Promotion and the Promotion Mix
Chapter 16 examines the promotion element of the marketing mix. Promotion is how organizations communicate with customers and other audiences to inform them, persuade them, remind them, build relationships, and encourage exchanges.
The promotion mix is the combination of promotional tools an organization uses. The traditional mix includes advertising, personal selling, public relations, and sales promotion. Modern promotion also makes extensive use of social media, online communication, word of mouth, mobile media, blogs, podcasts, and other interactive tools.
Integrated Marketing Communication
Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) combines promotional tools into one comprehensive strategy. Rather than allowing advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, and digital media to send unrelated messages, IMC coordinates them so customers receive a consistent message and brand image.
IMC can help an organization create a positive brand image, meet consumer needs, and support the firm's strategic marketing and promotional goals. Modern IMC often combines traditional media with social media and other interactive channels.
Planning a Promotional Campaign
An effective promotional campaign requires more than simply creating an advertisement. A business should work through a logical planning process:
- Identify the target market. Determine exactly whom the campaign needs to reach.
- Define objectives. Decide what the promotion should accomplish.
- Determine a promotional budget. Establish how much the organization can invest.
- Develop a unifying message. Create a consistent message across promotional tools.
- Implement the plan. Put the selected promotional activities into action.
- Evaluate effectiveness. Determine whether the campaign achieved its objectives.
Advertising: Informing, Persuading, and Reminding
Advertising is paid, non-personal communication through various media by organizations or individuals identified in the message. Three major advertising goals are to inform, persuade, and remind.
Businesses choose advertising media based on the target market they want to reach. Traditional and digital media each have advantages and disadvantages involving audience, cost, targeting, flexibility, engagement, and the ability to measure results.
Major Categories of Advertising
Advertising can serve different audiences and purposes. Important categories include:
- Retail advertising — communication from retail stores to consumers.
- Trade advertising — communication from manufacturers to wholesalers and retailers.
- Business-to-business (B2B) advertising — communication from one business to another.
- Institutional advertising — designed to create a desirable image for an organization.
- Product advertising — designed to create demand or a favorable image for a particular product or service.
- Advocacy advertising — supports a particular view of an issue.
- Comparative advertising — compares competing products.
- Interactive advertising — lets customers choose information or interact with the message.
- Online and mobile advertising — reaches customers through websites, apps, mobile devices, and other digital channels.
Television, Product Placement, and Infomercials
Television has traditionally been an important advertising medium, although viewers can now avoid many commercials through streaming services and recording technology. This has encouraged advertisers to look for additional ways to place messages in front of audiences.
Product placement occurs when advertisers pay to place products in television programs, movies, or other entertainment so the audience sees them as part of the content.
An infomercial is a full-length television program devoted to promoting a particular product. Online advertising serves a related purpose by attracting potential customers to websites or other digital locations where they can learn more and possibly make a purchase.
Interactive Promotion and the Online Experience
Interactive promotion opens a dialogue between buyers and sellers and allows them to work toward a mutually beneficial exchange. Unlike one-way mass communication, interactive promotion gives customers an opportunity to respond, ask questions, share opinions, or customize the information they receive.
A company's online presence is itself part of the promotional experience. Clear brand messaging, easy navigation, effective calls to action, fast and readable pages, and accessibility all contribute to a better customer experience.
Social Media and Advertising Effectiveness
Social media gives marketers opportunities for two-way communication and rapid feedback. Organizations can post messages, observe customer responses, answer questions, and evaluate how audiences react to campaigns.
Successful online campaigns generally need a recognizable personality, customer participation, relationships with relevant online communities, personalized experiences, and content that holds attention. Social media can also help marketers measure reactions much more quickly than many traditional media.
Global Advertising
Global advertising can create efficiency by using a coordinated product and promotional strategy in multiple countries. However, a message that works well in one nation may not work in another. Language, customs, cultural expectations, humor, symbols, and translations can all affect how a promotional message is interpreted. Effective international marketers therefore need to be culturally sensitive.
Personal Selling
Personal selling is the face-to-face presentation and promotion of a product, including searching for new prospects and providing follow-up service. Effective selling is not simply convincing someone to buy. Good salespeople listen to customer needs, identify appropriate solutions, and make the buying process as useful and straightforward as possible.
The Selling Process
A typical selling process includes the following steps:
- Prospect and qualify.
- Pre-approach.
- Approach the customer.
- Make a presentation.
- Answer objections.
- Close the sale.
- Follow up.
Prospecting means researching potential buyers and selecting those most likely to buy. Qualifying means determining whether a potential customer has a need for the product, the authority to buy, and the willingness to listen to a sales message. A customer who meets those criteria is a prospect.
A trial close is a statement or question designed to move the selling process toward a purchase. Throughout the process, successful salespeople understand the customer's business, know the competition, differentiate their offering, build relationships, and focus their effort on people who are likely to buy.
Public Relations
Public relations (PR) evaluates public attitudes, adjusts policies and procedures in response to the public, and carries out programs designed to earn public understanding and acceptance.
A sound PR program follows three basic ideas: listen to the public, make appropriate changes, and communicate that the organization is responsive to people's needs. Public relations therefore involves much more than simply sending information to the media.
Publicity
Publicity is information about an individual, product, or organization that is distributed through the media and is not paid for or controlled by the seller. Publicity can be valuable because it is free, can reach people who might ignore an advertisement, and may appear more believable than paid advertising.
Those advantages come with an important tradeoff: the organization has little control over whether a media outlet uses the story, when it appears, or whether the coverage is favorable. Publicity can be positive or negative.
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion stimulates consumer purchasing and dealer interest through short-term activities. Sales promotions can be directed toward business customers or final consumers.
Common consumer sales promotions include coupons, demonstrations, samples, sweepstakes, in-store displays, and contests. Other promotional incentives may include price reductions, premiums, bonuses, catalogs, special events, and similar short-term techniques. These activities should support the product's overall marketing strategy rather than operate independently.
Word-of-Mouth Promotion
Word-of-mouth promotion occurs when people tell others about products or services they have purchased or experienced. It can be especially influential when customers depend heavily on trust, reputation, and personal recommendations, such as when selecting restaurants, childcare, car repair, hairstylists, or hotels.
Viral Marketing and Digital Promotional Tools
Viral marketing encourages promotional messages to spread from person to person through online networks and social interaction. Some campaigns provide incentives, merchandise, commissions, or other benefits to people who help spread the message.
A blog is an easily updated online publication that can contain text, photographs, video, and links. Podcasting distributes audio or video programs through the Internet. Email, blogs, podcasts, social platforms, and other digital tools allow businesses to communicate directly with customers and commercial buyers.
Mobile Media
Mobile devices give marketers another direct connection with customers. Businesses can use mobile communication to share offers, product information, reminders, and other promotional messages. Because customers carry mobile devices with them, mobile promotion can be timely and highly targeted, but businesses must also respect customer expectations about relevance and frequency.
Push, Pull, and Pick Strategies
Businesses can organize their promotional efforts around several broad strategies:
- Push strategy — producers use advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and other tools to persuade intermediaries to stock and promote their products.
- Pull strategy — producers direct substantial advertising and sales promotion toward consumers so customers request the products from retailers.
- Pick economy — consumers select products from online outlets, giving customers extensive control over what they view and purchase.
Putting Chapter 16 Together
Effective promotion requires coordination. Advertising, personal selling, public relations, publicity, sales promotion, word of mouth, digital media, and mobile communication should work together rather than send conflicting messages. Integrated Marketing Communication helps a business create a consistent message, reach the right target market, build customer relationships, and evaluate whether its promotional efforts are accomplishing their goals.