PRINCIPLES OF MARKETING (UNIT 4.

1: Promotion)

Concept of Promotion (Marketing Communications)

The term ‘promotion’ refers to the range of methods an organization uses to communicate with its
customers, both actual and potential, and includes advertising, publicity, personal selling, and sales
promotion. Marketing communications involves the use of different channels and tools to convey a
company's marketing messages to its target audience. The primary goal is to inform, persuade, and
remind potential and existing customers about the brand and its products or services, ultimately
influencing their purchasing decisions and building long-term customer relationships.

The effective marketer recognizes that the four elements of promotion: advertising, publicity and public
relations, personal selling, and sales promotion have certain strengths. It is a process of communication
with the potential buyers involving information, persuasion, and influence. It includes all types of personal
or impersonal communication with the customers and middlemen. According to the American Marketing
Association, promotion is “the personal or impersonal process of assisting and/or persuading a
prospective customer to buy a commodity or service or to act favorably upon an idea that has commercial
significance to the seller.”

Nature of Promotion

 Creates Awareness: Promotional activities expose an adequate number of target consumers to the
messages and create awareness about the product. For this purpose, such promotion media is chosen
which will reach adequate numbers of target consumers. Print, electronic, outside or online media can
be used as per nature of the product and target audience.
 Attention Grabbing: The promotional campaigns draw the potential customer’s attention towards
the product. The customers are not aware about the new product and it is only through promotional
activities that they can be informed about the product, its features and utility.
 Creates Interest: It is not enough to get the attention of the customer. The aim of promotion is to
make the potential customers interested in knowing more about the product. Customers will be
interested only in those products that they actually need, so the promotional messages should
emphasise on how the featured product can fulfil their needs.
 Informative: The target markets need to know about the functions and characteristics of the product
so that they can relate their needs to it. Promotion is done to provide the necessary information and
details to the prospective buyers of the product. The information given to the customers should also
enable them to differentiate the product from competitors.
 Induces Action: The ultimate goal of all marketing activities is to make a sale. An effective promotional
strategy will grab the attention of the would-be consumers, create interest in their minds, provide
enough information about the product to help them make the purchase decision, and finally induce
them to take action, i.e., purchase the product.

Importance of Promotion

 Motivates Agencies: It offers the opportunity to motivate agencies. The combined thinking of a team
is better than the sum of the parts (and unleashes everyone’s creative potential).
 Participation: Everyone owns the final plan, having worked together on the brainstorming and
implementation, avoiding internal politics. Likely, this can overcome the divisive nature of individual
departments, i.e., ‘fighting their corner.’
 Measurability: One of the most significant benefits is the delivery of better measurability of response
and accountability for the communications program.
 Interaction: Promotion secures better communication between agencies and creates a stronger bond
between them and the client company. Providing a more open flow of information empowers the
participants in the communication program to concentrate on the critical areas of strategic
development rather than pursue individual and separate agendas.
 Consistency of Message Delivery: The planning process in a holistic manner. If approached,
companies can ensure all components of the communications program deliver the same message to
the target audience. Significantly, this demands adopting an overall strategy for the brand rather than
developing individual strategies for the separate marketing communications tools. Avoiding potential
confusion in consumers' minds is a paramount consideration in developing effective communications
programs.
 Client Relationships: For the agency, it issues the opportunity to play a significantly more important
role in developing the communications program and become a more effective partner in the
relationship. By participating in the totality of the communications requirements, the agency can
embrace a more strategic stance rather than having responsibility for one or more components. This,
in turn, provides significant power and advantages over competitors.

Concept of Promotional Mix

The Promotion Mix integrates Advertising, Personal Selling, Sales Promotion, Public Relations, and Direct
Marketing. The marketers need to view the following questions to have a balanced blend of these
promotional tools.
 What is the most effective way to inform the customers?
 Which marketing methods are to be used?
 To whom will the promotion efforts be directed?
 What is the marketing budget? How is it to be allocated to the promotional tools?
The primary purpose of the promotional mix is to create brand awareness, but the most essential is to
produce organizational goals and profits. A promotional mix is defined as being successful if you deliver
a clear, compelling message based on choosing the most appropriate promotion method.

