and Digital UNIT 11 PERSONAL SELLING, PUBLIC RELATIONS AND EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING

Structure 11.0 Objectives 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Personal Selling – Definition and Meaning 11.3 Approaches to Personal Selling 11.4 Contribution of Personal Selling to Event Marketing 11.5 Sales Creativity 11.6 Public Relations 11.7 The New Role of PR: Experiential Marketing for Experiences 11.8 11.9 Conclusion 11.10 Let Us Sum Up 11.11 Keywords 11.12 References and Suggested Readings 11.13 Check Your Progress - Possible Answers

11.0 OBJECTIVES

The previous three Units of this Block in which we discussed brand building, , and helped us to understand that the market as well as consumer engagement have seen a significant shift in the recent years. In the present Unit, we shall be discussing other important traditional tools like personal selling and public relations, along with the emerging trends in experiential marketing, through events, that focus on creating experiences for consumers. Although these tools are characteristically different, they play a significant role in event marketing and promotion and eventually have a lot of synergy with the concept of event marketing. After reading this Unit, you will be able to: • Understand the role of personal selling as an effective marketing communication and promotional tool, and in maintaining long term relationships with customers; • Identify different selling skills through sales creativity; • Highlight the role of public relations in maintaining an organization’s reputation and public perceptions; • Understand and explain the very significant role of experiential marketing through events for establishing relationships with ; and • Describe the role of direct marketing in event promotion. 95 Event Promotion 11.1 INTRODUCTION The art of personal selling is a traditional and effective marketing tactic which allows the seller to identify a customer’s need and respond to it. The component of interpersonal communication in personal selling, that consists of direct and personal interaction between buyer and seller (person-to-person), is often overlooked by event companies. But here are the facts. Person-to-person selling is what all other promotional activity leads up to. It is necessary for event marketers to understand this. Public relations (PR) have an impact on the overall consumption of an event and is an important tool. The power of direct marketing holds equal significance. It is a cheaper and more focused alternative to the mass communication tactics of public relations and advertising. Experiential marketing is definitely on the agenda of all marketers in today’s times. It helps in establishing a personal connect with consumers and developing a sense of brand recall. This Unit discusses personal selling, public relations, experiential marketing and direct marketing for promoting events. We shall begin our first section with personal selling.

11.2 PERSONAL SELLING – DEFINITION AND MEANING Personal selling is an important form of persuasive communication that takes place between a sales staff and potential buyer. Being a two-way process, personal selling carries great potential of influencing the buyer’s behaviour. Personal selling is a direct communication or interpersonal communication between sales force / organisation’s representatives and individual consumers. The communication involves person-to-person contact through face-to-face interaction, by telephonic / mobile conversation or by e-mails or online chats for the pitching of a product or service to a prospective buyer. It helps to materialize a deal and converts a prospect into customer. Personal selling as a form of persuasive communication has the objective of generating sales, as well as building and maintaining the long-term relationships with the client. It involves selling across the counter or door-to-door selling. In selling across the counter, the customer approaches the shop / store and is attended by a sales person. The customer may visit the seller physically or contact them via phone, email and online chat. In door-to-door selling, it is the sales person who approaches the customers and generates leads. The sales person may approach the customer by physically visiting her / him or via email, phone and online chat. The key aspects which give an edge to personal selling over other promotional tools are - (i) the ability to generate useful feedbacks during personal interaction which could be utilized to make improvements in the product and the services as well, and; (ii) to customize the presentation according to the needs and understanding of the potential customer with whom the sales person is communicating. Presence of these features gives personal selling immense power to generate sales for the company and keep personal selling superior to advertising and sales promotion in converting demand for the product and services into actual purchases. The term personal selling has been defined by Stanton as follows - Personal selling consists of individual personal communication, in contrast to the mass 96 impersonal communication of advertising, sales promotion and other promotional Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential tools. This definition conveys to us that the performance of personal selling as a Marketing promotional tool depends on the individual’s (sales person’s) personal communication skills. This means that a company (event organizer) must be very prudent in selecting sale persons. Only professional sales people, who are skilled, will be able to use the features of personal selling to their advantage and bring out sales effectively. Kotler has described sales-led organizations as ‘fearing’ that customer will not buy unless there are concerted sale efforts made by the organizations. Without selling you will get no customers, and without customers there can be no business.

11.3 APPROACHES TO PERSONAL SELLING

Personal selling as an element of plays a significant role in building and maintaining long term relationships. Today, companies focus a lot on training and mentoring of the sales team as they have realized that the significance of personal selling goes beyond the achievement of a single sale transaction. With this concept, personal selling has created a distinguished space for itself in the customer relationship management. Sales persons build these relationships by listening to the customers, attending to their needs and coming up with customized solutions. Personal selling may take several forms to reach out to customers including calls and mails from company’s sales representatives; assistance by a sales clerk; personal interaction at stalls; showrooms and malls; an informal invitation from one company’s executive to another; and event venues seeking regular and repeat bookings from local businesses. There are no glossy brochures, no stories, no competitions or gimmicks, but plain person-to-person selling, which leads to other promotional activity. Broadly, personal selling techniques are categorized into two basic approaches. These are sales-oriented approach and customer-oriented approach. Kotler et al. highlight the contrasting behavior and tactics used in these two approaches.

