Marketing is a tool that businesses use to generate more leads and sales. However, more than one vehicle can achieve the same results. Traditional marketing, digital marketing, field marketing (FM), and other forms of marketing are all useful in their own way. Continue reading if you aren’t already using field marketing or aren’t sure how to incorporate it into your own strategy. We’ll explore what field marketing is all about, the job description, the management, manager salary, and other basic facts you need to know.
What is Field Marketing?
Field marketing is a set of activities carried out by highly trained marketers that contribute to a client’s or company’s brand building, customer relationship management, and lead generation efforts. Targeted direct sales promotions, merchandising, auditing, sampling, demonstration, experiential marketing, roadshows, and events are all examples of FM.
FM, according to the Field Marketing Council, is “measurable, face-to-face brand development and customer relationship management through the use of highly trained people.” Field marketers interact with the brand’s customer/prospect base in order to inform, educate, influence, and persuade them to make a purchase decision.
FM in the B2B context have a mix of sales and marketing expertise and interact with customers/prospects through various touchpoints such as events, trade shows, conferences, webinars, and in-person meetings. Field marketers are present in places where there is a high density of prospects, such as shopping malls, street corners, eating establishments, gyms, marathons, and so on.
What Are Benefits Of Field Marketing
Field marketing is one of the many types of marketing that companies can use to achieve measurable results. Here are some of the advantages you may reap from a successful FM campaign.
#1. Improve Your Brand’s Perception
The perception of your brand by customers is important in the decision-making process. If your audience doesn’t know you or has a negative perception of you, it will hurt your chances of doing business with them. So, by attending events with brand representatives, you can strengthen your reputation and gain the trust of potential customers.
#2. Prove Cynical Customer Wrong
What happens when you have haters who dislike or distrust your brand? It can harm your sales, especially now that most consumers prefer to trust the word of their peers over the word of a brand. To counteract this, send field marketers to events to answer questions, distribute samples, and demonstrate hands-on product or service demonstrations.
#3. Build Customer Relationships
Field marketers can provide in-person customer experiences when possible. This leaves an indelible impression on your prospects, who may later decide to purchase from your company. Creating these memorable experiences aids in the development of relationships and trust.
#4. Take Pressure Off the Sales Team
Many field marketers serve as extended salespeople, easing the burden on your sales team. At events, field marketers may sell products and services.
#5. Go After Your Target Market
Both digital and traditional marketing can be effective tools for increasing visibility and traffic from your target audience. Neither, however, can provide the level of audience targeting that FM can. You can target specific attendees who fit your customer profiles at events (both online and offline). Digital marketing allows for more precise audience targeting. Traditional marketing platforms, such as billboards and TV or radio commercials, make this impossible.
#6. Provides Measurable ROI
Because you have real-time insights, measuring the ROI of FM is much easier. This could include the number of people who expressed interest, took a flyer or catalog, tried a sample, and bought something.
#7. Reduce Promotional Expenses
FM expenses are typically low because campaigns can be scaled up or down as needed. In some cases, you can also collaborate with third-party retailers who provide a performance-based model.
What Are the Types of Field Marketing Campaigns?
Field marketers can now use a variety of campaigns to achieve their objectives. Here are four common approaches:
#1. Product Demos
Product giveaways, free samples, and hands-on experiences are the most common FM activities.
#2. Direct Selling
Because some product demos result in actual sales, field marketers keep a stock of items ready to sell on hand.
#3. Guerilla Marketing
This allows field marketers to be more creative with their approach, such as choosing an unusual location. It frequently consists of “feet on the ground” and a lot of imagination and energy.
#4. Retail Audits
A FM team visits stores to collect data on signage, promotional materials, and products, among other things, in order to assess the effectiveness of retailer partnerships.
#5. Tradeshows
This allows businesses to show off their most recent products and services to potential customers (and potential partners).
#6. Conferences
Providing an educational experience is an effective way to attract B2B attendees to an event (and your brand).
#7. VIP Dinners
FM can be a one-on-one (or one-to-group) experience at times. This personalized approach can aid in attracting interested prospects.
What is a Field Marketing Organization?
A field marketing organization is a team of professionals who work together to carry out field marketing campaigns. The following FM positions are available within this organization:
#1. Field marketing representative
The group’s generalist, who may conduct retail audits, product demos, and even direct sales. They also serve as a liaison between sellers and buyers, providing customers with product and service information.
#2. Field Marketing Manager
In charge of hiring, training, and directing FM teams. Creates campaigns and ensures that objectives are met.
#3. Brand Ambassador/Representative
A fee for representing, promoting, or endorsing a product or brand. This could include celebrities or influencers with a large following.
#4. Representative of the Street Team
Participates in guerilla marketing and events, which may include passing out flyers, stickers, samples, and products.
Field Marketing vs. Digital Marketing: What’s Better?
Field marketing is an old method that still works in today’s business environment. However, now that digital marketing has arrived and is rapidly expanding, you may wonder, “Is digital marketing better than field marketing?”
When comparing digital marketing to FM, the goal should not be to determine which is superior. Rather, it should assist in determining how the two can be beneficial to your overall marketing strategy. Both types of marketing can be used for businesses that operate locally or solely online. They are also suitable for B2B and B2C business models.
Simply ensure that both campaigns have clear goals and that they are tracked and monitored to determine success and ROI.
