The Handbook of Field Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Outsourcing Face‐to‐face Direct Marketing

Citation

Sigala, M. (2008), "The Handbook of Field Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide to Understanding and Outsourcing Face‐to‐face Direct Marketing", Journal of Consumer Marketing, Vol. 25 No. 6, pp. 386-387. https://doi.org/10.1108/07363760810902530

Creating and selling experiences is the major competitive practice nowadays for creating customer loyalty, retention, and repeat purchases. Hence, companies also need to adopt and use marketing activities that are more experientially and emotionally appealing. To that end, field marketing (FM) referring to all face‐to‐face direct marketing activities, is becoming not only a competitive necessity but also a crucial practice for increasing a brand's return on investment.

In this vein, the aim of this handbook is twofold. First, it provides readers confidence in understanding how to select and make decisions on what FM activities to integrate into their marketing plan. Second, it also provides the knowledge, skills, and understanding on how to implement FM activities and how to select and work with FM agencies more effectively. Similarly, the handbook chapters are divided into two parts. The first part deals with the context and the principles of FM as well as it identifies and presents the different FM activities, while the second part focuses on FM implementation techniques and processes.

Overall, the book is reader‐friendly (demonstrated in its writing style and language) and well‐structured into logical sequenced chapters. A collection of 19 chapters offers an excellently presented, comprehensive, and timely synthesis of the essential dimensions, implementation, and evaluation factors of FM. All chapters provide a critical review of their theoretical underpinning as well as real‐life case studies illustrating practical implications, and they conclude by providing a summary of their key points and self‐study questions that the reader can use to test whether the basic concepts have been absorbed.

The first part includes 11 chapters. The introductory chapters aim to show the reader how FM is and should be an integrated practice of the overall marketing plan of the firm aiming to strengthen its marketing objectives. To that end, Chapter 1 emphasizes the importance of brand on consumer purchase behavior and shows how FM can support brand creation to influence consumer need satisfaction and behavior. Chapter 2 examines FM aims at the back–office by analyzing the integration of FM into business activities and the business process that determines the extent and use of FM, while Chapter 3 examines in detailed the FM objectives and how these can be achieved.

After these introductory chapters, Chapters 4 to 9 analyze in great depth each one of the following six FM disciplines: activities: sales; merchandising; auditing; sampling and demonstrating; experiential marketing, road shows, events; and mystery calling and shopping. For each activity the relevant chapter discusses the following issues:

• •

  The marketing activity itself: its definition and practice; its objectives; managerial and control implications; and evaluation processes; and metrics of its implementation.

• •

  The role of the marketing activity as part of an integrated marketing approach within the marketing communication mix and its value added for enhancing the firm's brand.

• •

  Metrics that can be used for measuring the achievement and accountability of the implementation of the FM activity. The chapter concludes with the development of a key performance indicator for each FM activity.

• •

  Practical and implementation tips and issues for each FM activity.

The second part of the handbook includes eight chapters focusing on FM implementation. Chapter 12 starts by describing the context required for implementing FM in terms of its timing (when), the way (how), and with what (combined with other practices). Chapter 13 analyses how FM agencies carry out the FM operations and provides useful tips and recommendations on how to avoid disaster and ensure that all the elements work together.

Having implemented FM activities, the next step is to evaluate the extent to which their aims have been met or not. Chapter 14 focuses on accountability and ROI, and it provides a framework and process that a marketer can use in order to check whether the FM marketing objectives have been met. Given the importance and role of FM agencies in FM implementation, Chapter 15 focuses exclusively and analyses the process for co‐operating with FM agencies. In particular, the chapter provides a framework for briefing, choosing and procuring FM agencies. Chapter 16 provides many practical tips coming from the authors' experience and case studies in terms of using creativity and innovation for maximising FM ROI. Chapter 17 deals with the legal aspects and issues of FM including employment law, staff pay, insurance, and health and safety. FM implementation engages people and staff from many departments and refers to people from different environments (cultural and physical), and so, FM marketers need to seriously take into consideration the legality as well as the ethics of their FM activities. The same applies when a FM agency is used, which also needs to check the legality of its FM activities. Chapter 18 provides an international dimension to FM by analyzing the theory and practice for internationalizing FM activities. Finally Chapter 19 completes the FM area by focusing on the in‐house scene (face‐to‐face sales) and how it can be improved. In this vein, the chapter is not concerned with the process of simple order fulfillment, but rather it is concerned with the pre‐purchase decision that selects a better product, more products – the period of time when a salesperson can persuade a customer to buy.

Overall, this is an excellent, well‐written and easy‐to‐read book that provides a holistic and comprehensive process and international perspective to FM design and implementation. By providing a collection of case studies and compiling the authors' rich professional experience, the book effectively provides an in‐depth and multi‐perspective analysis of the major managerial and implementation concepts and influential factors regarding the design, development, integration into the marketing plan and implementation of FM activities. In this vein, the book significantly helps to crystallize some of the disparate research being done on the field. The book constitutes a comprehensive guide and useful source of references and case studies for graduate students, marketers, and brand managers alike.