Sales-oriented approach - This approach uses high pressure sales technique, exaggerates product’s merits and criticizes competitor’s product. The approach believes that customers buy only when they are under pressure and get influenced by a slick presentation.

Customer-oriented approach - This approach analyses the customer’s need, the salesperson listens to them and questions them to get thorough understanding of their issues, to work towards providing appropriate solutions. For them customer’s needs present an opportunity for building loyal relationships.

The two approaches clearly bring out the intent of what the company wants to achieve from personal selling. Customer-oriented approach aiming at building long term relationships, definitely increases the satisfaction among customers and contributes directly to the efforts of customer relationship management.

11.4 CONTRIBUTION OF PERSONAL SELLING TO EVENT MARKETING

The definition of sales promotion given by Stanton (in section 11.2), conveys that personal selling is that promotional tool which consists of person-to-person 97 Event Promotion communication, in contrast to advertising and sales promotion. Many times an advertisement is able to influence the consumers and motivate them towards the product but consumers may have some doubts or require more information about the product before they finally make a purchase. In such situations, personal selling creates that platform where sales people can interact with consumers, provide them with the required information and clear their doubts. Personal selling helps to overcome the inertia that keeps the consumers away from buying and stimulates the consumption process by reducing people’s reluctance to make a purchase decision.

To understand the contribution of personal selling in event marketing, one has to acknowledge the complexity of contemporary events. Today, events are not just a way to share and celebrate one’s happy moment but have evolved as a full blown professional sector having nation-wide economic impact. Events have to be understood not just in terms of staging but also in the way they are managed and operated backend, promoted, executed, monitored and evaluated. Event organizers in their attempt to convert event as a memorable experience for consumers are more than willing to outsource different aspects of an event and attain the best of expertise. In such scenarios, the role of personal selling as an element of promotion mix is of two folds in event marketing. On one side, the event managers heavily depend on the selling skills of different suppliers and vendors offering the required products and services to them such as catering, venue, lighting, sound, music and so on for their events. For instance, the overall experience of holding a wedding at a particular destination or in a particular venue cannot be tried in advance of the event itself. Therefore, the onus is on sales people to represent their venue and destinations accurately before the event managers, and to live up to all the commitments made in order to build long term relationships. Similarly on the other side, the event organizers themselves need to create a good sales team or develop selling skills to represent their events before different sponsors and donors to attract funds and sponsorships for the event, as well as before the potential audience to have more and more participation. Such needs of event organizers create the wide scope for personal selling as a promotional tool on both sides of event management.

Personal selling becomes more prominent in the B2B (Business-to-Business) event sector, where the norm is to call potential attendees and let them know about the event. When large trade fairs, shows and exhibitions are to be held, personal visits, telephonic calls and e-mails are used to sign up exhibitors. Social contacts, business associations and dealers can help in identifying potential buyers. The list of customers can also be obtained from Internet and various trade shows organized by the companies. The salespersons must be fully familiar with the event, the market and the selling techniques. They should be well-informed about the competitor’s products and the degree of competition. They should also be acquainted with the motives and behavior of prospective buyers. Also, for those events which are organized annually or at regular intervals, personal selling serves as an effective tool to know about the problems and grievances of consumers and other stakeholders in the past events and an opportunity to improve upon that. With their interactive relationship involving direct communication with the end user, sales people can convince the unsatisfied consumers / stakeholders taking them into confidence.

98 Another advantage that personal selling provides to event marketing is increasing Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential the customer’s level of spending. Effective sales people very often use the Marketing techniques of upselling and cross-selling advising their customers either to purchase additional products or higher- products thus, engaging them into more spending. Before we look into the significance of upselling and cross- selling in event marketing, let us simultaneously also learn about these two techniques:

Upselling technique: In this technique, the sales person advises the buyer to go for higher priced products instead of the one that has already been selected. For example, replacing a simple serving of tea during tea break of an international level conference, with a high tea including cookies, sandwiches, Danish pastries and cutlets.

Cross-selling technique: In this technique, the customer is introduced to additional products which are not directly and necessarily linked with their actual list of purchase. The technique is also frequently used in event marketing. For instance, a wedding planner may try to sell a honeymoon package also for the couple’s post-wedding event.

Both the techniques have the objective of increasing sales of the company. However to maintain the buyer-seller relationship the seller has to fulfill all the promises and make their customers as regular customers instead of focusing on making one time sales transaction. The presentation of the salesperson should be matched with the attitude of the prospect (customer) so that the salesperson can continuously hold the prospect’s attention and create interest in the event. The sales message has to be succinctly conveyed, i.e., it has to be conveyed as to why the event is relevant to the consumer answering the phone.

