S Sales force management The analysis, planning, implementation, and control of sales force activities. It includes setting and designing sales force strategy; and recruiting, selecting, training, compensating, supervising, and evaluating the firm’s salespeople. Sales promotion Shortterm incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service.
Sales quotas Standards set for salespeople, stating the amount they should sell and how sales should be divided among the company’s products.
Salesperson An individual acting for a company by performing one or more of the following activities: prospecting, communicating, servicing, and information gathering.
Sample A segment of the population selected for marketing research to represent the population as a whole; an offer of a trial amount of a product.
Seasonal discount A price reduction to buyers who purchase merchandise or services out of season.
Secondary data Information that already exists somewhere, having been collected for another purpose.
Segment marketing Isolating broad segments that make up a market and adapting the marketing to match the needs of one or more segments.
Segmented pricing Selling a product or service at two or more prices, where the difference in prices is not based on differences in costs.
Selective demand The demand for a given brand of a product or service.
Selective distribution The use of more than one, but fewer than all, of the intermediaries who are willing to carry the company’s products.
Selling concept The idea that consumers will not buy enough of the organization’s products unless the organization undertakes a large-scale selling and promotion effort.
Selling process The steps that the salesperson follows when selling, which include prospecting and qualifying, preapproach, approach, presentation and demonstration, handling objections, closing, and follow-up.
Sense-of-mission marketing A principle of enlightened marketing that holds that a company should define its mission in broad social terms rather than narrow product terms.
Sequential product development A new-product development approach in which one company department works to complete its stage of the process before passing the new product along to the next department and stage.
Service Any activity or benefit that one party can offer to another that is essentially intangible and does not result in the ownership of anything.
Service inseparability A major characteristic of services—they are produced and consumed at the same time and cannot be separated from their providers, whether the providers are people or machines.
Service intangibility A major characteristic of services—they cannot be seen, tasted, felt, heard, or smelled before they are bought.
Service perishability A major characteristic of services—they cannot be stored for later sale or use.
Service-profit chain The chain that links service firm profits with employee and customer satisfaction.
Service variability A major characteristic of services—their quality may vary greatly, depending on who provides them and when, where, and how.
Shopping center A group of retail businesses planned, developed, owned, and managed as a unit.
Shopping product Consumer good that the customer, in the process of selection and purchase, characteristically compares on such bases as suitability, quality, price, and style.
Simultaneous (or team-based) product development An approach to developing new products in which various company departments work closely together, overlapping the steps in the prod¬uct development process to save time and increase effectiveness.
Single-source data systems Electronic monitoring systems that link consumers’ exposure to television advertising and promotion (measured using television meters) with what they buy in stores (measured using store checkout scanners).
Slotting fees Payments demanded by retailers before they will accept new products and find “slots” for them on the shelves.
Social classes Relatively permanent and ordered divisions in a society whose members share similar values, interests, and behaviors.
Social marketing The design, implementation, and control of programs seeking to increase the acceptability of a social idea, cause, or practice among a target group.
Societal marketing A principle of enlightened marketing that holds that a company should make marketing decisions by considering consumers’ wants, the company’s requirements, consumers’ long-run interests, and society’s long-run interests.
Societal marketing concept The idea that the organization should determine the needs, wants, and interests of target markets and deliver the desired satisfactions more effectively and efficiently than do competitors in a way that maintains or improves the consumer’s and society’s well-being.
Specialty product Consumer product with unique characteristics or brand identification for which a significant group of buyers is willing to make a special purchase effort.
Specialty store A retail store that carries a narrow product line with a deep assortment within that line.
Standardized marketing mix An international marketing strategy for using basically the same product, advertising, distribution channels, and other elements of the marketing mix in all the company’s international markets.
Straight product extension Marketing a product in a foreign market without any change.
Straight rebuy A business buying situation in which the buyer routinely reorders something without any modifications.
Strategic business unit (SBU) A unit of the company that has a separate mission and objectives and that can be planned independently from other company businesses. An SBU can be a company division, a product line within a division, or sometimes a single product or brand.
Strategic planning The process of developing and maintaining a strategic fit between the organization’s goals and capabilities and its changing marketing opportunities. It involves defining a clear company mission, setting supporting objectives, designing a sound business portfolio, and coordinating functional strategies.
Style A basic and distinctive mode of expression.
Subculture A group of people with shared value systems based on common life experiences and situations.
Survey research The gathering of primary data by asking people questions about their knowledge, attitudes, preferences, and buying behavior.
Systems buying Buying a packaged solution to a problem from a single seller, thus avoiding all the separate decisions involved in a complex buying situation.
