Designing and managing hybrid marketing channels

About this book

Most industrial firms currently go to market through a combination of selling channels and marketing communications methods, i.e. "hybrid marketing channels." The principal goal of this research is to develop a modeling methodology to support the design and management of hybrid marketing channels. Chapters 2 and 3 lay the foundations for this work by reviewing two relevant research streams. ... Chapter 4 presents a general optimization model for designing hybrid channels. The HYBRID marketing channels model draws on hierarchical models of industrial buying behavior and the sales process. ... The HYBRID model is both implementable and highly effective. It is designed for use with industrial lead-tracking data, and with some adaptation it could become the core component of a decision-support system. Chapters 5 and 6 describe the data, statistical modeling techniques and optimization methods used to parameterize, validate and apply the HYBRID model. ... Chapter 7 discusses key issues that model-builders must confront when extending or generalizing the HYBRID marketing channels model to new applications. Chapter 8 briefly summarizes the research and offers suggestions for future research.