According to Reic, personal selling is an integral part of event management and marketing process. It occurs in the following ways: • On-site ticket sales (B2C) – although this has reduced because of the rise in digital media, early bird registration, and online ticketing (which is paperless). • The event hosts and hostesses who take care of event attendees, and attend to them to see that they are comfortable in the event ((B2C). • Selling the conference participation or exhibition space (B2B) – direct communication has to take place for such products and services, between event organizers and potential event participants. • Pitching events for sponsorship (B2B). • Pitching events for getting relevant permits or financial support from the local government or other relevant bodies (B2B). • Pitching events for celebrity endorsement (B2C).

Many event management companies find it expedient or speedy to extensively use personal selling to achieve promotional objectives. Keeping in view their target markets, event managers and event marketers adopt this method in a big way. Companies which cannot afford a large outlay for advertising on a regular basis find personal selling a more reliable method. For example caterers providing 99 Event Promotion catering services in various personal events go in for personal selling rather than advertising. In cases of small scale social and personal events, personal selling is the only promotional tool. For example - in local fund raisers, networking events, small scale religious events, social gatherings, meetings and other such events, one can only use the form of interpersonal communication which is personal selling to invite attendees to the concerned event.

One of the important features of personal selling is the opportunity of demonstrating products before customers. Again, this feature is used in various aspects of event management. The caterer may demonstrate catering services to an event company by personally meeting and demonstrating / presenting the products used in catering. In an event like auto expo, personal selling as a promotion mix cannot be escaped. Various automobiles are demonstrated in an auto expo which is possible only through personal selling. However presentations or demonstrations are likely to create doubts and questions in the minds of customers. It is the duty of the salesperson to clear all doubts and objections without entering into a controversy or losing temper. The sales persons can guide the customers in making a choice without imposing their own views.

11.5 SALES CREATIVITY Sales creativity is a term used to define different levels of selling skills. Burke and Resnick state that sales creativity may range from simple order-taking on one side of the scale, which are routine requests from existing customers, to truly creative selling, on another side of the scale, that involves sales professionals. In creative selling for instance, a professional sales person may be employed to convince the target customer for destination wedding. According to Rogers and Davidson, personal selling is used by a wide range of staff employed by venues and destinations. Customers of conferences and conventions are highly dependent on the advice and guidance by sales professionals who are responsible for selling venues and destinations. The main characteristic of professional sales people is that professional sales people are responsible for servicing existing clients in addition to creating demand for their products and identifying potential consumers. However, one should not underestimate the role of simple order takers. This is because every sales person has a role to contribute in customer’s satisfaction level. Even the simple order taker with her / his selling skills like a hotel receptionist who suggests the delegate to use hotel-spa or pool facilities, or even a waiter who proposes a finer bottle of wine, can increase the event and venue’s sale and add to the customer’s experience. Kotler et al. highlighted the following possible tasks of a professional sales person: • Prospecting - Finding and cultivating new customers; • Targeting - Deciding how to allocate their scarce time among prospects and customers; • Communicating - Communicating information about the company’s product and services; • Selling - Approaching, presenting, answering objections and closing sales; • Servicing - Consulting on customers’ problems, and rendering technical assistance; 100 • Information gathering - Conducting and intelligence Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential work; and Marketing • Allocating - Deciding which customers to allocate scarce products to, during product shortages. With the right knowledge, selling and communication skills, sales persons can effectively leverage the features of personal selling to generate sales for the organization, and convert buyers into regular customers.

Intext Activity 1. Visit an event and identify the types of personal selling techniques being used in the event.

Check Your Progress I Note: Use the space provided for your answer 1) Define personal selling. Highlight the characteristics that give it an edge over other promotion tools......

2) Name the two approaches used in personal selling and describe them......

3) How does personal selling contribute to event promotion? Explain in detail......

101 Event Promotion 4) How is personal selling an integral part of event management and marketing process according to Reic? ......

5) What is sales creativity? ......

11.6 PUBLIC RELATIONS

Public Relations (PR) is an important component of marketing communication mix. It deals with establishing and maintaining an organisation’s reputation and public perceptions. Events that engage in PR for their promotion, aim that the stakeholders’ perceptions of an event are in line with the event’s image, which it wants to portray. The future performance of events which is recurring in nature greatly depends on the strength of the event’s brand and its reputation among the public. Here, PR as a marketing communication tool has a significant role to play. It helps in determining event sales, consumer’s response towards the event and overall attitude of the general public towards the event.

The term ‘public relations’ clearly states that it is a relationship between event and public, where ‘public’ is much wider than the ‘target audience’. Jackson has defined event publics as those individuals and groups who share some interest, perceptions or beliefs about that event, which can be positive or negative. Therefore for it to be an effective marketing communication tool, PR requires a strong understanding of event publics by event organisers. Event publics include all those stakeholders who are connected to the event in some way or the other, at particular stages in the event management process, and can affect the performance of the event. In other words event stakeholder is any group or individual who can affect or is affected by the event. Broadly, the event stakeholders may include - event organisers, event team, event participants, event attendees, suppliers or vendors, event volunteers or temporary staff, event sponsors, local community, media people, local, state and national level government bodies, various socially active groups and general public.

