Promotion: Push Strategy and Human Resource Management

Module 6A - Promotional Mix

The students will be able to:

1. Define Promotion Mix.
2. Explain the importance of using Promotion Mix.
3. Identify and discuss the components of Promotion Mix.
4. Discuss Push Marketing Strategy
5. Explain the importance of Sales Performance Evaluation
6. Define Performance Management

What is a promotional mix?

Promotion Mix
Definition: The Promotion Mix refers to the blend of several promotional tools used by the
business to create, maintain and increase the demand for goods and services.

The fourth element of the 4 P’s of Marketing Mix is the promotion; that focuses on creating the
awareness and persuading the customers to initiate the purchase. The several tools that
facilitate the promotion objective of a firm are collectively known as the Promotion Mix.

The Promotion Mix is the integration of Advertising, Personal Selling, Sales Promotion, Public
Relations and Direct Marketing. The marketers need to view the following questions in order
to have a balanced blend of these promotional tools.

What is the most effective way to inform the customers?

Which marketing methods to be used?
To whom the promotion efforts be directed?
What is the marketing budget? How is it to be allocated to the promotional tools?

Elements of Promotion Mix

1. Advertising: The advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion
of goods and services by the identified sponsor (endorser) in the exchange of a fee. Through
advertising, the marketer tries to build a pull strategy; wherein the customer is instigated to try
the product at least once. The complete information along with the attractive graphics of the
product or service can be shown to the customers that grab their attention and influences the
purchase decision.

2. Personal Selling: This is one of the traditional forms of promotional tool wherein the
salesman interacts with the customer directly by visiting them. It is a face to face interaction
between the company representative and the customer with the objective to influence the
customer to purchase the product or services.

3. Sales Promotion: The sales promotion is the short term incentives given to the customers
to have an increased sale for a given period. Generally, the sales promotion schemes are
floated in the market at the time of festivals or the end of the season. Discounts, Coupons,
Payback offers, Freebies, etc. are some of the sales promotion schemes. With the sales
promotion, the company focuses on the increased short-term profits, by attracting both the
existing and the new customers.

4. Public Relations: The marketers try to build a favourable image in the market by creating
relations with the general public. The companies carry out several public relations campaigns
with the objective to have a support of all the people associated with it either directly or
indirectly. The public comprises of the customers, employees, suppliers, distributors,
shareholders, government and the society as a whole. The publicity is one of the form of
public relations that the company may use with the intention to bring newsworthy information
to the public.

5. Direct Marketing: With the intent of technology, companies reach customers directly without
any intermediaries or any paid medium.The e-mails, text messages, Fax, are some of the
tools of direct marketing. The companies can send emails and messages to the customers if
they need to be informed about the new offerings or the sales promotion schemes.
E.g. The Shopperstop send SMS to its members informing about the season end sales and
extra benefits to the golden card holders.

Thus, the companies can use any tool of the promotion mix depending on the nature of a
product as well as the overall objective of the firm.

https://businessjargons.com/promotion-mix_html

Importance of using Promotion Mix.

What is a Promotion Mix? - Tips and Examples
A promotion mix is a set of different marketing approaches that marketers develop to optimize
promotional efforts and reach a broader audience. The marketer’s task is to find the right promotion
mix for a particular brand.

Contents
. Why is using a promotion mix important?
. Components of a Promotion Mix
. How to Use SendPulse for Promotion
. Promotion Mix best practices and Tips
. Promotion Mix Example

Developing a promotion mix requires skills and experience in marketing. Marketers should
complete various studies and gather lots of data about a particular company to come up with an
effective promotion mix.

For instance, it is necessary to identify your target audience, work out a budget that you can afford
for a promotion, and decide the most efficient marketing channels for your audience.

A promotion mix is a more expanded approach towards one of five elements of the marketing mix
— Promotion. Other factors are people, product, place, and price.
Why is using promotion mix important?
 Improves the effectiveness of promotional campaigns
 Helps segment the audience
 Improves communication with clients
 Informs subscribers
 Stands out from the crowd

