Public Relations, Sales Promotion and Personal Selling and Direct

marketing
Promotional mix
A company’s total promotion mix also called its marketing
communications mix. It is a blend of advertising, public relations,
sales promotion, personal selling, direct and digital marketing
Public Relations
Building good relationships with the company’s various publics
by obtaining favourable publicity, building up a good corporate
image, and handling or heading off unfavourable rumours, stories or
events.
 Press / Media releases
 Sponsorship
 Special events
 Experiential
 Networking
Public Relations Departments
*Publicity: Unpaid exposure
May perform any or all of the following functions: in the media
 Press relations or press agency
 Product publicity
 Public affairs
 Lobbying
 Investor relations
 Development (Not for profit)
Advantages Disadvantages
 Highly credible  Tends to be under-utilised
 Able to reach many prospects  Used as an after-thought
 Can “dramatize” the message
 Is very effective when used with
other types of promotion

Public Relations
Public relations uses several tools:
 News
 Special Written materials
 Audio visual materials
 Corporate identity materials
 Storytelling and engaging using online materials
Personal Selling
Personal presentation by the firm’s salesforce for the purpose of making sales and building customer
relationships.
 Sales presentation
 Trade shows
 Tele-sales
Advantages Disadvantages
- Effective for building preference, - Requires long term management
conviction and action commitment
- Interpersonal communication - Cost: US and Australian companies
- Retains consumer interest for longer spend 3 times as much on personal
- Cost effective in markets with high selling as on advertising
ticket items or where there are few
buyers

Salesperson
An individual representing a company to customers by performing one or more of the following:

- Prospecting
- Communicating
- Selling
- Servicing
- Information gathering
- Relationship building
The role of the Salesforce
Linking the company with its customers, and customers with the company.
 Identifying sales opportunities
 Managing the buyer-seller relationship
 Providing customer intelligence
 Carrying out market research
 Promoting the company to its target market
 Act as customer ‘champions’ inside the company
Coordinating sales and marketing
 Working together – InterDepartment Sales/Marketing relationships
Designing a sales force structure
A salesforce can be divided along multiple lines of responsibility:
 Territorial: Assigns each salesperson to an exclusive geographic area to sell the company’s
full line
 Product: The salesperson specializes in selling only a portion of the company’s products or
lines
 Customer: Salespeople specialize in selling only to certain customers or industries
  Complex: Combining several types of salesforce structures

Salesforce size
Calculating the size of the sales force

Personal selling process

 Prospecting and qualifying: Develop a list of potential customers
 Pre-approach: Identifying customer needs – leans as much as possible
 Approach: Meet the customer for the first time – provide the value story
 Presentation and demonstration
 Handling objections: Clarify and overcome customer concerns
 Closing: Close the sale or ask for the order
 Follow-up: Customer loyalty and repeat business
Sales Promotion
Short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service.
 Discounts
 Coupons
 Demonstrations
 Point of sale
 Incentive programs
 Merchandising
Sales Promotion objectives
Consumer promotions: Will urge short-term customer buying
Trade promotions: Include getting retailers to carry new items and more inventory
Business Promotions: Are used to generate business leads, reward customers, and motivate sales
people.
 - For the salesforce, this includes getting support for current or new products to sign up new
accounts
*Sales promotions are usually used together with advertising, personal selling, direct marketing or
other promotion mix tools.
Advantages Disadvantages
 Varied tool includes coupons, POS  Sales promotion effects are often short
materials, premium and more lived
 Attracts consumer attention and provide  Not as effective as advertising or selling
incentives to purchase
 Invites and reward quick sales

Major sales promotion tools

 Free samples  Discounts
 Premium offers  Refunds
 Loyalty programs  Rebates
 Contests  Point of purchase
 Coupons  Event sponsorship

Trade sales promotions

Present products to business customers and stimulate the products’ movement through the marketing
channel.
Examples:
 Conventions and trade shows
 Sales contest for marketing intermediaries
- Gifts and premium money
- Trade allowances
- Cooperative advertising
- Dealer listings

Other forms of promotion

Ambush marketing: Presenting marketing messages at an event that is sponsored by an unrelated
business or a competitor
Guerrilla marketing: Tactical use of an aggressive and unconventional marketing approach to grab
attention
Product placement: Paid inclusion of products in movies, television shows, video games, songs and
books
Plug: When the media overtly promotes a product within a program rather than as a separate
advertisement
Developing the sales promotion program
 Decide on the size of the incentive
 Conditions for participation
 Promote and distribute the promotion
 Determine the length of the promotion
  Decide on how the promotion will be evaluated (measure against the objectives and return on
investment)
Direct and digital marketing model
Direct & digital marketing is interacting directly with carefully targeted individual consumers and
communities to obtain an immediate response and build lasting customer relationships.
* Direct marketing and digital or online marketing must be carefully integrated with other elements of
the marketing mix.
 Beyond brand and relationship building, direct and digital marketers usually seek a direct,
immediate, and measurable consumer response
 Many companies still use direct and digital marketing as a supplementary channel or medium
 The direct and digital marketing model is rapidly changing the way companies think about
building relationships with customers.
Benefits of direct and digital marketing to buyers and sellers
Buyers Sellers
 Convenient  Low-cost
 Easy  Efficient
 Private  Speedy alternative
 Flexibility

Access anywhere, anytime access Access to reach more buyers

Direct marketing
Interacting directly with carefully targeted individual consumers and communities to both obtain
an immediate response and build lasting customer relationships.
 Catalogues
 Telemarketing
 Electronic marketing
 Network marketing
Advantages Disadvantages
 Highly personalised form of  Can be ignored
communication  Getting the frequency right can be
 Immediate and customised difficult
 Interactive
 Suited to highly targeted
communications and relationship
building

Companies tailor offers and content to the needs and interests of narrowly defined segments or
individual buyers using various methods.
Direct print and reproduction
Mail-outs of letters, product lists, samples, and paper-based and digital catalogues on CD-ROM or
DVD sent to a list or a known database of customers, or to a targeted group that the marketer wishes
to convert to a database entry.
 Direct print and reproduction marketing consists of:
- Direct mail sent to both those the company with to add as customers, and

- Those who have already responded to previous offers

 Prediction that traditional forms of direct mail in coming years will decrease:
- Digital forms such as email, online social media and mobile marketing are faster and lower
cost

Direct-response television and radio

Where commercials are put to air that persuasively describe a product and then give a toll-free
number for viewers to call and place an order.
Often used to:

- Build a database
- Make immediate sales

Often companies employ sales promotion coupled with telemarketing techniques.

Television and radio are sometimes used along with other media as acquisition media to build a
customer database.

- Home shopping channel on FTA – TV, and PAY – TV are part of direct and digital marketing
categories as consumers click their remotes to interact.
Telemarketing
Inbound telemarketing – viewers are invited to call a number and place their order
Outbound telemarketing – Human telephone operators or computers with voice recognition
capabilities ‘cold call,’ seeking an order or perhaps a donation.
Direct marketing – Telesales
Telesales usually involves a permanent part-time bank of telephone operators who routinely call
known customers to take their orders.
The only feature differentiating this method from telemarketing is that, in telesales, the calls are
routinely made to regular customers, such as retailers.
Kiosks and electronic dispensing
Kiosks machines used to provide information and take orders.
Electronic dispensing machines (EDMs) dispense and receive cash, as do the EFTPOS machines
used by retailers.