Different stakeholders may have different expectations from the event based on which the event organisers may design the strategy for public relations. Careful co-ordination of communication messages across different stakeholders including 102 different media channels is required. In fact, media channels and press release Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential are a dominating approach of any PR campaign. Successful PR strategies must Marketing be executed to manage an event’s overall image. A third party publicizing the event gives it more credibility than a big advertisement. The print or broadcast media are the third party and are effective. To ensure favourable media coverage, the event manager should master the art of press release. People who work in events and marketing field would be already familiar with writing press releases. When writing a press release, the event manager will face a tough crowd of journalists. Journalists get press releases everyday. Hence the event manager must make their job as easy as possible. The skill of the event manager is to not just tell the media contacts that the event is happening, but to match a newsworthy story of the event with an appropriate media source and their audience. While preparing a press release, the following checklist has been recommended by Dowson and Basset:

Checklist for preparing a press release • All the important information is included in the first couple of sentences – the five Ws (Who, What, Why, Where and When); • A catchy headline is used to grab the reader’s attention; • Relevant facts and figures are provided to back up the story; • Relevant and interesting quotes are used; • A clear and prominent call to action (eg. do you want the readers to buy a ticket?); • Use simple language and keep the sentences short; and • Check the press release repeatedly for grammatical errors.

Press release has been discussed in detail in the next Unit on Media Management. To understand the process of creating good personal relationship with media and press refer to Unit-8 of Course 3. As PR deals with an event’s reputation and public perception, PR campaigns must be evaluated for their performance. Being an intangible form of marketing communication, it is difficult to measure its exact contribution in generating an event image among public. Despite this challenge PR remains an important marketing communication tool.

11.7 THE NEW ROLE OF PR: EXPERIENTIAL MARKETING FOR BRAND EXPERIENCES

Experiential marketing means marketing through events, giving consumers an opportunity to engage themselves in an interactive experience and develop emotional attachment for the brand. It is sensory driven. Consumers are social. We have already learnt earlier that unlike traditional tools of marketing communication where consumers are passive receivers of the message, experiential marketing engages consumers to participate and develop a relationship with the brand. Events give them the ‘experience’ and ‘feel’ factor. Hence experiential marketing is also referred as .

Schmitt expanded on Pine and Gilmore’s notion about the experience economy. According to Schmitt, experiential marketing is relevant in creating brands as a 103 Event Promotion rich source of sensory, effective and cognitive associations that result in memorable and rewarding brand experiences. A brand experience is tagged as being delivered effectively when it is supported by the following five Strategic Experiential Modules (SEMs): • SENSE - creating sensory experiences through engagement of the five senses (sight, smell, touch, taste and sound). • FEEL - effective responses are evoked in an individual by appealing her / his inner feelings and emotions. • THINK - Engaging individuals in a creative way by creating cognitive, problem-solving experiences. • ACT - Individuals get the chance to do things in alternative ways, alternative lifestyles and interactions. • RELATE - Engaging the audiences on all the above four levels, with an aim of relating the individual to something outside of her / his current self.

Experiential marketing has emerged as a growing trend to gain competitive advantage and as a new way to deal with customer perception towards the brand. Events, due to their interactive and immersive nature, enable consumers to willingly engage in event activities and to comprehend brand message fully. By providing memorable experiences, events definitely affect customer’s attitude, mood and behaviour.

Experiential is about real, sustained engagement, often through innovative story telling. There is ‘storyfication’ (in the form of story), of a brand’s marketing outreach. It is not just about immersive experiences for the brand’s audiences, but also about the brand becoming a part of the experience. A good example is the on-ground activity called ‘Darr Ke Aage Jeet Hai’ (Beyond fear lies victory) which was organized for Mountain Dew, a brand that is popular with the adventurous and bold spirit of the youth, by Bandwidth Events. The purpose of Mountain Dew was to create a unique property that would make Mountain Dew similar to alternate sports, and strengthen the consumers’ connection with the brand - Mountain Dew. Mountain Dew also wanted the property to encourage their sales driven consumer programme across nine states in India, where Mountain Dew would be sold for a discounted price of rupees five. Bandwidth events organized a touring stunt biking show by using 09 teams of 190 people including stunt biking professionals in 09 states, 320 locations across 200 towns, engaging audiences. The audiences engaged and participated to overcome their fears. This was Mountain Dew’s biggest activation and received a good response, because it created experiences like never before for the audience.

Experiential marketing has three dimensions: sponsorship, live brand experiences and . According to Lagae, sponsorship is usually defined as a formalised, reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationship between two parties - the sponsoring brand (or sponsor) and the sponsored party. This relationship involves an exchange of money, goods, services and know-how offered by the sponsor, and the rights to be associated with a particular individual, event or organisation, which are offered by the sponsored property. Commercial sponsorship started developing rapidly since the establishment of modern Olympic Games in 1896. Reic has explained that sponsorship is widely used today in 104 events management because it helps brands to establish an emotional connection Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential with their target audiences, and provides depth in brand meaning, due to its Marketing experiential component. It links the event experiences to the brand, and facilitates the meaning and image transfer between the two. You have already learnt about ‘image transfer’ in the Unit on Brand Building. Event sponsorship is a highly useful and effective marketing communications tool for engaging with the ‘evolved’ consumer.