Promotion is a crucial part of any business, so companies develop a promotion mix,

putting all efforts to make promotions at the right place, at the right time, and to the right
audience. It helps one get the most out of their marketing resources by optimizing their
budget and saving time.
 Helps segment the audience. To develop a compelling promotion mix, a company
needs to identify its target audience. Potential subscribers may include various
groups of people who have something in common, for example, age, gender,
preferences, etc., and they all require an individual approach. A promotion mix is a
key method for delivering a relevant promotion message via the most suitable
channel for each segment.
 Improves communication with clients. Companies develop a promotion mix trying
to speak their consumers’ language. If prepared correctly, it helps build trust between
the brand and its customers. This is a crucial factor in lead nurturing and customer
retention. For example, automated email campaigns help achieve these goals by
responding to people’s actions instantly.
 Informs subscribers. Some promotions, on Instagram for example, aim to show the
product from the best angle, and others, like SMS, emphasize the advantages of local
services. When using a promotion mix, companies define the best ways to educate
people about the products and services they provide.
 Stands out from the crowd. People are bombarded with all sorts of advertising at
every turn. With a promotion mix, it is possible to stand out from the crowd without
creating chaos in your customers’ heads. Successful companies make quality prevail
over quantity, promoting their product or service at the right place and right time.
Components of a Promotion Mix
1. Advertising. This is a non-personal promotion of products and services. Marketers
use advertising as a vital tool for increasing brand awareness. Advertisers show
promotions to masses of people using email, webpages, banner ads, television, radio,
etc.

2. Direct selling. This is a one-to-one communication between a sales representative

and a potential customer. Direct selling influences people to decide to buy certain
products or services. It is one of the most effective ways of promoting your brand
because the sales rep can tailor the promotion precisely to those who are most likely
to make a purchase. On the other hand, this is the most expensive form of sales
because companies need to pay for one person’s time.

3. Sales promotion. This is a set of short-term activities that are designed to encourage
immediate purchase. Sales promotions are a campaign that uses time-sensitive
offers — sales, discounts, coupons, etc., to engage existing consumers and bring in a
larger audience. Many companies make this a core component of their marketing
efforts, though sometimes it’s the most annoying type of communication for people.

4. Public relations. This type of promotional method determines the way people treat
the brand. Companies using PR try to build a firm and attractive brand image by
planting interesting news stories about their activities in the media. Public
relations are not fully controlled by the company, though, as some reviews and
webpages may negatively highlight the brand. If a company adequately solves these
issues, people will reward them with positive word-of-mouth consideration.
 How to use SendPulse for Promotion
1.Email
2.SMS
3.Web push notifications
4.Messenger marketing
You can cover some of the promotion mix components with SendPulse. Let’s find out which
marketing channels you can implement in your promotion mix.

Email
This marketing channel allows you to send promotional emails, newsletters, trigger
emails, follow-ups, and more. Avoid monotonous promotions because users’ inboxes
are often overwhelmed with sales emails. Send email campaigns that provide value to
the customers, not only put your product in front.

SMS
Send time-sensitive offers to your audience to impulse quick sales. Try to implement an SMS
campaign in your promotion mix because it has huge open rates.

Web push notifications

Follow up on the success of your email marketing or drive visitors back to your website with
this technology. Send web push notifications to inform about new products, discounts, news,
and updates.

Messenger marketing
This channel allows businesses to have conversations with people in messengers. SendPulse
allows marketers to create chatbots for Facebook Messenger and Telegram app to automate
answering clients' questions, collect orders, register them for events, and promote products.
You can create three chatbots and send 10,000 messages to unlimited number of subscribers
each month for free.

Promotion Mix best practices and tips.

 Identify the target audience

 Follow a five P’s rule
 Provide people with useful information
 Use appropriate marketing channels
 Rely on the right promotion mix elements
 Implement segmentation
 Monitor marketing trends

 Identify the target audience. Determine your target audience and take advantage of the
promotion mix tactics. Create your customer profile to find out how to provide people with
the products they need.

 Follow a five P’s rule. Five factors form promotional marketing success: what you sell
(Product), how much you want for it (Price), how you offer it (Promotion), where you sell it
(Place), and whom you sell it to (People). Work on these five P’s of marketing and give
your customers what they need at the most convenient time.

 Provide people with useful information. Demonstrate the products and services you
sell. Explain what makes them so unique and why customers should choose yours and no
one else’s products. Create reviews comparing your product with competitors’ products.

 Use appropriate marketing channels. Find out which channel of communication is the
most convenient for your audience. Try delivering the same message through different
channels and examine which performs best with your customers.
  Rely on the right promotion mix elements. Personal selling is usually useful for only
small businesses due to its high cost and low outreach. Every business can afford to
display advertising and email marketing, though. Develop a balanced system of
communication with your audience that fits your business well.

 Implement segmentation. This tool targets the audience by dividing it into smaller
groups based on similarities.

 Monitor marketing trends. As internet marketing evolves, new channels for

communication with customers appear. Follow marketing trends to be able to reach your
customers the way they like it.
Last Updated: 16.07.2021

https://sendpulse.com/support/glossary/promotion-mix

Sales Performance Evaluation

Carry out the sales force performance evaluation process using the outcome-based, behavior-based,
and professional development measures.

