Field Marketing Explained: Key Strategies & Benefits

In many ways, the definition of field marketing matches what you might expect. It is a broad term that refers to a long list of marketing activities that are performed “in the field.”

What is field marketing?

Field marketing is a series of activities performed by highly trained marketers who contribute to the brand building, customer relationship management, and customer generation efforts of a company.

Field marketing includes targeted direct sales promotions , merchandising, auditing, sampling, demonstration, experiential marketing, organizing promotions, and events.

field marketing defined by The Field Marketing Council as

“measurable face-to-face brand development and customer relationship management through the use of highly skilled people.”

Field marketers are responsible for interacting with a brand's customer/potential customer base to inform, educate, influence and persuade them to make a purchasing decision.

In a B2B context , field marketers have a mix of sales and marketing experience and interact with customers/prospects across multiple touchpoints such as events, trade shows, conferences, webinars, and in-person meetings.

In a B2C context, field marketers are located in locations where there is a high density of prospects – in malls, street corners, eating places, gyms, marathons, etc.

Benefits of field marketing

Field marketers are highly trained to meet the needs of their target audience and are fully aware of their business and brand values.

Here are the most important advantages of field marketing that every company can experience:

1. Improves brand perception

Using field marketing brands can interact directly with their target audience and allows them to experience the brand first-hand.

Field marketing is often at the point of sale or during certain events (such as exhibitions, conferences, promotions, webinars, etc.).

These are ideal points to gain mind share from a potential customer, instill brand values, and increase brand loyalty until they become customers.

Field marketing is the process of registering your offer in the minds of customers to remind them of your product's existence and availability when needed.

2. Deals with pessimistic clients

Underestimating customers is real. Customers are smarter, more aware and better informed. They are looking for instant gratification rather than lengthy negotiations, where they try to get answers to their questions.

Field marketing is best suited for handling sarcastic customers because field marketers can answer in real time during product demonstrations, onboarding, events, webinars, and point-of-sale interactions.

3. Increases sales effort

Sales reps have their hands full by attending to qualified leads that are fed into the sales funnel by marketing teams. Often times, they may not have enough exposure to customers who are just starting their customer journey or nurturing them as they gradually become familiar with a product/service.

Field marketers can take the lead here to take the pressure off sales teams and hold leads until they feel comfortable on their own.

4. Enhances customer relationships

Field marketing helps provide a consistent customer experience wherever and whenever a customer touches the brand.

Once customers purchase a product or avail a service, they expect to be recognized and acknowledged.

For example, once a customer goes into a retail store, he or she expects the retailer to know all about him or herself in the next interaction.

Field marketing representatives can provide customers with consistent answers to all their inquiries, thus increasing their trust in the organization.

5. Provides a measurable return on investment

Successful field marketing campaigns produce tangible, measurable results. Brands get real-time reports by using field marketing reporting software that loads on multiple devices such as mobile phones, tablets and laptops.

Product managers and brand owners can view real-time reports through tablets, mobile phones, websites and dashboards and see how their field marketing campaigns are performing.

6. Precise targeting

Field marketing activities include sales promotion, preparation, sponsorship, sampling, demonstration, experiential marketing, organizing events, promotions, and conferences.

Field marketers responsible for these activities choose locations, formats, internal (and external) experts, and marketing collateral after researching their target audience. This approach helps them meet the needs of their target audience in a focused manner.

Explaining field marketing activities

Field marketing activities include five main specializations that we have explained below:

1. Sales

   Highly trained sales personnel find, understand and conduct a dialogue with the target audience they intend to sell to. This field marketing activity is usually carried out at events with high demand for the brand's target market . Brands often outsource this activity to field marketing agencies so they can focus on their core business.

2. Trade

   Merchandising is the placement of marketing materials (such as posters and shelf barks) in a retail environment.

   Promotion in field marketing also includes:

   • Develop rapport and rapport with the retailer.
   • Ensure products are well stored, captivatingly displayed, and aggressively promoted.
   • Measure and evaluate brand performance within the retail outlet.
3. Audit

   An audit is the recording of information about a brand's position in the market. A field marketing audit shows how a brand and its competitors are distributed between and within stores. It also measures how products are displayed by setting product inventory levels, interfaces, and order sizes.

   The audit helps formulate a strategy for marketing and other field marketing activities. With real-time reporting tools, the auditing process is fast and less complicated.

4. Sampling and reporting

   During this field marketing exercise, the field marketer demonstrates the working of a product to a customer or allows the customer to try/taste a product.

   This activity is most effective when the target customer chosen for sampling and demo has the potential to be a brand ambassador.

   These brand ambassadors are usually people who can increase more sales by showing the brand in a positive way and discussing it within their fans.