Live brand experiences are events that are organised only and solely for promoting one particular brand; they are considered as extensions of that particular brand. A good example is the event series - the Red Bull FlugTag series. Launched in Vienna, Austria in 1991, this event currently takes place around the world, in over 35 cities. Guerrilla marketing derives its name from guerrilla warfare (where a heavily equipped big group is defeated by a technically weak and small military group by using a surprise element through a creative approach). In guerrilla marketing, a surprising and unexpected mini event is organised to generate buzz and target the consumer (usually a large existing audience) to evoke positive feelings, which are then projected onto the brand on whose behalf the activity was organised. It is used as a publicity stunt by using the element of surprise, with the chief purpose of capturing audience’s attention for a very brief amount of time. This kind of marketing is considered as a contemporary, creative and innovative approach to marketing and is being increasingly used by traditional marketers today, as mainstream marketing.

To make the impact memorable, the brand has to make consumers a part of its experience across media. Technological advancements have made brands to further move into virtual experiential marketing using internet. Let us ask ourselves this question. What happens when experiential marketing meets digital marketing? To integrate both effectively, brands use social media. For example, in 2015, stationery maker Kakuyo Camlin posted a video response congratulating Google on its logo. The video brought in a direct and super fun connection between the graphics, crayon like, that were created as Google’s new logo, and Camlin’s range of crayons. This helped the Camlin brand to establish a brand connect with the consumer. This is a good example of real time marketing by a brand (Camlin here). It also shows the rising trend of brands trying to integrate experiential with social media trends for consumer outreach. Another good example which explains the use of digital technology is of the Hero MotoCorp. It was the first Indian brand to feature interactive 360 degree videos of their complete bike range on website. These videos not only gave a showroom like experience but also made the visitors to come back to the website on a repeated basis. When Samsung launched their S3 series, they came up with gaming apps built in their phones. Besides this, customers were allowed to click pictures and get instant pin-up badges ready for themselves. An experiential marketing campaign has to be something new and exciting, something that the consumers have never seen before. Creativity and innovation come into play in an experiential marketing campaign.

Digital technology is making it easier to ‘wow’ consumers by providing new experiences. This is evident from the above examples. However, in experiential marketing, brands not only need to use social media but need to also behave socially. Brands need to treat audiences as friends. For example Camlin used an app to provide consumers a creative and artistic way to express themselves on 105 Event Promotion festivals like Rakshabandhan and Ganeshotsav. Experiential has also opened up ways for the event marketer to use videos through live streaming. Brands also flock social media in the form of crowd-sourced content. Viral content is that content which comes from consumer experiences, leaving viewers with positive feelings about the brand.

Experiential marketing enables easy tracking of data at events and activations. Tracking of data pertains to - how many people actually engaged with the set up, how many successfully completed the activity, how many posted on social media using the relevant hashtag, and so on. All this information is available to that brand. These details allow event managers to make more informed decisions in future experiential campaigns.

Fig. 11.1: Cadbury Bournville mall activation It is clear that creative and innovative ambience of an event stimulates the senses of consumers. This further paves way for developing a positive attitude towards the brand, by strengthening the brand image and influencing consumer’s perception. Fig 11.1 displays the Cadbury Bournville mall activation by Candid Marketing. Fig 11.2 displays on-ground activities by Maybelline New York, executed by Vibgyor Events, at the Amazon India Fashion Week, in the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, New Delhi, 2016.

106 Fig. 11.2: Maybelline, on-ground, at the Amazon India Fashion Week Experiential marketing can thus be said as the new face of PR marketing Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential communication tool. The future sees more technological innovations in event Marketing marketing, which will aid any brand in creating outstanding experiences for their customers.

11.8 DIRECT MARKETING

Direct marketing is another kind of marketing that reaches out to the existing, past and future customers directly, by mostly using a personalised material that is designed to promote a particular product or service. Earlier it used to be through specifically targeted material for marketing, like newsletters, handouts, catalogues and promotional flyers. Street flyering is also a form of direct marketing where teams of people, called street teams, hand out flyers and other promotional material to people walking by in the street. In today’s times, through digital media direct marketing has become simpler, easier and more prevalent than before by way of digital promotional materials like e-newsletters, sales promotion discounts and much more, that get delivered straight to a person’s inbox. The main channels of direct marketing are- emails, leaflets, circulars, , free publications, catalogue, magazines offering information, demonstrations, TV or radio promoting a ‘call to action’, text messaging etc Direct marketing represents a more focused alternative as compared to advertising, sales promotion and public relations which are mass communication tactics. It should not be confused with personal selling since both involve establishing a direct relationship (person to person) with the customer. Personal selling is more interactive, precise and flexible i.e. the salesperson may customize the presentation according to the needs and understanding of the potential customers. Direct marketing, on the other hand, is more or less rigid, imprecise and mostly one way communication. For instance, the telemarketers in direct marketing though are communicating with the customers individually but they may just be reading the same scripts to all of their customers. For them the person on the other side of the call is less important. What is important to them is the volume of calls, unlike personal selling where the salesperson is really trying hard to customize the solution, creating a relationship and closing the deal. Direct marketing messages usually involve a specific ‘call to action’ such as ‘call this toll-free number’, ‘see our website for more details’ and ‘click this link to subscribe’. These messages are aimed to initiate a conversation with the customers. The results of direct marketing campaign are measurable immediately as one can track the number of responses that have been received through a message’s call to action. This makes the evaluation of direct marketing campaign fairly easy unlike evaluation of public relations and advertising. Usually, the effectiveness of direct marketing campaign is evaluated in ratios including- cost per enquiry, cost per order, response rate etc. One of the critical aspects of direct marketing is the availability of customer database. The database including name, contact details, demographic details, occupation, lifestyle and other information allows the marketers to identify potential customers and design the future direct marketing campaign. Direct marketing is of course a cheaper , however, for the effective and successful promotion of an event it is essential that even marketers understand the target audiences, their interests and preferences and accordingly design the appropriate marketing communication strategy. 107 Event Promotion 11.9 CONCLUSION

