glossary

'F'

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FAB Selling Techniques - A technique stressing Features, Advantages, and Benefits of a product.

Face-To-Face Selling - The original and oldest form of direct marketing is the field sales call. Companies rely heavily on a professional sales force to locate prospects, develop them into customers, and grow the business.

Face Value - The current principal balance on an income stream.

Facilitators - Others such as transportation companies, independent warehouses, banks and advertising agencies that assist in the performance of distribution but neither take title to goods nor negotiate purchases of sales.

Factor - A funding source that specializes in funding accounts receivable. 

Factoring - The purchase of a business' accounts receivable at a discount.

Factors Influencing Industrial Buying Decisions:

1. Environmental factors - factors outside of the organization, found in the macro- environment, the public environment, and the marketing channel environment.
2. Organizational factors - objectives, policies, procedures, structures, and systems to guide the buying process.
3. Interpersonal factors - involves the interaction of several persons of different status, authority, empathy and persuasiveness in the company.
4. Individual factors - how the individual decision participants form their perceptions of and preferences for product characteristics and supplier offers.

Factors of Perceptual Defense - Operate to cut down the reach and impact of mass media.

• Selective Attention - means that a person notes only a small fraction of all the media vehicles and only a small fraction of all the media vehicles and only a small faction of their content.

• Selective Distortion - that the person perceives the content differently that intended because it is filtered through personal needs and beliefs.

• Selective Retention - means that the person remembers certain things better than others - again because of the personal needs and beliefs.

Factory Outlet - Factory outlets are owned and operated by manufacturers and normally carry the manufacturer’s surplus, discontinued, or irregular goods.

Fads - Practices or interests that come quickly into being, are adopted with great zeal, peak early, and decline very fast.

Faltering Demand - A state in which the demand for a product or service is less than it used to be and when further decline is expected in the absence of remedial efforts to revise the target market, offer, and/or marketing effort. 

Farmer - A sales professional responsible for growing sales from existing accounts.

Fashions - Interests that tend to grow slowly, remain popular for a while, and decline slowly.

Feature - Any physical characteristic of a product.

Feedback - Verbal or non-verbal reaction to communication as transmitted to the sender.

Feedback and Control – As it implements its strategy, the firm needs to track the results and monitor new developments. Some environments are fairly stable from year to year. Other environments evolve slowly in a fairly predictable way. Still other environments change rapidly in major and unpredictable ways. Nonetheless, the company can count on one thing: The market place will change; and when it does, the company will need to review and revise its implementation, programs, strategies, or even objectives.

Fictitious Name - A legal statement filed when a person uses a name other than his or her own to operate a business.

Field Sales Personnel - Employees who work for a company that travel and visit customers.

Field Value – In-Use Assessment – Customers are interviewed about cost elements associated with using the new-product offering compared to an incumbent product and assign money values to these cost elements, An example would be pricing a Caterpillar tractor against a competitor.  Caterpillar tractors have less downtime, quicker repair time, and more resale value.  The task is to access how much each element is worth to the buyer.

Finance Department - Financial executives pride themselves on being able to evaluate the profit implications of different business actions.

Firm - An organization that produces goods and/or services.

First Time Prospects - Customers who have not yet purchased but want to buy from a vendor who understands their business, who explains things well & whom they can trust.

Five Question Sequence - The five-step process of overcoming objections in which facts, logic, and tact are used.

Fixed Costs - Also known as overhead, are costs that do not vary with production or sales revenue, i.e. rent, heat, salaries etc.

Flank Attack - The major principle of offensive warfare is concentration of strength against weakness. The enemy’s weak spots are natural targets. A flank attack can be directed along two strategic dimensions—geographical and segmental. In a geographical attack, the challenger spots areas where the opponent is underperforming. A flanking strategy is another name for identifying shifts in market segments that are causing gaps to develop, then rushing to fill the gaps & develop them into strong segments. Flanking holds that the purpose of marketing is to discover needs & satisfy them.

Flexible Marketing Offer - Consists of two parts, a naked solution containing the product and service elements that all members value, and discretionary options that some segment members value.

Flighting (or pulsing) - Refers to scheduling exposures unevenly over the same time period.

Focus – The business focuses on one or more narrow market segments. The firm gets to know these segments intimately and pursues either cost leadership or differentiation within the target segment.

Focus –Group Value Assessment – Customers in a focus group are asked what value they would put on potential market offerings.