5. Experiential marketing, events and promotions

   At this point we can say that field marketing is a direct and interactive marketing system that builds positive emotional and sensory engagement between the brand and its consumers.

   Although every field marketing activity helps a customer experience a brand, this particular activity is synonymous with excitement, engagement, and entertainment.

   Field marketing using events and promotions creates an emotional connection between the customer and the brand.

   Individually or in combination, these field marketing activities develop brands and in their execution, demonstrate real ROI for the company.

   Field marketing activities are aligned with the marketing objectives that will be achieved through their implementation. It helps in drawing attention to a product/solution/brand, at a specific time, when customers' awareness and experience of the brand can be affected.

Field marketing and digital marketing

Field marketing and digital marketing are different specializations.

Digital marketing is about reaching customers via digital media across digital platforms using digital devices.

Sound complicated? Let's break it down.

Let us now take a look at the difference between field marketing and digital marketing:

The difference between field marketing and traditional marketing

For consumer goods companies, marketing is about bringing the brand and its customer base closer together. This goal extends from initial product branding to brand awareness campaigns, and ultimately to sales-focused promotions.

Field marketing alone is not a comprehensive marketing strategy (brands should at least conduct basic market research), but it is an essential part of any marketing campaign that interacts directly with customers.

Here are some examples of how companies can use field marketing campaigns alongside more traditional marketing initiatives to achieve maximum results:

1. A beverage company pursues an awareness-focused advertising campaign with a series of in-store demonstrations. Shoppers are more likely to stop in and try drinks they just saw advertised during the last football game, and a personal demo is a great way to capitalize on shoppers' interest.
2. After investing a large portion of its marketing budget in new signage and displays for a large grocery chain, a snack food company is not seeing the results it had hoped for. Then you send a field marketing team to review and modify those offers as needed. After discovering and fixing some major bugs, the company regains a significant amount of visibility, and its sales in those locations rebound accordingly.
3. An energy drink company sponsors a local music festival. While the concert itself is a major brand awareness event, street band representatives and brand ambassadors at the show help the company leverage direct sales of drinks and merchandise at vendor tables.

Not only is field marketing valuable as an accompaniment to traditional marketing initiatives, it also offers companies something unique: flexibility. Planning and implementing extensive marketing campaigns takes time. But after months of planning, what happens if something goes wrong or there is an opportunity for improvement?

Traditionally, these opportunities are missed as companies have to wait for a campaign to finish to analyze the results. When implemented correctly, field marketing breaks this mold, allowing companies to collect and analyze data about their campaigns much faster, making marketing more agile and effective.

Best Field Marketing Event Ideas

In this section, let's take a look at some B2B marketing event field ideas that you can use in your organization:

Face-to-face client meetings

Field marketers can work with sales and customer support teams to set up in-person meetings to guide customers through the buyer's journey or understand their challenges. They have the required knowledge, skills and understanding and are in the best position to step in here to help clients.

Tours

Promotions are great opportunities to generate leads and promote the brand. Field marketers can use branded marketing collateral and props/standers to host a booth and help potential customers learn about their offerings.

Interested passers-by get to sample the product and provide immediate feedback. Promotions can last anywhere from a few hours to an entire day.

Webinars

Field marketers can participate in webinars to demonstrate how the product works. Experts (such as product managers, analysts, and customers) can be invited to express their ideas. The specific features of the product should also be explained to ensure that potential customers or clients know how to use it independently.

Webinars enable field marketers to reach a niche target audience with strong buyer intent and answer their queries directly, so decision making is easy.

Events and conferences

Events and conferences are the field marketer's favorite hangout. They provide natural opportunities to connect with potential leads/prospects and understand their challenges. Customers/potential customers can be engaged on the sidelines of a conference, and a quick demo helps them get acclimated to a brand, product or service.

Fireside chats

Fireside chats originated during the term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt when he addressed American citizens on a series of patriotic topics over the radio.

They are short sessions featuring subject matter experts such as economists, researchers, scientists, CEOs and thought leaders who have influence over a broad audience. Field marketers can either test them live or invite an expert to meet them.

Round tables

Roundtable discussions feature a selection of prominent figures discussing a chosen topic hosted by an expert. These forums have a specialized target audience of between 30-50 members.

Roundtable discussions feature pre-determined topics that enable panelists to prepare and answer audience inquiries.

These field marketing event ideas can help teams think about the best ideas that fit their budgets, goals, and marketing strategies. Field marketers can plan and execute campaigns that are best suited to their business, products, and target audience's tastes.

However, what is important is to capture key information from these events and carefully nurture them with marketing collateral until they become customers.

How to create an effective field marketing strategy

Now that you are aware of the importance of field marketing, its benefits, and the types of campaigns related to this type of marketing, you may have some questions in mind about how to create an effective field marketing strategy. What are the steps to creating a successful field marketing strategy?