The success of an event ultimately depends on the ability to sell effectively. Personal selling converts a potential customer into an existing customer, due to its persuasive nature. Hence it cannot be ignored by event managers. The traditional marketing tactic of public relations is still a very dominant approach in the events industry. Experiential marketing is evidently a powerful and effective tool for promoting brands. It is sensory-driven. Experiential marketing is where the future of the event industry greatly lies. It has made marketing today effective with a more personalized experience, by connecting with brands at the emotional level. Storytelling is used as a means of experiential engagement during events and with online audiences. It gives a fresh and innovative take on creating emotions among consumers, and this aspect gives room for adequate use of technology. The importance of direct marketing which reaches out to existing, past and potential customers on a personal level cannot be ignored either and is very much utilized by the event industry. The marketing tactics covered in this Unit give us food for thought on how these tactics fit into the event sector and how they can be further improved according to customers’ needs. In our next and the last Unit of this Course we shall be learning about media management, and the role it plays in event promotion.

Check Your Progress II Note: Use the space provided for your answer 1) What is meant by public relations (PR) and publics? ......

2) Why is press release important in a PR campaign? ......

3) What is experiential marketing? ...... 108 Personal Selling, Public 4) Name the five Strategic Experiential Modules (SEM) that affect brand Relations and Experiential experience. Marketing ......

5) How does experiential marketing have a competitive advantage and affect consumer perception? ......

6) Describe briefly the three dimensions of experiential marketing......

7) What happens when experiential marketing meets digital marketing? Explain giving examples......

8) Does experiential marketing enable tracking of data? If yes, then explain its use...... 109 Event Promotion 9) What are the channels of direct marketing? ......

10) How is direct marketing different from personal selling? ......

11.10 LET US SUM UP

This Unit has attempted to explain the role of personal selling as a powerful marketing tool that leads up to promotional activities. Its message can be tailored to individual customers, and enables their immediate feedback and reaction. The Unit brings out various forms of personal selling used in events management, including the B2B and B2C event sectors. Sales creativity can be employed on customers for creating demand, and can also be used to identify potential customers. Public relations play a significant role in affecting the stakeholders’ perceptions of the event and to see if these perceptions are oriented to the event’s image. Effective PR helps in determining event sales, consumer’s response towards the event and the attitude of the people towards the event. To ensure favourable media coverage, the event manager must master the art of press release. Experiential marketing campaigns create emotive experiences and drive meaningful engagements between the brand and consumers. They are powerful brand promotion tools. The connection between brand and consumers will increase brand recall, influence perceptions and will eventually drive purchase decisions. Experiential marketing has three dimensions: sponsorship, live brand experiences and guerilla marketing. To integrate experiential marketing with digital marketing, brands use social media. In today’s times, direct marketing is used to reach out to existing, past and future customers through channels like e- mails, telemarketing etc. However, it is for the event marketers to design the appropriate marketing communication strategy for successful event promotion.

11.11 KEYWORDS

Real time : An event happening in actual time 110 Personal Selling, Public 11.12 REFERENCES AND SUGGESTED READINGS Relations and Experiential Marketing Burke, J. and Resnick, B. (2000). Marketing and Selling the Travel Product. Independence: Delmar Thomson Learning. BW Applause February-March 2016 available at www.applause.com accessed 21/06/2016 Cant, M.C.and Herdeen Van, C.H. (2008). Personel Selling. Capetown: Juta Academic. Dowson, Ruth and Bassett, David (2015). Event Planning and Management. UK: Kogan Page Ltd. Freeman, R.E.(1984). Strategic Management: A stakeholder approach. London: Pitman. Gupta, CB. (2007). Advertisement and Personal selling. 14th edn. New Delhi: Sultan Chand and Sons. Kotler, P., Bowen, J., and Makens, J. (2003). Marketing for Hospitality and Tourism. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall. Lagae, W.(2005). Sports Sponsorship and Marketing Communications: A European Perspective. Harlow: FT Prentice Hall. Pine, J.P. and Gilmore, J.H. (1999). The Experience Economy: Work is theater and every business a stage. Boston: Harvard Business School Press. Reic, Ivna (2017). Events : A Consumer Perspective. Oxon: Routledge. Rogers, Tony and Davidson, Rob (2016). Marketing Destination and Venues for Conferences, Convention and Business Events. New York: Butterworth- Heinemann. Schmitt, B. (1999). Experiential Marketing. Journal of Marketing Management, 15 (1-3), pp. 53-67. Shaw, Eric H. and Tadajewski, Mark (2008). The History of Marketing Thought. California: Sage Publications. Sprio, R., Stanton, W. and Rich, G. (2007). Management of a Sales Force. 12th edn. New York: McGraw-Hill. Stanton, W. J., Etzel, M. J. and Walker, B. J. (1994). Fundamentals of Marketing. New York: McGraw-Hill.

