Finding new ways to attract customers is a never-ending challenge for all businesses. Even though there are many strategies you can use online, not pursuing opportunities to engage customers in person can limit both your growth potential and the ability to gain valuable insights you can learn from.
And that’s where field marketing can be an incredibly effective way of getting in touch with your best customers and discovering what they really care about. With companies always looking for better ways to do branding for local businesses, being able to talk face to face with customers and showcasing your brand remains an excellent way to build lasting relationships and enhance your reputation.
What is Field Marketing?
Field marketing is a type of marketing that’s carried out on-site and in person. Unlike online marketing, field marketing focuses on engaging people “in the field” or in-person, talking to customers, and demonstrating products to sell to them directly.
The term can encompass a wide variety of field-related marketing activities, such as product demonstrations, direct in-person sales, trade shows, brand activations, and many others. Modern variations on field marketing can even include virtual events that involve communicating to participants live and allowing for interactions. Webinars are a newer example of field marketing that has risen in popularity, allowing businesses to stay in touch with their audiences during the global pandemic.
Just as with any type of marketing, effective field marketing must have a clearly defined goal. This goal can be to make sales, improve brand recognition, build relationships, introduce new products, or overcome objections that might be preventing people from trusting your company.
The versatility and hands-on approach that field marketing requires make it the perfect tool for new businesses aiming to gain recognition and start making sales from day one. But it can also be used extremely well by more established companies that want to maintain a finger on the pulse of their target market, discovering new insights that allow the company to pivot in a new direction and maintain its market share.
Benefits of Field Marketing
Now that we’ve established what field marketing is, it’s time to look at some of the main benefits it can offer to companies of all sizes. And no matter how effective your online marketing campaigns might be, learning how to succeed with field marketing will open up new opportunities for business growth you couldn’t attain before.
Build Trust
Trust is a key ingredient of success for any business. You need to have an audience that believes your claims and trusts you to deliver a quality product if you are going to stand out in your market and make sales in the long term.
And with field marketing, you can use direct interactions with customers to showcase what your company represents and how it was built. What’s more, you can show that there are real people behind the brand who are working to satisfy the needs of the customers, which will provide a huge confidence boost and make people want to work with your company over anyone else.
Discover Insights About Your Audience
Even though there are many ways to gain insights into your audience, nothing beats having the ability to talk to your customers directly. And with field marketing, you can have extended conversations with individuals who are interested in your products, learning about their preconceptions, objections, preferences, and priorities as you share information about your products and watch their reactions.
In fact, hearing the objections alone can be invaluable, as it can help you avoid blindspots in your marketing or branding and address the concerns your audience might be having head-on. Instead of having a weakness that your competition can exploit, you can turn it into a strength that will propel your business forward.
Improve Brand Recognition
Your brand might be the most powerful tool in your arsenal for carving out a place in a competitive marketplace. If you can gain a loyal following of customers who value your brand, what it offers, and what it stands for, it will be much easier to maintain your position against the competition, as you won’t be competing just on price.
With the help of field marketing, you can forge stronger links with your customers, talking to them face to face and showing that you are willing to listen to what you have to offer. People are much more likely to remember in-person interactions where they felt heard than an online ad.
Get Measurable Results
A marketing strategy is only worthwhile if it’s profitable and helps you achieve your goals. And the great thing about field marketing is that it allows companies to accurately measure how much ROI they got from every single event or campaign they run.
Whether you’re collecting leads to add to your CRM or making sales directly, you can measure the effectiveness of different field marketing strategies, continually optimizing performance and prioritizing those that deliver the best results consistently.
How to Use Field Marketing
There are many different field marketing avenues you could consider. And that means you might not be sure where to start and what types of campaigns you should run first.
The good news is that there really aren’t any wrong answers when it comes to interacting with your customers in person. However, here are a few different types of campaigns you could try out that have a high likelihood of producing positive outcomes for your business.
Product Demonstrations
If you haven’t done any field marketing campaigns before, you might want to consider starting with a product demonstration. They are relatively easy to organize and allow you to lead with your products which are almost guaranteed to get the attention of your target audience.
Depending on the type of product you have, you might be able to set up in almost any area that has a lot of foot traffic, such as a mall or even a busy street. If you have a more specific product, you might need to be more deliberate about choosing areas that are frequented by your customers. Then, offer to try out your product, answer questions, and provide a good deal to buy.
In-Person Events
Since field marketing relies so much on interaction with customers, it makes sense that in-person events make for a great setting to use when creating campaigns.
Whether you’re hosting an event yourself or taking part in a trade show or conference, getting in front of your audience where they are likely to be and having the time to demonstrate products, introduce new concepts, and educate your prospective buyers will always be a great opportunity for getting tangible results in terms of sales, branding, or marketing.
Webinars
As mentioned before, the world of field marketing has been evolving and it doesn’t necessarily have to occur in the field. The pandemic and the advance in virtual event technology have made it easier to engage customers all around the world, creating new opportunities for your business.
There are many tools for organizing webinars you can use, allowing you to get started quickly and without needing to be tech-savvy. Then, you’ll just need to get in front of your audience and get them interested in what you’ll share.
Bottom Line
Field marketing is a great opportunity for businesses to reach new customers while also learning valuable insights about what your audience cares about.
And today, field marketing doesn’t necessarily need to happen in person, as you can also organize virtual events that simulate many of the in-person aspects from anywhere in the world.