Developing an Actionable B2B Field Marketing Strategy
FM allows you to interact with customers in a variety of ways. If you’re planning a campaign, here are some ideas for an immediate B2B field marketing strategy. You don’t need a multi-million dollar budget or an army of people to launch it if you follow these simple guidelines.
#1. Understand your target market.
Knowing who your target audience is is the first step in developing a field marketing strategy. Learn about their difficulties, job descriptions, and goals. Your message will be more effective if you tailor it to their specific needs.
#2. Use marketing collateral at every touchpoint.
Marketing collateral speaks for your company, so make the most of it to engage with your target audience. To nurture their prospects, B2B field marketers require marketing collaterals such as brochures, case studies, onboarding videos, customer testimonials, images, presentations, and battle cards.
#3. Launch contextual field marketing campaigns
A one-size-fits-all strategy will not work in today’s hyper-personalized world. Instead, we advise launching FM campaigns that appeal to all segments of the target audience.
#4. Understand what the competition is up to.
Your rivalry is always nipping at your heels. So, keep an eye on them to see what they’re up to and stay one step ahead of them. However, it is not as simple as it sounds because it requires tools, resources, and a workforce to complete. Use a competitive intelligence template to collect data that will provide you with a unified view.
#5. Make use of a content management system.
A content management system can assist field marketing managers in discovering content, subscribing to favorite themes, distributing content, and measuring content ROI. CRMs, email providers, marketing automation tools, and other systems integrate with content management systems. It simplifies the process of synchronizing your FM campaigns with your content.
#6. Measure content ROI
Field marketers can track the ROI of their marketing collateral as prospects interact with it. Marketing collateral that captivates the target audience can be produced and distributed more frequently in order to improve buyer conversion. Case studies, images, videos, brochures, powerpoint presentations, and other marketing collateral are used by field marketers in their FM campaigns.
#7. Keep the conversation going.
Far too often, field marketers drop the ball after the campaign is over. To ensure their audience’s continued interest, they must engage them with meaningful marketing collateral long after the marketing campaign has ended.
Field Marketing Job Description
Let us now discuss what a B2B field marketing job description entails. It includes the following:
- Conduct and manage corporate events, campaigns, messaging, and communication programs in collaboration with marketers, sales managers, campaign managers, and product marketing managers.
- To drive sales, align all programs with brand strategy, business objectives, and corporate campaigns.
- Create and review the marketing plan on a regular basis with marketers and sales executives, and align it with corporate marketing to meet the company’s goals and priorities.
- Work with sales teams to understand revenue targets, monitor influenced sales pipelines, and provide quarterly campaign results, adjusting as needed.
- Participate in monthly marketing calls and collaborate with the sales and marketing teams to meet revenue goals.
- Ensure brand positioning and representation, and effectively communicate messages to prospects and customers.
- By logging results in CRMs, you can ensure complete transparency of all field marketing activities and campaigns.
FM is an integral part of overall sales and marketing efforts, and it consistently contributes to brand building.
What Does a Field Marketing Representative Do?
On any given day, field marketers perform a variety of tasks in order to carry out campaigns. Individual campaigns can be made up of a single tactic or several. Product sampling, demonstrations, in-store promotions, street team promotions, leafleting, displaying, special events, lead generation, and retail support are some examples of FM activities.
FM representatives make an effort to connect with every consumer they come into contact with. This is often easier said than done, as consumers are quick to try a product and then abandon it. Field marketers should use open-ended probing questions to gather as much information about buyer demands and market trends as possible.
Field Marketing Manager Salary
A Field Marketing Manager earns an annual salary of $118,250. The average salary of a field marketing manager ranges between $90,000 (at the 25% percentile) and $125,000 (at the 75% percentile). Field Marketing Managers’ pay may include bonuses, commissions, profit sharing, stock options, and RSUs in addition to the base salary. Field Marketing Managers’ average salary typically rises with experience. The average field marketing manager salary may also vary depending on where they work.
What are Field Marketing Activities?
Field marketing activities include sales promotions, onboarding, nurturing, sampling, demonstration, experiential marketing, event planning, roadshows, and conferences.
What is the Importance of Field Marketing?
Field marketing allows brands to interact directly with their target audience and give them firsthand experience with the brand. Field marketing is frequently used at points of sale or during specific events (such as exhibitions, conferences, roadshows, webinars, etc.).
What is Field Marketing in B2B?
Field marketers in a B2B context are both sales and marketing oriented and their job description entails interacting with prospects and customers face to face and across multiple touchpoints. Field marketers can be found at conferences, trade shows, webinars, events, and workshops, for example.
What is the Role of Field Marketing Manager?
Field marketing managers are in charge of the field marketing team’s day-to-day operations. Field marketers promote the brand and raise product awareness by visiting retail locations, events, and other public places. Some field marketers also do direct sales for the company.
What makes a Good Field Marketer?
A good marketer should have strong oral and written communication skills, be creative and open-minded, have strong organizational and planning skills, and have demonstrated team leadership qualities. Good marketers drive processes and can inspire others to see the big picture while completing day-to-day tasks.
How Effective is Field Marketing?
Field marketing is an important touchpoint because it allows customers to interact with a company in person. Customers can learn how to use the product more effectively and share their experiences and pain points, which can all help you provide a better customer experience.
Conclusion
Everything revolves around field marketing. It allows prospects and customers to interact with a product or brand in ways that a traditional buyer-seller relationship does not allow. On the other hand, it enables field marketers to discover how prospects and customers might interact with the brand.
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