Tag: commodity consumers

Internal Marketing- 2 ways

by admin

Why do commodities company care for Internal Marketing? The sales employee of a company is the first brand ambassador of the product, even for commodities. He addresses both the aspects: speaks positively about the quality of the product and company in front of the customers and acts as eyes and ears for the company, feeding important information about recent trends in the market. That is why, internal marketing for commodity companies is a critical input to transition from commodity to brand.

Internal Marketing for Employee Motivation

Internal marketing programs fall in two categories: individual motivation & team motivation.

Internal Marketing
Internal Marketing- 2 ways

Individual motivation

Individual motivation programs can have one or many goals. They are towards promoting product sales of an existing or new brand, increasing the network or increasing market share. They can also be aimed to increase repeat purchase volumes, new customer acquisition and other criteria or any other short-term goal of the commodity company.

Trainings on technical specifications and uniqueness of the product are the basic know-how needed. Marketing Department often gives them tools which makes them better sales personnel and enable them to sound more convincing in front of the customer. Sessions on company plans, salesmanship, customer psychology, marketing activities of competitors and communication and negotiation skills are the major trainings provided towards achieving the individual goals. Company also provides them technical support assurance to customers and quick access to customer profile information. 

Empowerment is equally important for individual motivation. To empower them in front of the customers, company gives them authority to approve modest price discount authority. At the end, rewards for better than average performance are needed. Rewards in this program include cash awards/ recognition, promotions, company stock, paid time off, salary hike, special bonus, etc. Rewards are majorly dependent on the individual’s performance and is generally in the form of monthly or quarterly sales bonuses. The sales manager has a key role in this and he has to steer each person to achieving his target.

Team motivation

Companies indulge in Group motivation programs to boost the morale of the team, inculcate team playing behaviours and achieve short term goal through the team. For instance, the aim of a company is to increase the sales in a market. A sales target is assigned to the sales team and periodic updates are sent to the sales team about the achievement vis-a-vis target. In case of shortfall from a salesperson, other salespersons either try to absorb the deficit quantity in their influence areas or motivate the laggard salesperson. Such programs lead to sharing of marketing ideas and instill a team spirit. The marketing, logistics and technical teams are also generally part of such programs.

Enablers towards achieving the team goals are the slightly different from individual motivation programs. They include trainings on team spirit, working across cultures, company profile and industry overview among others. Rewards in this program include team recognition, company stock, team outing, special training programs, etc. Regular communications from the management also help in internal marketing of the products, especially if the communication is about new markets entered, industry updates or product enhancements.

A larger motivation program includes activities addressing the entire organization. This involves building a good corporate culture, imbibing the company’s values into the minds of employees, following good HR practices, regular communications from the top management about developments in the company and industry, transparency in dealing with employees for promotions, entry and exit and following industry-standards compensation and benefits policy.

Companies focusing on sales keep reacting to competitive activities or innovating new campaigns but often forget to motivate their salesforce. They must not forget that internal marketing is one of the legs in the tripod on which product marketing rests, the other two being creating customer pull and increasing the channel network presence.

3 Types of consumers

by admin

Most companies do not sell material directly to the end user. There are often channel partners in between. But they have realized the importance of various types of consumers because end customers will recognize the commodity as a brand only if they have had an experience with the brand. As a result, companies are trying to have touch points with all types of consumers.

The engagement with the customers happens sometimes even before they start using the product. For instance, building materials companies are getting information from retailers about new construction activity to start in their area and sending handbooks on good construction practices to the house builders. The handbooks also promote a specific brand.

Similarly, when the house builder is doing roof-casting, the companies are sending their technical personnel to supervise the work. At the site, the technical person is also demonstrating how their brand is superior to the customers. A paint company is providing complete house painting as a service. Customers just need to call their customer care and the company sends its personnel with the catalogue for colour selection. After the customer has made his choice, the company arranges for painters to paint the house under their supervision.

It is due to the recognition of importance of consumers that commodities companies are now-a-days participating in trade shows. There is no guarantee of getting any order there but it will increase their brand recall. Company personnel also get an opportunity to interact with the house builders and understand the latent needs of the market. This also gives an opportunity to gather Competitive Intelligence.

Companies are trying to even make the purchasing of the commodity also an experience for the customers. Case in point, Ultratech Building Solutions shoppe, where the customers just don’t get cement only, but also all other building materials like paints, white cement, steel, etc.

It is due to the recognition of the importance of consumers that companies are conducting awareness meetings with the customers, wherein they explain their products’ USP. To incentivize them to taste their product, they are running short-term offers like freebies, scratch cards, etc. Surveys are conducted with the customers to understand the brand’s strengths and weaknesses to get pointers for any course correction if needed. End users are gradually becoming the primary focus for commodity companies and those who realized it first are the brand leaders now.

Types of Consumers

While it is important to recognize the importance of consumers, it is also imperative to understand the types of consumers. Customers come in all shapes and sizes and have to be dealt accordingly.

types of consumers
Types of consumers
  1. Followers: Most of the customers will fall in this category. They are looking for functional need satisfaction. Their dealings with a brand very transactional. They enquire about the various options available from the retailers or influencers and purchase the best option. They are more influenced by the influencers like masons & retailers, advertisements, celebrity endorsements, etc. If they like the product after usage, they keep this to themselves. If they don’t like a product, they follow up with the company’s customer complaint redressal channel and are satisfied with refund or replacement.
  2. Independents: Apart from hearsay, the independent customers also gather information from other sources like online reviews or talking to users known to them. They have more specific functional needs than the followers and compare the various options available in the market on various parameters.
  3. Promoters: The promoters are emotional customers. They go an extra mile to actively promote a product if they like it. They will post messages online on why they are liking the product, like social media pages of the company and actively promote the product to their acquaintances/ followers. In case of a dissatisfaction also, they will go an extra mile and do negative propaganda of the product.

Despite a few distinct characteristics of each type of consumer, it is difficult to bucket every consumer in one type. Also, the characteristic changes for different types of products.