Stages in the sales force performance appraisal process include (1) establish sales goals and objectives;
(2) develop the sales plan; (3) set sales force performance standards; (4) allocate resources and sales
force efforts; (5) devise a plan for sales force performance improvement; (6) conduct the sales force
performance evaluation process; and (7) provide feedback on sales force performance appraisals.

Outcome-based measures can be separated into sales efforts, sales results, and profitability indices.

Sales efforts include such measures as number of sales calls made, selling expenses as a percentage of
sales volume, and number of service calls.

Sales results include measures such as number of orders obtained, dollar sales volume, number of
new accounts, and collections of accounts receivable.

Profitability indices include net profit contribution, and performance as measured by

financial/economic indicators, such as return on investment, return on sales, return on assets, and
return on assets managed.

Behavior-based outcomes include sales-related activities such as customer relations, territory

management, report preparation and timely submission, product knowledge, and personal
characteristics. Successful sales organizations usually employ a mixture of quantitative and
qualitative performance standards. Competence assessment, which tries to determine the
characteristics needed to do a job rather than the specific tasks of the job, has been successfully used
to select high-achieving salespeople. Professional development measures for assessing sales force
performance include professional selling skills, professional knowledge, and personal characteristics.

Establish different types of sales goals and objectives, and develop the sales plan.

After establishing long-run sales goals, the sales manager can focus on the shorter-run, more
quantifiable targets, called sales objectives, that should be aligned to the company's goals and
objectives. For example, these goals may be to become the most service-oriented sales force in the
industry or to increase profitability on sales by 10 percent. If these sales goals and objectives are not
communicated to salespeople, they can become little more than "wish lists" without the
organizational commitment needed for achievement. In essence, the sales plan provides the detailed
"road map" showing how to achieve sales goals and objectives. It includes four major parts: (1)
situation analysis, (2) opportunities and problems, (3) action programs, and (4) performance
evaluation systems.

Set sales force performance standards.

Performance standards are planned achievement levels the sales organization expects to reach at
progressive intervals throughout the year. Ideally, there should be agreements between subordinates
and superiors as to what level of performance is to be acceptable in some future period, and they
should be formalized based on the detailed job description for the sales subordinate. In setting
performance standards for the sales force, managers need to consider efforts expended as well as
results obtained. Business-to-business sales may require several months of intense sales efforts
before the prospective buyer makes a final decision. Thus, where there's a time lag between effort
and tangible results, sales managers must use qualitative, as well as quantitative, measures in setting
sales performance standards.

Describe the procedure for marketing costs and profitability analyses.

Sales analysis, whether by territory, sales rep, product line, or customer, involves five major steps: (1)
specify the purpose of the analysis, (2) identify functional cost centers, (3) convert natural expenses
into functional costs, (4) allocate functional costs to segments, and (5) determine the profit
contribution of segments.

Allocate resources and efforts through sales quotas.

There are four types of sales quotas: sales volume, financial, activity, and combination. The rationale
to use a specific type of sales quota is largely based on the quantitative and qualitative sales goals a
salesperson is expected to achieve in a given time frame. Three variants of volumes quotas are dollar-
based sales quotas, unit volume quotas, and point quotas. Two categories of financial quotas are
expense quotas and profit quotas. Activity quotas are measured by factors such as the number of
prospects called on, number of demonstrations made, number of displays set up, and number of new
accounts established. Combination quotas are used when management wants to control the
performance of both the selling and non-selling activities of the sales force. These quotas generally
use points as a common measuring tool to overcome the difficulty of evaluating the different units
used across quotas.

List the major steps in the sales force performance evaluation monitoring system (PEMS).

An effective performance evaluation monitoring system (PEMS) has three stages: performance
planning, performance appraisal, and performance review. Specific steps in the performance
measurement and evaluation process include (a) establish sales goals and objectives, (b) develop the
sales plan, (c) set performance standards, (d) allocate resources and sales force efforts in
implementing the sales plan, and (e) evaluate sales force performance and implement corrective
actions, if needed.

Provide feedback and evaluation, and improve sales force performance.