Focus Group - Is a gathering of six to ten people who are invited to spend a few hours with a skilled moderator to discuss a product, service, organization, or other marketing entity. The moderator needs to be objective, knowledgeable on the issue, & skilled in-group dynamics. Participants are normally paid a small sum for attending. The meeting is typically held in pleasant surroundings and refreshments are served.

Forecast - A predicted amount of revenue generation for a particular time period and/ or area of geography and/ or industry... can also be used to describe a sales target (in revenue and/ or units) for a specified time period... also referred to as a quota, budget or goal.

Foreclosure - A legal proceeding in court to seize property given as security for a debt that is in default.

Forgetting Rate - Is the rate at which the buyer forgets the brand in the absence of stimuli; the higher the forgetting rate, the more continuous the advertising ought to be to keep the brand in the buyer's mind.

Formal Search - A deliberate effort - usually following a pre-established plan, procedure, or methodology - to secure specific information or information relating to a specific issue.

Formula Presentation - A presentation by which the salesperson follows a general outline that allows more flexibility and tries to determine prospect needs.

Formulated Marketing - As small companies achieve success, they inevitably move toward more formulated marketing; spending considerable sums on TV advertising, employing dozens of salespeople, and carrying on sophisticated marketing research. They have discovered that continued success requires setting up and managing a capable marketing department.

• Fragile Market Share Trap - A low price buys market share but not market loyalty. The same customers will shift to any lower-priced firm that comes along.

• Low-quality trap - Consumers will assume that the quality is low.

• Shallow-pockets trap - The higher-priced competitors may cut their prices and may have longer staying power because of deeper cash reserves.

Forward Integration - Company's seeks ownership or increased control of its distribution system.

Four Introductory Marketing Strategies:

1. Rapid-skimming strategy - launching the new product with a high price and a high promotion level.
2. Slow-skimming strategy - launching the new product with a high price and a low promotion.
3. Rapid-penetration strategy - launching the product with a low price and a heavy promotion.
4. Slow-penetration strategy - launching the new product with a low price and a low level of promotion.

Franchise Organization - A contractual association between a franchiser (manufacturer, wholesaler, service organization) and franchisees (independent businesspeople who buy the right to own and operate one or more units in the franchise system). Franchising has been prominent in dozens of product and service areas.

Free Goods - Offers of extra cases of merchandise to intermediaries who buy a certain quantity or who feature a certain flavor or size.

Free Trials - Inviting prospective purchasers to try the product without cost in the hope that they will buy.

Frequency (media selection) - The number of times within the specified time period that an average person or household is exposed to the message.

Frequency Program - Programs providing rewards related to the consumer’s frequency and intensity in purchasing the company’s products or services.

Fringe Benefits – Benefits above and beyond salary such as; hospitalization insurance, pension plan, moving expenses.

Frontal Attack - In a pure frontal attack, the attacker matches its opponent’s product, advertising, price, and distribution. The principle of force says that the side with greater manpower (resources) will win.

Full Demand - A state in which the current level and timing of demand is equal to the desired level and timing of demand. 

Full-line Marketing Research Firms - Offer general marketing research services. 

Full Service Retailer - Salespeople are ready to assist in every phase of the locate-compare-select-process. Customers who like to be waited on prefer this type of store. The high staffing cost, along with the higher proportion of specialty goods and slower-moving items and the many service, results in high-cost retailing.

Full Service Wholesaler - Carry stock, maintain a sales force, offer credit, make deliveries and provide management assistance. There are two types of full-service wholesalers:

1. Wholesale merchants sell primarily to retailers and provide a full range of services. General-merchandise wholesalers carry several merchandise lines. General-line wholesalers carry one or two lines. Specialty wholesalers carry only par of a line.

2. Industrial distributors sell to manufacturers rather than to retailers and provide several services—carrying stock, offering credit, and providing delivery.

Functional Brand - Have the best chance to satisfy customers if they are seen as providing superior performance of superior economy.

Functional Discount - Discount (also called trade discount) offered by a manufacturer to trade-channel members if they will perform certain functions, such as selling, storing, and recordkeeping. Manufacturers must offer the same functional discounts within each channel.

Functional Hubs – Buyers trying to identify the most appropriate suppliers will most likely find them on the Internet.  This is one type of e-hub that centers on logistics, media buying, advertising, and energy management.

Functional Organizations - The earliest and still most common form of marketing organization has various functional marketing specialists reporting to a marketing vice president, who is in charge of coordinating all of their activities.

Functional Tests - Testing done on prototypes, conducted under laboratory and field conditions to make sure that the product performs safely and effectively. 

Funding Source - An individual investor or an investment company that buys income streams.

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