SALES & Marketing

PROMOTIONS
&Communications
The Promotional Mix

 Promotion
 Communicating information between sellers and
buyers or others in the channel to influence attitudes
(feelings or beliefs) or behavior.
 The marketing mix is… ? but the promotional
mix is
 Advertising (paid non-personal communication)
 Publicity (non-paid, non-personal communication)
 Personal selling (paid, personal communication)
 Sales promotion (other activities)
 These are the tools available to the marketer.
Promotional goals
 In a broad sense, promotion is used to:
 Make demand more inelastic (demand the same
quantity at a higher price/margin) and/or
 Increase the quantity demanded (move the demand
curve to the right)
 More specifically, promotion can be used to
 Create awareness
 Stimulate demand
 Encourage product trial Remember that the
goal is to eventually
 Identify prospects
generate a sale!
 Retain loyal customers
 Facilitate reseller support
 Combat competitive promotional efforts
 Reduce sales fluctuations
Promotion and the PLC

Introduction Growth Maturity Decline

PR before
introduction Heavy Ads focus on Reduce ads
Advertising persuading and and PR
Build awareness reminding
(pioneering) Less sales
promotion More sales Lower levels
Induce trial Promotion of sales
Build preference Promotion
Use selling and loyalty Use selling to
to obtain (competitive) maintain Milk brand or
distribution distribution divest
Think strategically about promotion

 You should always develop a message

strategy and a media strategy.
 Message strategy:
 What will you say? (i.e., the content of your
promotional message)
 What is it you want someone to think, feel or do as a

result of seeing your message? (measurable

outcome)
 Media strategy
 What combination of tools (the promotional mix) will
you use to accomplish the message strategy?
Are you pushing or pulling (or both?)

 Pushing strategy - persuading others in the

channel to carry your product
 Ex: Manufacturer pushes the product to the wholesaler,
wholesaler pushed the product to the retailer, retailer
pushes the product to the consumer.
 Pulling strategy - persuading final users to
demand the product, “pulling”it through the
channel
 Ex: A manufacturer advertises to final consumers,
knowing the retailer will demand the product to meet
consumer needs, and the wholesaler will stock the
product to meet a retailer’s needs.
 Many marketers push and pull at the same time!
How much should I spend?
 Percentage of sales approach
 Matching competitors
 Basing budgets on previous years
 The “all you can afford” method
 What’s wrong with these four?
 Objective and task
 Base the budget on the job to be done - specify the
objective and the tasks necessary to accomplish the
objective, then compute what needs to be spent to
accomplish it
 Over budget? Refine objectives or refine tasks until
agreement is reached
Think AIDA!

Attention AIDA is a
linear and
Interest sequential
process
Desire

Action
 AIDA - different tools for different jobs

 Attention
 What will you do to capture the attention of your target
market? (Advertising, PR)
 Interest
 How will you hold their interest to facilitate message
processing? (Ads, PR, personal sales, contests, etc.)
 Desire
 How will you connect the problem someone has to the
product/service offered so the target market desires the
product to meet the need? (Advertising, personal sales)
 Action
 How will you get the consumer to take action within a
specified time frame? (Personal sales, sales promotion)
Know what you want to do...

 Direct or Indirect Advertising?

 Pioneering or Competitive?
 Comparative - draws a comparison between the
product and another.
 Direct comparative - the other product is named (ex:
the Ford 500 is better than Honda Accord)
 Indirect comparative -the other product is not
specifically named (ex: The Honda Accord is the best
car in its class)