11.13 CHECK YOUR PROGRESS - POSSIBLE ANSWERS

Check Your Progress I

1) Personal selling is a direct communication or interpersonal communication between sales force / organisation’s representatives and individual consumers. Personal selling as defined by Stanton: Personal selling consists 111 Event Promotion of individual personal communication, in contrast to the mass impersonal communication of advertising, sales promotion and other promotional tools. Communication in personal selling involves person-to-person contact through face-to-face interaction, by telephonic / mobile conversation or by e-mails or online chats for pitching of a product or service to a prospective buyer. It helps to materialize a deal, is persuasive in nature and converts a prospect into customer. Personal selling has an edge over other promotional tools because of - (i) the ability to generate useful feedbacks during personal interaction which could be utilized to make improvements in the product and the services as well, and; (ii) to customize the presentation according to the needs and understanding of the potential customer with whom the sales person is communicating. Presence of these features gives personal selling immense power to generate sales for the company and keep personal selling superior to advertising and sales promotion.

2) The two approaches used in personal selling are sales-oriented approach and customer-oriented approach. (i) Sales-oriented approach - This approach uses high pressure sales technique, exaggerates product’s merits and criticizes competitor’s product. The approach believes that customers buy only when they are under pressure and get influenced by a slick presentation. (ii) Customer-oriented approach - This approach analyses the customer’s need, the salesperson listens to them and questions them to get thorough understanding of their issues, to work towards providing appropriate solutions. For them customer’s needs present an opportunity for building loyal relationships. Customer-oriented approach aiming at building long term relationships, definitely increases the satisfaction among customers and contributes directly to the efforts of customer relationship management.

3) To understand the contribution of personal selling in event marketing, one has to acknowledge the complexity of contemporary events. Events have to be understood not just in terms of staging but also in the way they are managed and operated backend, promoted, executed, monitored and evaluated. The role of personal selling as an element of promotion mix is of two folds. On one side, the event managers heavily depend on the selling skills of different suppliers and vendors offering the required products and services to them such as catering, venue, lighting, sound, music and so on for their events. Similarly on the other side, the event organizers themselves need to create a good sales team or develop selling skills to represent their events before different sponsors and donors to attract funds and sponsorships for the event, as well as before the potential audience to have more and more participation. Personal selling becomes more prominent in the B2B (Business-to-Business) event sector, where the norm is to call potential attendees and let them know about the event. When large trade fairs, shows and exhibitions are to be held, personal visits, telephonic calls and e-mails are used to sign up exhibitors. Social contacts, business associations and dealers can help in identifying potential buyers. With their interactive relationship involving direct communication with the end user, sales people can convince the unsatisfied consumers / stakeholders taking them into confidence, and increase the customer’s level of spending by using the techniques of upselling and cross-selling. 112 4) Personal selling is an integral part of event management and marketing Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential process, as according to Reic, it occurs in the following ways: Marketing • On-site ticket sales (B2C) – although this has reduced because of the rise in digital media. • Event hosts and hostesses take care of event attendees, and attend to them in the event (B2C). • Selling the conference participation or exhibition space (B2B) – direct communication has to take place for such products and services, between event organizers and potential event participants. • Pitching events for sponsorship (B2B). • Pitching events for getting relevant permits or financial support from the local government or other relevant bodies (B2B). • Pitching events for celebrity endorsement (B2C). 5) Sales creativity is a term used to define different levels of selling skills. It may range from simple order-taking on one side of the scale, which are routine requests from existing customers, to truly creative selling, on another side of the scale, that involves sales professionals. In creative selling for instance, the professional sales person may be employed to convince the target customer for destination wedding.

Check Your Progress II

1) Public Relations deals with establishing and maintaining an organisation’s reputation and public perceptions. Events that engage in PR for their promotion aim that the stakeholders’ perceptions of an event are in line with the event’s image, which it wants to portray. The future performance of events which is recurring in nature greatly depends on the strength of the event’s brand and its reputation among the public. The term ‘public relations’ means the relationship between event and public, where ‘public’ is much wider than the ‘target audience’. Jackson has defined event publics as those individuals and groups who share some interest, perceptions or beliefs about that event, which can be positive or negative. Therefore for it to be an effective marketing communication tool, PR requires a strong understanding of event publics by event organisers. Event publics include all those stakeholders who are connected to the event - the event organisers, event team, event participants, event attendees, suppliers or vendors, event volunteers or temporary staff, event sponsors, local community, media people, local, state and national level government bodies, various socially active groups and general public.

