A Comprehensive Guide to Field Marketing

Field marketing is a type of marketing in which companies place their products in front of consumers “in the field” at retail outlets, events, college campuses, and other public places.

Field marketing includes promotions, demonstrations, and direct sales. Depending on the business and campaign, the aims of field marketing may include brand exposure, improved sales at specific locations, and increased involvement with local buying communities.

Field marketing – the definition

Field marketing is a strategy employed by highly-trained people to establish brands, client relationships, and generate leads for a client or business. Typically, it entails face-to-face encounters with prospects and customers.

The year 2020 altered the services that field marketers can provide for companies. However, there are methods for continuing to use this strategy to drive sales.

Field marketing event types

Field marketing events offer an ideal platform for customer relationship management and face-to-face brand growth strategies.

In-person events

In-person events such as trade fairs, workshops, and conferences, as well as virtual events such as webinars, allow marketers to directly pitch their product or service to prospective clients at the point of encounter.

This way, customers become familiar with the company and its offers, which increases the likelihood of converting.

Guerilla

Guerrilla marketing is a collection of unique and unorthodox marketing strategies used to promote a product or service by invoking surprise, awe, or shock in clients.

The aim is to capture the attention of the target audience quickly in order to generate buzz and promote word-of-mouth publicity.

Product demos

Product demonstrations are the most prevalent kind of field marketing. For food and beverage brands, these often take the form of freebies, in which a brand representative delivers free samples to consumers at retail outlets, at events, or on the street.

Typically, product demonstrations for non-consumable commodities consist of interactive demonstrations in which potential consumers are given hands-on experience utilizing the product or observing it in operation.

Direct sales

Brand representatives engage in direct sales with customers at the time of engagement. Brands frequently couple direct sales tactics with product demonstrations, capitalizing on consumers’ interest in the product after trying it.

What about virtual field marketing?

The pandemic made a lot of sales and marketing professionals switch from the traditional methods to the virtual world. Similar to welcoming someone into your living room, kitchen, or backyard, you’re inviting them into your virtual conference room.

To make the most of this opportunity, personalize interactions to gain a deep understanding of your audience. If you want to create an effective virtual field marketing experience, Hoppier has some great tips.

To improve your chances of success, keep this:

1. Encourage attendees to invite a guest when hosting a modest virtual event. This will make them feel more at ease and provide you with access to more potential consumers.
2. Asking amusing questions is a wonderful method to stimulate audience participation.
3. Customize your events to their use case. Your virtual field marketing events should be relevant and brief.

Field marketing benefits

Finally, let’s go through the main benefits of field marketing.

Better experience

Field marketing helps brands to interact directly with their target audience and gives them the opportunity to experience the brand in person.

Field marketing occurs frequently at the point of sale or at certain events. These are perfect opportunities to gain the prospect’s mindshare, instill brand values, and increase brand loyalty prior to conversion.

More maneuvering areas for sales reps

Customers are intelligent, knowledgeable, and better-informed. As they seek solutions to their questions, they are interested in rapid pleasure rather than drawn-out negotiations.

Field marketing is ideal for dealing with skeptical clients because field marketers may respond in real-time during product demonstrations, onboarding, events, webinars, and point-of-sale (POS) engagements.

Consistency

Field marketing contributes to the delivery of a consistent customer experience whenever and wherever the customer interacts with the brand.

In today’s fast-paced world, once customers have purchased a product or utilized a service, they expect to be recognized and acknowledged.

For instance, after a consumer has visited a retail store, they want the store to know everything about them throughout subsequent interactions.

Field marketing representatives can provide clients with consistent responses to all of their questions, increasing customer confidence in the business.

Targeting

Sales promotions, onboarding, nurturing, demonstration, experiential marketing, events, roadshows, and conferences are all effective field marketing activities.

After analyzing their target demographic, field marketers choose venues, formats, in-house (and external) expertise, and marketing assets. This helps them target their audience’s needs.

Final words

In a highly individualized environment, you shouldn’t approach your field marketing initiatives in a generic fashion.

Consumers (both B2C and B2B) are used to personalized experiences, so a one-size-fits-all approach will not suffice. Therefore, it’s essential to create field marketing programs that cater to various target demographics.

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