1. Set SMART goals

   The step of setting goals is one of the most important steps that you must prepare carefully when creating a field marketing strategy, but these marketing goals must include some necessary considerations in order for them to be more focused and actually achievable.

   This step requires formulating and defining objectives correctly. Marketing objectives must be executable, measurable, clear, and specific. The time period during which these objectives are supposed to be achieved must also be determined. If you set unclear objectives, your marketing plan will not succeed. It is very important that the objectives of the marketing strategy be The field plan is logical, reasonable, and appropriate to the capabilities of the marketing team so that you can implement it. Do not set goals that are outside your company’s capabilities or require modern technologies that are not available in your company’s arsenal.

   In field marketing campaigns, there are multiple marketing objectives based on the company’s general objectives. Perhaps the objective of your field marketing campaign is to increase brand awareness, increase sales, expand your customer base, respond to customer inquiries, etc.

   But the previous goals must be more clear, time-bound, and measurable, as we mentioned earlier. So, the goal of your field marketing campaign could be “Increase sales of a new product by 30% over 6 months through a guerrilla marketing campaign” or your goal might be “Distribute samples of a product to 5,000 customers during the month of August through a street marketing campaign.” Or “Increase awareness of the brand’s products by organizing 10 teleconferences within two months.”

2. Determine your buyer persona

   Determining the buyer persona You need some marketing research that studies the target audience. The more specific your campaign is for the buyer persona, the more you can achieve your marketing goals. Conversely, if you make a mistake in defining the customer’s personality, you will not succeed in reaching him or convincing him to buy your product.

   Creating a buyer persona also helps you focus on your real customers, even though it is a fictional persona that embodies your ideal customer and summarizes the main characteristics of consumers who are likely to decide to buy your product or service. But how do you define a typical customer persona?

   A deep understanding of the customer's personality requires careful study of the audience, and this requires the marketing team to conduct in-depth meetings with a number of potential customers and ask several questions about their education, where they live, their lives, their goals, the technologies they use, their identities, their ambitions, the challenges they face, and the extent of their need for your brand.

3. Planning and implementation

   The planning and implementation process is one of the most important steps when creating your field marketing plan, and here you are looking for how you can achieve the marketing goals that you set for your campaign. Are you thinking about achieving your goals through webinars, or do you intend to participate in various events, or have you decided to pursue direct sales to customers? Here you also have to determine the approach or method that suits your goals and helps you achieve them effortlessly.

   It is possible to use more than one method to implement the objectives of the field marketing campaign. For example: you can allow potential customers to take samples of your product to try it and ensure their satisfaction with it and their approval of it. If the reviews about the product are purposeful and positive and reflect customer satisfaction, you can sell large quantities of your product. To target customers.

4. Account-based marketing

   In this step, you can implement the account-based marketing approach, which is followed by many institutions and through which companies target important customers in order to purchase huge quantities of products or services. Account-based marketing is also one of the traditional marketing methods that achieve impressive results, and it is used In contemporary marketing plans.

   Account-based marketing is a big and successful deal in companies that follow this approach, as the company deals with the customer as one of its major, core customers, and offers him new products in order to increase sales and revenues through one lost customer. Therefore, it is important to conduct many marketing practices about this customer, such as: marketing research, developing sales strategies, and collecting the necessary data to determine when to communicate with him, and how to deliver the marketing message to him.

5. Use of technology and modern techniques

   Providing the field marketing team with appropriate modern technology and techniques is no less important than setting smart goals, as these digital technologies contribute to improving the efficiency of the marketing team, and also help facilitate marketing tasks, especially when collecting and organizing data and preparing the necessary reports during the implementation of the marketing plan.

   Technology has taken over all aspects of life and business and has become essential in the marketing process, and indispensable in companies, including small ones. None of your marketing campaigns will work efficiently without the use of technology and modern techniques. Therefore, appropriate technological support for the field marketing team has become an urgent necessity to contribute to the success of marketing campaigns.

   This requires you to choose a field marketing team capable of dealing with technology and these digital tools, and familiar with the most important tools and programs that help in field marketing, such as customer relationship management (CRM) technology , which is also a strategy that provides an effective experience with current and potential customers, and helps the company organize customer data. And strengthen personal relationships with consumers.

6. Improve and develop your plan

   You must determine the methods for measuring the results of your field marketing initiatives so that you can know which goals you have achieved and which you have not achieved. You must also have some important skills such as analyzing data and identifying the mistakes you made and the opportunities in front of you. After measuring and evaluating the results, you will be able to improve and develop your plan. Professionally develop alternatives and new solutions aimed at achieving your major goals.

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