel Development.

Understanding Field Marketing Strategies

The concept of field marketing is as simple as the term; it means to carry out marketing activities by moving beyond online approaches and interacting directly with prospects, personally in a lot of cases.

Field marketing activities include face-to-face interactions, street promotions, billboards, ads or even flyers. Such a method simultaneously deals with marketing and sales-oriented activities, engaging with customers and prospects in a much more direct manner. ?

The Concept of Channel Development Strategy

The term channel development refers to a vendor’s role to move products or services through a chain of commerce, right down to the end user. The purpose of channel strategy is two-fold, to sell the product or service to the consumer, and secondly, to deliver a consistent customer experience (CX).

A channel strategy includes the capabilities to focus on generating brand awareness, rather than tapping into new markets. Such forms of strategies can be customized according to the product or service that is being sold, the target audiences or the type of business that is utilizing it.

How Field Marketing and Channel Development Help Businesses?

Field marketers have work aligned with other marketing and sales teams; they need to operate together in order to achieve a successful outcome. The responsibilities of a field marketer in an organization are to develop marketing plans by optimizing sales, attracting leads and contributing to revenue goals.

They need to ensure transparency throughout all marketing activities, and track the total return on investment (ROI), including other initiatives. Field marketers have in-depth knowledge about the product or service, comprehend the customer, its journey and also provide businesses with periodic reports on their activities.

A channel development strategy includes all steps a vendor / wholesaler / distributor takes or needs to take to connect with their target consumers through multiple channels.

The goal of each channel strategy depends on the company’s overarching marketing and sales objectives. A company with an easy-to-use product or service requires support via brick-and-mortar stores within its channel strategy.

However, with a complex product or service, the channel strategy must consist of after sales service and support to ensure positive customer experiences. This means the system of channel strategy needs to include value-added resellers and system integrators.

Merging the Two Strategies Drives Business Outcomes

Identifying and understanding the concepts of both marketing strategies, what’s discovered is that application and outcome are interlinked. Conceptually, if the two concepts are paired together, businesses will suffice in providing excellent customer service and achieve competitive advantage.

Field marketers establish strong brand awareness that signifies the product or service to target audiences. They establish positive perceptions of the brand, especially when utilized through live demonstrations.

Evidently, this increases the chances of customers trusting the brand, which results into increased sales and revenue generation. Due to its interactive activities, field marketers develop strong relations with customers, and can gain insights from them on ways to enhance their brand loyalty.

Channel development strategy caters to improving the customer experience by developing the ideal pipeline to purchase. It gives room to the organization to expand into new markets and a wider consumer base.

Organizations opt for distribution channels to outsource parts of their processes. This reduces direct marketing and distribution costs, complementing their in-house capabilities. Hence, the outcome of an effective strategy results in scaling faster, acquiring new consumers and increasing sales.

Crux of the matter is, both Field Marketing and Channel Development are equally important for present day businesses. Each has a unique purpose to serve, and positions the brand in its own way, before existing and prospective customers.?