Abstract
In this paper, the authors investigate the complementarity between two dominant elements of the business marketing communications mix-personal selling and trade shows-from an integrated marketing communications (IMC) perspective. Through a field study with a group of industrial distributors, they demonstrate that follow-up sales efforts generate higher sales productivity when customers have already been exposed to the firm's product at a trade show. Overall profits are shown to be greater when the trade show is used in conjunction with optimal levels of sales effort. The study also suggests that return-on-sales figures are higher among show attendees than non-attendees and that the trade show generates positive effects on customer purchase intentions. These results provide much-needed accountability for trade show expenditures and also highlight the valuable leverage they offer towards improving selling efficiency.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 61-76 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | International Journal of Research in Marketing |
Volume | 21 |
Issue number | 1 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 2004 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright:Copyright 2004 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
Keywords
- Business-to-business marketing
- Integrated marketing communications
- Personal selling
- Trade shows