Four widely used evaluation techniques are descriptive statements, graphic rating scales, behaviorally
anchored rating scales (BARS), and management by objectives (MBO). Descriptive statements about a
salesperson may be short responses to a series of specific criteria such as job knowledge, territorial
management, customer relations, personal qualities, or sales results. Two commonly employed
devices in graphic rating scales are "semantic differential" and Likert-type scales. The semantic
differential uses bipolar adjective extremes to anchor several scale segments. Likert-type scales
provide descriptive anchors under each segment of the scale. BARS, which concentrates on measuring
behaviors key to performance that the individual salesperson can control, includes four basic steps: (a)
identify critical incidents, (b) refine critical incidents into performance dimensions, (c) rate the
effectiveness of the described behaviors, and (d) select a set of incidents as behavioral anchors for the
performance dimension. MBO involves mutual goal setting by the sales manager and the sales
representative, who jointly agree on the salesperson's specific goals or performance targets for the
coming period. Traditional performance evaluation systems have limitations including the halo effect,
central tendency, varying evaluation standards, psychological resistance to negative evaluations,
recent performance bias, no outcome focus, inadequate sampling of job activities, political concerns,
fear of reprisal, interpersonal bias, questionable personality traits, and the influence of special
organizational use. Prompt evaluation feedback should be provided to salespeople, so they can take
measures to enhance their performance by improving selling skills and ultimately their sales
performance through sales training programs.
Apply twenty-first century sales force performance appraisal methods.

Current developments in the area of sales force performance appraisals include 360-degree
performance perspectives, performance appraisals of team selling, and performance review ranking
systems. Just as in evaluating individual sales force members, team performance evaluation involves
selecting the relevant performance criteria and employing appropriate appraisal methods. The 360-
degree performance appraisal process systematically elicits information on a salesperson's skills,
abilities, and behaviors from various individuals with whom the salesperson is in ongoing contact?all
internal and external constituents, including the sales manager, sales team peers, sales subordinates,
other departmental coworkers, purchasing managers, and accounts payable managers. Also included
is a self-assessment, thus providing appraisal from many different perspectives. Performance review
ranking entails sales managers evaluating each of their salespeople by ranking them using multiple
performance dimensions and then placing them in different performance categories using a scale (e.g.,
A _ excellent performance, B _ above-average performance, C _ average performance, D _
satisfactory performance, and E _ sub-par performance).

https://college.cengage.com/business/hair/sales_mgt/1e/assets/students/ch_summary/chapter14.ht
ml
Sales Force Evaluation Process

Sales Force Evaluation Process

Small Business
|
Human Resources
|
Sales Force
By
Megan Martin

Performance management requires analyzing many variables, including current employee

performance.
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Examples of Sales Performance Goals

What Makes a Poor Employee Evaluation?

When you're in charge of a sales force, it's easy to skip individual performance reviews in lieu of
allowing sales volume to speak for itself. But sales force performance can't be determined by
productivity alone. Managers need to look at individual and team performance in a number of areas
to determine how the sales force can best be improved.

Benefits
Evaluating your organization’s sales force can do a lot more than help you determine how to help
individual sales associates improve what they do. Evaluations can improve your ability to recognize
gaps in your sales force’s abilities and determine your hiring needs. They can even clarify potential
training needs, customer service improvements, or which employees deserve a raise.

Considerations
Entrepreneur Online notes that not all salespeople perform the same duties. They recommend
making a list of expectations that you have for each individual and evaluating each member on unique
criteria rather than evaluating the entire sales force using identical criteria. In addition, look at the big
picture: consider the sales goals for your company, and whether the team is meeting these goals. If
not, consider whether certain individuals are not performing required duties or because you need to
hire extra heads.

Pros And Cons of Measuring Productivity

Productivity can be a great indication of sales performance, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
Entrepreneur can recommends determining average productivity by dividing the sales volume by the
number of salespeople within the organization. Compare each person’s sales volume to the average
to see which employees fall below the average. Entrepreneur warns against evaluating your sales
force on productivity alone. If the team’s sales volume is high but clients are receiving poor customer
service, less lucrative items are being sold, or some salespeople have high return rates, changes likely
need to be made. It is important to evaluate your sales force on a range of criteria: determine which
employees are able to sell high-price items and which get the best customer reviews.

Other Evaluation Techniques

A 2001 Gallup Management Journal study found that customer loyalty is one of the strongest
indicators that your sales force is doing its job. Gallup notes: “The best sales forces we have studied
aren't just selling products or services; they are building customer loyalty … your sales force is a key
factor in generating loyalty and emotional attachment to your company.” If your sales force, or the
individuals that make it up, are selling a lot but not bringing back the same clients again and again,
you may be in trouble when the competition introduces a new product or service. Check to see which
team members have the highest customer loyalty.

Expert Insight
According to Gallup Management Journal, “measurement alone isn't enough. The effort to develop a
world-class sales organization cannot start and stop with measurement.” You have to act on what you
learn from evaluating your staff, which means making tough decisions regarding firing, hiring and
management practices. Meet with employees to discuss the evaluation, help them set goals for
improvement and keep them on track by frequently communicating. If an employee has strengths
that make her better suited for a different position, don’t hesitate to suggest a new opportunity.