• Marketing theories such as product life cycles, research and PR are useful, but businesses ultimately need to sell their products/services to succeed.
• Important sales approaches in the transport industry include:
• Face-to-face selling
• Direct mail
• Telephone selling
• Internet selling
• Advertising
• Trade fairs and exhibitions

10.1 FACE-TO-FACE SELLING

• Particularly important when seeking large contracts.
• Large customers may require their service needs to be discussed, analysed, costed and presented.
• Sales staff need negotiation and deal-closing skills.
• Specialist sales staff should be highly trained and have strong product knowledge and analytical/sales skills.
• For large contract negotiations, a special project team may be assembled to handle different aspects of the bid.
• Face-to-face selling is expensive and, according to the training material, is mainly suitable for larger projects.

10.2 DIRECT MAIL

• Involves sending written information about products/services to potential customers.
• Material should be professionally produced and capture the reader’s interest quickly.
• It should be targeted at people within customer organisations who can influence purchasing decisions.
• Accurate prospect databases and identification of the relevant decision-maker are therefore important.
• Direct-mail databases may be developed internally or purchased from specialist organisations.
• Direct mail has a low statistical conversion rate, but can still be a cost-effective way of generating new sales.

10.3 TELEPHONE SELLING

• Telephone selling is a way of contacting many potential customers quickly.
• A business can use its own telesales team or a specialist telesales company.
• It is particularly suited to relatively low-value goods and services according to the material.
• Its main advantage is the ability to contact a large number of prospects in a relatively short time.

10.4 INTERNET SELLING

• Businesses initially used websites mainly to establish a corporate presence.
• Businesses then developed online selling, allowing customers to purchase directly.
• Once established, internet sales can have very low sales costs because customers come to the business.
• For new customers, internet selling generally works best for tangible products rather than services.
• Once a relationship exists, the internet can provide a simple and cheap way for customers to order transport services.
• The training material identifies social media such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter as versatile and cost-effective ways of reaching target audiences and supporting sales over time.

10.5 ADVERTISING

• Advertising can use many media, including newspapers, magazines, television, radio and posters.
• Advertising should be targeted.
• National television advertising may be too expensive and poorly targeted for many transport companies.
• More cost-effective transport-industry advertising may include:
• Local newspaper advertising
• Trade magazine advertising
• Using vehicles as mobile advertising hoardings

10.6 TRADE FAIRS AND EXHIBITIONS

• Trade fairs and exhibitions can generate potential customer leads.
• They are often organised around particular market segments.
• A transport-related business can target events aimed at its desired customer sector.
• Example: exhibitions aimed at local authorities can provide a cost-effective way to contact potential customers in that segment.