Promotional tools

There are six main aspects of a promotional mix these are:

Advertising - Any paid presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services by an identified
sponsor. Examples: Print ads, radio, television, billboard, direct mail, brochures and catalogs,
signs, in-store displays, posters, motion pictures, Web pages, banner ads, and emails.

Personal Selling - A process of helping and persuading one or more prospects to purchase a
good or service or to act on any idea through the use of an oral presentation. Examples: Sales
presentations, sales meetings, sales training and incentive programs for intermediary salespeople,
samples, and telemarketing. Can be face-to-face or via telephone.

Sales promotion - Media and non-media marketing communication are employed for a pre-
determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or improve
product availability. Examples: Coupons, sweepstakes, contests, product samples, rebates, tie-
ins, self-liquidating premiums, trade shows, trade-ins, and exhibitions.

Public relations - Paid intimate stimulation of supply for a product, service, or business unit by
planting significant news about it or a favorable presentation of it in the media. Examples:
Newspaper and magazine articles/reports, TVs and radio presentations, charitable contributions,
speeches, issue advertising, and seminars.

Corporate image - The Image of an organization is a crucial point in marketing. If the

reputation of a company is bad, consumers are less willing to buy a product from this company
as they would have been, if the company had a good image.

Direct Marketing is often listed as a the fifth part of the marketing mix
Exhibitions - are try-outs. You make your product, and let potential buyers try the product, this
way, you know directly what people see in your product. The downside, your competitor can see
exactly what you are doing

promotion - introduction to the

promotional mix
It is not enough for a business to have good products sold at attractive prices. Togenerate sales
and profits, the benefits of products have to be communicated tocustomers. In marketing, this is
commonly known as "promotion".
Promotion is all about companies communicating with customers.
A business' total marketing communications programme is called the "promotional
mix" and consists of a blend of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and
public relations tools. In this revision note, we describe the four key elements of the
promotional mix in more detail.
It is helpful to define the four main elements of the promotional mix before
considering their strengths and limitations.
(1) Advertising
Any paid form of non-personal communication of ideas or products in the "prime
media": i.e. television, newspapers, magazines, billboard posters, radio, cinema etc.
Advertising is intended to persuade and to inform. The two basic aspects of
advertising are the message (what you want your communication to say) and the
medium (how you get your message across)
(2) Personal Selling
Oral communication with potential buyers of a product with the intention of making a
sale. The personal selling may focus initially on developing a relationship with the
potential buyer, but will always ultimately end with an attempt to "close the sale".
(3) Sales Promotion
Providing incentives to customers or to the distribution channel to stimulate demand
for a product.
(4) Publicity
The communication of a product, brand or business by placing information about it in
the media without paying for the time or media space directly. otherwise known as
"public relations" or PR.

Promotion Mix

Marketers have at their disposal four major methods of promotion. Taken together these
comprise the promotion mix. In this section a basic definition of each method is offered while in
the next section a comparison of each method based on the characteristics of promotion is
presented.

Advertising – Involves non-personal, mostly paid promotions often using mass media outlets to
deliver the marketer’s message. While historically advertising has involved one-way
communication with little feedback opportunity for the customer experiencing the advertisement,
the advent of computer technology and, in particular, the Internet has increased the options that
allow customers to provide quick feedback.

Sales Promotion – Involves the use of special short-term techniques, often in the form of
incentives, to encourage customers to respond or undertake some activity. For instance, the use
of retail coupons with expiration dates requires customers to act while the incentive is still valid.

Public Relations – Also referred to as publicity, this type of promotion uses third-party sources,
and particularly the news media, to offer a favorable mention of the marketer’s company or
product without direct payment to the publisher of the information.
Personal Selling – As the name implies, this form of promotion involves personal contact
between company representatives and those who have a role in purchase decisions (e.g., make
the decision, such as consumers, or have an influence on a decision, such as members of a
company buying center). Often this occurs face-to-face or via telephone, though newer
technologies allow this to occur online via video conferencing or text chat.