Personal selling of industrial products in the Kumasi Metroplis: a case study of Mantrac Ghana Limitied
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Date
2011-06
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KNUST
Abstract
Marketing of industrial products presents a unique challenge. The challenge is how to combine
services with goods and provision of more tailored solutions to address customers’ business
needs. Personal selling seems to offer the much needed strategy and solution to sell industrial
products, on this basis the researcher studied the extent of dependence of personal selling on
the sale of the products of Mantrac Ghana Limited, other key elements of the integrated
marketing communication mix adopted by Mantrac Ghana and the challenges Mantrac Ghana
encounters in adopting personal selling to sell its products. The study employed interviews and
questionnaires administered to collect data from the staff and customers of Mantrac Ghana
Limited. The findings of the study revealed that the company depends greatly on the personal
selling of the sales of their products. The study found that compared to other marketing
communications tools, the company commits about 40% of its marketing effort to personal
selling. The company reliance on personal selling was attributed to the technical nature of the
company’s products which depends on the technical advice to customers so that they would
obtain an in-depth knowledge of the product’s functions in their operations. Apart from the
personal selling, the study found sales promotion & merchandising and trade shows and
exhibitions as the other marketing communication tools used by the Mantrac Ghana for the sale
of its products. However, the challenge of the use of personal selling at Mantrac Ghana Limited
is its expensive nature as it requires large investment and demand technical know-how on the
part of the sales team. Since the company commits about 40% of its marketing effort to personal
selling, management should explore other marketing communication tools that may possibly
be less expensive and at the same time help in building caterpillar brand. Advertisement may
be a likely alternative
Description
A thesis submitted to the Department of Marketing and Cooperate Strategy, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Business Administration (Marketing Option), School of Business, College of Art and Social Sciences