Description

Street level marketing (SLM) represents a new movement in the application of marketing theory. Much of contemporary marketing theory focuses on top down implementation of marketing strategies, aided and guided by intrusive observational marketing research technique which endeavor to capture a single snapshot of a marketing environment that can be translated into long term marketing strategies. SLM operates from a different perspective in that it uses a bottom up marketing focus whereby the marketing is driven by membership, rather than observation, of a market niche. It focuses on intra-niche marketing where the objective of the organisation or individual is to meet needs and wants of the niche which are also experienced by the marketer as a member of that niche. This does not preclude street level marketers from developing business strategies for extra-niche markets, however, the focus of SLM is on the marketing within the producer's "home" market niche.