Elements of Promotional Mix

The significant elements of the promotional mix comprise advertising, sales promotion, personal selling,
public relations and publicity, and direct marketing. They are outlined as follows:
 Advertising: Advertising is any paid form of non-personal mass communication through various
media to present and promote products, services, and ideas by an identified sponsor. It is highly cost-
effective because it can reach a large population at a low cost per person, and the message can be
repeated several times.
 Sales Promotion: According to the Council of Sales Promotion Agencies, sales promotion has been
defined as a marketing discipline that utilizes a variety of incentive techniques to structure sales-related
programs targeted to customers, trade, and sales levels that generate a specific, measurable action or
response for a product or service. Examples include discounts, rebates, free samples, coupons,
contests, etc.
 Personal Selling: It is a face-to-face paid personal communication and aims to inform and persuade
prospects and consumers to purchase products and services or accept ideas of issues. It involves more
specific communication aimed at one or several persons. It is the most effective but also the most
expensive of the promotional mix elements.
 Public Relations and Publicity: Public Relations are a broad set of communications activities
employed to create and maintain favorable relationships with employees, shareholders, suppliers,
media, educators, potential investors, financial institutions, government agencies, and officials as well
 as society, by and large, in the form of annual reports, brochures, events or sponsorship programs.
Publicity is a tool of public relations. It is a non-personal mass communication, but the benefitting
organization does not pay for the media space or time. It can be news stories about an organization,
its products, or its activities. Some publicity tools include press conferences, news releases, and feature
articles.
 Direct Marketing: It involves vending products to customers without the involvement of channel
members. It is a system by which firms communicate directly with target customers to generate a
response or transaction, such as an inquiry, purchase, or vote. Direct marketers share through direct-
response media such as direct mail, telephones, interactive TV, or the Internet.
The advantages and disadvantages of these elements are discussed as follows:
Promotional Mix
Advantages Disadvantages
Element
 Broad reach to large audiences  It can be expensive, especially for TV
 Control over the message or print media
 Enhances brand recognition and  Impersonal
Advertising
recall  Limited feedback from the audience
 It can be tailored to a general or  Risk of ad avoidance (e.g., ad
specific audience. blockers, skipping ads).
 Stimulates quick sales boosts  Short-term effect: doesn’t build long-
 Encourages trial of new products term loyalty
Sales Promotion  Helps clear excess inventory  It can dilute brand image if overused
 It can be a strong incentive for  It may attract price-sensitive
purchase. customers only.
 Builds and maintains a positive  Less control over how the message is
image interpreted
Public Relations  More credible as it is not paid for  Can be ignored if not newsworthy
(PR) directly  Long-term effort for visible results
 Can target specific groups  Results are more complex to
 Helps manage crises. measure
 Direct contact allows for  High costs due to training and salary
personalized communication  Limited reach; time-consuming
 Immediate feedback from  Depends on the skills of the
Personal Selling
customers salesperson
 Can build a long-term relationship  It can be perceived as intrusive.
 Highly persuasive.
 Targeted directly at specific  It can be seen as intrusive or spam
customers  Privacy concerns with data collection
Direct Marketing  Personalization of messages  Response rates may be low
 Easy to measure results  Overuse can lead to customer
 It can be cost-effective. fatigue.

Factors Affecting the Promotional Mix

 Type of Product: Products can be categorized into branded products, non-branded products,
necessity products, luxury products, new products, etc. All these types of products need different
promotional tools. For example, advertising is suitable for branded and popular products. Personal
selling may be fit for non-branded products. All four tools of advertising, personal selling, sales
promotion, and publicity are used for a newly launched product to get rapid consumer acceptance.
 Push and Pull Strategies: With push strategy, the manufacturer promotes the product only to the
next institution down the marketing channel. It generally uses personal selling and trade sales
promotions to motivate resellers to stock and sell the product to consumers. In the case of a pull
strategy, marketers direct their communications to consumers to develop strong consumer demand
for the products or services. This is primarily achieved through advertising and sales promotion.
 Use of Product: The product may be an industrial product, a consumable and necessity product, or a
luxurious product that affects the selection of promotion tools and media. For example, advertising
and sales promotion techniques are widely used for consumer goods, while personal selling is used
for industrial goods.
 Complexity of Product: Product complexity affects the selection of promotional tools. Personal
selling is more effective for complex, technical, risky, and newly developed products as they need
personal explanation and observation. Conversely, advertising is more suitable for simple and easy-
handled products.
 Purchase Quantity and Frequency: The company should consider purchase frequency and quantity
while deciding on the promotion mix. Generally, for frequently purchased products, advertising is
used, and for infrequently purchased products, personal selling and sales promotion are preferred.
Personal selling and advertising are used for heavy and light users, respectively.
 Fund Available for Market Promotion: The company's financial capacity is a vital factor affecting the
promotion mix. Advertising through television, radio, newspapers, and magazines is too costly to bear
by financially poor companies, while personal selling and sales promotion are comparatively cheaper
tools. The company may even opt for publicity by highlighting certain commercially significant events.
 Type of Market: The type of market or consumer characteristics determine the form of the promotion
mix. Education, location, income, personality characteristics, knowledge, bargaining capacity,
profession, age, sex, etc., are the critical factors that affect a company’s promotion strategy.
 Size of Market: Personal selling is more effective in a limited market. Advertising is preferable when
the market is vast with many buyers. Place is also an important issue. The type of the message, the
language of the message, the type of sales promotion tools, etc., depend on geographical areas.
 Stage of Product Life Cycle: The product passes through four stages of its life cycle. Each stage poses
different threats and opportunities. Each stage needs separate marketing strategies. Each promotional
tool has another degree of suitability with varying stages of the product life cycle.