2) To manage an event’s overall image press release is one of the important PR strategies. A third party publicizing the event gives it more credibility than a big advertisement. The print or broadcast media are the third party and are effective. To ensure favourable media coverage, the event manager should master the art of press release. When writing a press release, the event manager will face a tough crowd of journalists. The skill of the event manager is to not just tell the media contacts that the event is happening, but to match a newsworthy story of the event with an appropriate media source and their audience. 113 Event Promotion 3) Experiential marketing means marketing through events. In events consumers get an opportunity to engage themselves in an interactive experience and develop emotional attachment for the brand. It is sensory driven, and consumers participate and develop a relationship with the brand. This gives them the ‘experience’ and ‘feel’ factor. Therefore experiential marketing is also referred to as engagement marketing.

4) The five Strategic Experiental Modules (SEMs) that affect brand experience are sense, feel, think, act and relate.

5) Experiential marketing has a competitive advantage over traditional tools of marketing communication and affects customer perception towards the brand. Because of the interactive and immersive nature, consumers willingly engage in event activities and are able to comprehend brand message fully. By providing memorable experiences, events definitely affect customer’s attitude, mood and behaviour. Experiential is also about real, sustained engagement, often through innovative story telling. There is ‘storyfication’ of a brand’s marketing outreach. It is not just about immersive experiences for the brand’s audiences, but also about the brand becoming a part of the experience. A good example is the on-ground activity called ‘Darr Ke Aage Jeet Hai’ (Beyond fear lies victory) which was organized for Mountain Dew, a brand that is popular with the adventurous and bold spirit of the youth, by Bandwidth Events. It was Mountain Dew’s biggest activation and received a good response, because it created experiences like never before for the audience.

6) The three dimensions of experiential marketing are: sponsorship, live brand experiences and guerrilla marketing. According to Lagae, sponsorship is defined as a formalised, reciprocal and mutually beneficial relationship between two parties - the sponsoring brand (or sponsor) and the sponsored party. This relationship involves an exchange of money, goods, services and know-how offered by the sponsor, and the rights to be associated with a particular individual, event or organisation, which are offered by the sponsored property. According to Reic, sponsorship is widely used today in events management because it helps brands to establish an emotional connection with their target audiences, and provides depth in brand meaning, due to its experiential component. It links the event experiences to the brand, and facilitates the meaning and image transfer between the two. Live brand experiences are events that are organised only and solely for promoting one particular brand; they are considered as extensions of that particular brand. A good example is the event series - the Red Bull FlugTag series. Launched in Vienna, Austria in 1991, this event currently takes place around the world, in over 35 cities. Guerrilla marketing derives its name from guerrilla warfare and is a surprising and unexpected mini event, organised to generate buzz and target the consumer (a large existing audience) to evoke positive feelings, which are then projected onto the brand on whose behalf the activity was organised. It is a contemporary, creative and innovative approach being used by traditional marketers today, as mainstream marketing.

7) Social media is used by brands to integrate experiential marketing with digital marketing. A good example is of stationery maker Kakuyo Camlin, which posted a video response congratulating Google on its logo. The video 114 brought in a direct and super fun connection between crayon like graphics Personal Selling, Public Relations and Experiential that were created as Google’s new logo and Camlin’s range of crayons. Marketing This helped Camlin to establish a brand connect with the consumer and real time marketing by a brand. Another good example is of the Hero MotoCorp, using digital technology. It was the first Indian brand to feature interactive 360 degree videos of their complete bike range on website. Such videos make vistors to come back to the website on a repeated basis. When Samsung launched their S3 series, they came up with gaming apps built in their phones. Besides this, customers were allowed to click pictures and get instant pin-up badges. An experiential marketing campaign has to be something new and exciting that consumers have never seen before. These examples show the rising trend of brands trying to integrate experiential with social media trends for consumer outreach, by using creativity and innovation to affect consumer perceptions.

8) Yes. Experiential marketing enables easy tracking of data at events and activations; like tracking of data on how many people actually engaged with the set up, how many successfully completed the activity, how many posted on social media using the relevant hashtag, and so on. All this information is available to that brand. These details allow event managers to make more informed decisions in future experiential campaigns.

9) The channels of direct marketing traditionally are newsletters, handouts, catalogues, promotional flyers. Street flyering is also a form of direct marketing where teams of people (street teams) hand out flyers and other promotional material to people. In today’s times, direct marketing happens through digital promotional materials like e-newsletters, sales promotion discounts and much more. The main channels of direct marketing are - emails, leaflets, circulars, telemarketing, free publications, catalogue, magazines offering information, demonstrations, TV or radio promoting a ‘call to action’, text messaging etc.

10) Personal selling is more interactive, precise and flexible i.e. the salesperson may customize the presentation according to the needs and understandings of the potential customers. Direct marketing, on the other hand, is more or less rigid, imprecise and mostly one way communication.

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