Assessing A Sales Area's Potential

Directories. It should be a matter of course for sales-teams to screen hardcopy, CD-ROM or on-line directories forcompanies which fit the class of industry to which they sell. The source can vary from the maps and lists sold by MarketLocation, to Kompass, the Commercial Classified directories and the appropriate trade journals. A straight count of thecompanies within a region may be a guide to the potential for a product. If, for example, one knows from experience thatlithographic printers use a certain number of printers blankets per year, then a company marketing these products canobtain a rough approximation of the areas...
Nội dung trích xuất từ tài liệu:
Assessing A Sales Areas PotentialTài liệu tham khảo – www.marketingchienluoc.comAssessing A Sales Areas Potentialan outline of six methods of arriving at logical sales targetsDirectories. It should be a matter of course for sales-teams to screen hardcopy, CD-ROM or on-line directories forcompanies which fit the class of industry to which they sell. The source can vary from the maps and lists sold by MarketLocation, to Kompass, the Commercial Classified directories and the appropriate trade journals. A st raight count of thecompanies within a region may be a guide to the potential for a product. If, for example, one knows from experience thatlithographic printers use a certain number of printers blankets per year, then a company marketing these products canobtain a rough approximation of the areas sales potential by simple mult iplication. This means of assessing salespotential is most suited to industrial products sold to end users who are thick on the ground and ge nerally of small size -like printers, foundries, general engineering workshops and schools, to name but a few.By association. Many industrial products are used in association with others on which published data is readily available.Using a known ratio of sales between the two products an association can be used to provide a guide to the sales areaspotential. A sales-person selling work rolls to strip rolling mills would not be able to find published figures showing theannual consumption of his products. However, it is relatively easy to establish the number of work rolls used perthousand tonnes of strip produced. Statistics abound on the output of steel strip from which a calculation can easily bemade to show the sales potential for rolls. The imagination can run wild in seeking associations. The output of sand andgravel influences the consumption of screening m eshes, sales of industrial bobbins are linked to the output of cloth, andsales of guillotine knives depend on paper production.Employment statistics. The Central Statistical Office, in their publication Regional Statistics, produce comprehensive andup to date statistics showing the number of employees by Standard Region, within broad industrial classifications:agriculture, forestry and fishing; manufacturing industries; and service industries. A more detailed breakdown ofemployment by Minimum List Heading of the Standard Industrial Classification can be obtained from the Census ofGreat Britain. In the same way that ratios can be established between strip output and work roll consumption, it ispossible for example to calculate, by region, the number of overalls consumed per employee in woodworking, metalmanufacturing or construction. The regional breakdown provided by the Census enables analyses of pot ential to becarried out by Standard Region, including major conurbations. The ratios will be more valid if they relate to productswhich are consumed by employees themselves (such as personal safety equipment). Nevertheless, there may be scopefor using the same economic activity statistics to calculate the regional demand for drive belts in the textile industry orthe consumption of cement in the construction industry. Statistics are also available providing regional analyses showingthe number of companies, by their size, measured in employment terms. Lists of companies within various industrysectors, are commercially available classified by size and geographical area. This could be of value to an industrialcaterer who defines his target as those companies employing 500 people or more. It may help a supplier of copiers todecide how many models of different sizes he can sell in a region based on his knowledge of the popularity of models tocertain sized businesses.Population statistics. More general population statistics published in the Census of Population are not as useful to theindustrial marketer as employment figures. Nevertheless they can be of value to certain types of companies. Amanufacturer of house bricks (or window frames) may be able to use the statistics to establish the a pproximate potentialfor his products regionally in the knowledge that most members of the population are likely to be housed in dwellingsconstructed with his products. Producers of goods purchased by local authorities (from dustbins to w heelbarrows) canobtain a reasonable estimate of demand within an area by the population that the authority serves.The opportunities for assessing potential sales is almost as wide as the ingenuity of the researcher. The miles of roadswithin a county councils domain will indicate to a manufacturer of safety reflectors the current potential the sales-personcan aim for, as there is an obvious relationship between the two variables. In some circumstances, e stimates as to thepotential for industrial goods may be calculable from the regionally available rateable values of industrial properties.Even the regional incidence of sunlight and population may be found useful to some industrialists, f or example, if theyproduce solar water heaters.Fieldwork. There are many manufacturers who cannot make broad assessments of the potential for their sales-teamfrom readily available data. For them the answer may be an interview programme in which a sample of carefully selectedcompanies provides an estimate of the regional potential. As our interest is in industrial marketing, it must be recognisedthat random samples are impracticable owing to the different sizes of consuming companies. The omission of a largeend user would clearly bias the result and in a random sample such a company has an equal chance of being missed.This means a high level of discretion must be given to the interviewers who could be directed to research only thelargest companies in the area. The approach may seem unscientific and it may even be messy, but it is the only onewhich works. Given resourc ...