Dealing with the customer in field marketing.

At the centre of any successful business, let alone marketing, is the customer. It is imperative in field marketing- due to the high demand for knowledge of psychology and sociology- that the customers needs are recognised and consistently met.

Within these days of mass production and choice the marketer or entrepreneur must remember to brand. A brand can be marketed and promoted so that the customer becomes familiar with it, bonds with it and will repeat purchases again and again.

The age of the salesperson has gone. Now the consumers' relationship with a brand is far stronger. However it is important that this brand remains human or at least with some aspects of personality and progression.

When dealing with your customers the first thing you must do is identify your customer. Customers are affected by their background, their social or cultural influences and consider matters and think in differing ways. You need to understand your existing and potential customers simultaneously also. You need to find out all about them to serve them better, retain their custom and persuade them to buy more. Not only do you, as a marketer or business manager, need to understand in depth your customer, but every member of your organisation must be briefed so as to communicate effectively in the fashion appropriate to your specific brand.

Once this process is achieved it is time to segment your market. This is sorting all your customers into various classifications so you can better interact with them. This is very useful if each segment has differing patterns of buying. And only necessary if this group of altering psychology would be profitable to pursue. In this instance it is a fantastic idea to store data on your findings so you can reference it in future. Data allow the characteristics of the salesperson to be stored also, so that when there is a requirement to match a particular target audience with appropriate personnel, the right skills are found.

People carry baggage from their culture and social environment from their upbringing, their education and their life experience, and it is easy to make assumptions about how others think and are likely to respond to communications with them. We must remember to accept the fact that the people you are selling to may have a completely different background to yourself. Don't ignore the market research; believe it and act on it.

Here is a simple exercise to help when identifying customers in field marketing; Erase from your mind your own thinking and prejudices. Listen observe and grasp how your target think, communicate and come to conclude. This will help you to learn how the target think and react. This method has been known as 'self-recognition criteria' and will allow you to move on to learn more about them in the future, allowing you to make more informed decisions.