The Marketing Mix: Promotion

• Promotion is where marketing activities aim to raise awareness of a product or brand, generating sales and helping to create brand loyalty.

The aims of promotion

• These are the aims of promotion:
  • to inform people about particular issues, often used by the government
  • to introduce new products on to the market
  • to compete with competitors’ products
  • to create a brand image
  • to increase sales
  • to improve the company image.

Different forms of promotion

• Advertising can be either informative or persuading.
  • Advertising is paid for communication with potential customers about a product to encourage them to buy it.
  • Informative adverising is where the emphasis of advertising or sales promotion is to give full information about the product.
  • Persuasive advertising is advertising or promotion which is trying to persuade the consumer that they really need the product and should buy it.

Process of advertising

1. Set objectives.
   • The business will have to decide the purpose of the advertising.
     • Is it to capture a new market?
     • is it to increase market share?
     • Is it to improve the image of the company?
     • Is it to create or improve a brand image?
2. Decide the advertising budget.
   • The business will need to decide how much to spend on advertising. Too much = money wasted, too little = less effective advertising.
   • For cost-effectiveness, the business can predict how much sales will be in the future and then spend a percentage of the predicted sales on advertising the product.
     • Using this method, the expense of advertising is related to the revenue brought in by the sales of the product.
   • Sometimes the budget will be set by how much competitiors spend on advertising.
   • The budget is also decided by how much the business can afford to spend, true for small businesses.
3. Create an advertising campaign.
   • The business will need to decide what sort of advertising campaign to run. For example, will the ads need to attract young people?
   • The target audience refers to people who are potential buyers of a product or service. The target audience and the purpose of the advertising are considered when making a campaign.
4. Select the media to use.
   • The business will need to decide which is the best type of advertising media to use. The target audience determines the suitable form of media. They need to ensure it reaches the target audience.
   • For cost-effectiveness, it is better to choose a cheaper, suitable medium if the target audience isn’t a part of the mass market. It would be pointless to use a popular medium such as television if your target audience is a part of a niche market.
5. Evaluate the effectiveness of the campaign.
   • The business needs to see if sales have increased as a result of the advertising campaign or see if the product’s brand image has improved. For example, has the campaign met its objective?

Types of advertising media

TV

• Advantages:
  • Will go to millions
  • Can be shown in a favorable, attractive way
  • Reaches biggest number of consumers and can reach a target audience by advertising at the correct times where the audience might be watching
• Disadvantages:
  • Expensive
  • Some usually download films/music and may not watch TV programmes

Radio

• Advantages:
  • Cheaper than TV
  • Reaches large audience
  • Uses memorable song or tune so ad can be remembered
• Disadvantages:
  • No visual message
  • More expensive than other media
  • Ad needs to be remembered since there is no hard copy of the ad
  • Audience is still smaller than TV

Newspapers

• Advantages:
  • National newspapers are bought for specific people, ∴ ad can be selected for those specific people
  • Large number read newspapers
  • Cheap to place ads, cost-effective
  • Ads are permanent
  • Lot of info can be put in ad
• Disadvantages:
  • Newspaper ads are often only in black and white ∴ not very attractive, especially if the ad is small
  • Young people don’t read newspapers

Magazines

• Advantages:
  • Magazines are read by a specific type of person or business, ∴ ad can be used to reach target audience
  • Ads are in color, making it look attractive
• Disadvantages:
  • Only published once a month/week
  • More expensive than newspapers

Posters/billboards

• Advantages:
  • Permanent
  • Relatively cheap
  • Seen by many who passes them
• Disadvantages:
  • Can easily be missed as people pass them
  • No detailed info can be included

Cinema, DVD and Blu-ray discs

• Advantages:
  • Can give visual image of the product and show the product in a positive way
  • Relatively low cost
  • Can be very effective if the target audience goes to see particular films
• Disadvantages:
  • Seen by only a limited number of people who go to watch the film or buy the DVD or Blu-ray disc

Leaflets

• Advantages:
  • Cheap
  • Given out in street/wide range of people
  • Direct mail (delivered door to door or mailed to a large number of people)
  • Can contain a money-off voucher to encourage the reader to keep reading the ad
  • Ads are permanent and can be kept for future reference
• Disadvantages:
  • May not be read
  • Can be annoying and put customers off buying the product

Internet

• Advantages:
  • A large amount of info can be placed on a website, which can be seen by many people at home and abroad
  • Orders can be made instantly via the website
  • Direct mail sent via email is cheap
• Disadvantages:
  • Internet searches may miss the website
  • Internet is limited in some places
  • Lot of competition from other websites
  • Security issues may discourage customers from buying online

Other forms of publicity

• Advantages:
  • Very cheap form of advertising
• Disadvantages:
  • May not be seen by target market

Sales promotion

• Sales promotions are incentives such as special offers or special deals aimed at consumers to achieve short-term increases in sales.

Methods

• After-sales service
• Gifts
• BOGOF
• Price reductions
• Competitions
• Point-of-sale displays and demonstrations
• Free samples
• Product placement