Unit 4 - Promotion

Unit 4 - Promotion

• Meaning, The role of marketing communications in marketing effort.

• Communication Mix Elements - Introduction to Advertising, Sales Promotion,
Personal Selling, Public Relations, Direct Marketing.
• Concept of Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC),
• Developing Effective Communication - Communication Process, Steps in
Developing effective marketing communication - identifying target audience,
determining communication objectives, designing a message, Choosing media,
Selecting message source, Collecting feedback.
• Shaping the overall promotion mix: promotional mix strategy, push-pull
strategies.
 Meaning of Promotion Mix

• Promotion mix refers to the combination of all marketing efforts employed by

company for doing mass scale promotion of its products.

• It is a mix of various tools and techniques which aims at enhancing sales of

company’s products by advertising and reaching among the target market.

• It creates awareness about products in market and explains its feature to

peoples for persuading them to purchase it.

• It must include effective tools of promotion that provide optimum results to

organization as all promotional tools are not equally effective.
 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.

• A company’s total marketing communication program is called as “ Promotion Mix”.

• Promotion Mix Consists of specific mix of advertising, personal selling, sales

promotion, and public relations tools that the company uses to pursue its
advertising and marketing objectives.

• Promotion is a marketing tool, used as a strategy to communicate between the

sellers and buyers. 
 The Role Of Promotion In The Marketing
Mix

• In creating awareness typically used to reach goals bringing product launch

awareness, sales promotion, rebrand and more.

• This offers information and creates a superior brand image in the eyes of
consumers.

• This is further utilized to influence consumer choices and predicting their

behavior.

• This increases sales and creates a loyal brand image among consumers.
 Advantages of Promotion Mix

• Build Awareness

• Reaches Mass Audience

• Higher Sales Growth

• Increase Market Share

• Enhance Customer Experience And Satisfaction

Communication Mix Elements
 Advertising: 

• The advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of

goods and services by the identified sponsor in the exchange of a fee.

• Through advertising, the marketer tries to build a pull strategy; wherein the
customer is prompted 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.

• Media used for promotion are print, broadcast, network, electronic and display.
 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.
 Personal Selling

• This is one of the traditional forms of promotional tool wherein the salesman interacts with the
customer directly by visiting them.

• Face-to-face interaction with one or more prospective purchasers with company sales force, other
employees for the purpose of making presentations, answering questions, and procuring orders.

• 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.

• Personal selling is most expensive method of promotion which leads to enhance the buyer and
seller relationship.
 Public Relations
• The marketers try to build a favorable 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.

• A variety of activities directed internally to employees of the company or

externally to consumers, other firms, the government.
• E.g. Large Corporates such as Dabur, L&T, Tata Consultancy, Bharti Enterprises,
Services, Unitech, Indian Oil, GAIL, and NTPC have joined hands with Government
to clean up their surroundings, build toilets and support the swachh Bharat
Mission.
 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.

• Direct marketing is a one-way communication in between company and customer

that is done for product announcements, bulletins and special promotions.

• E.g. The Shopperstop send SMS to its members informing about the season end
sales and extra benefits to the golden card holders.
Concept of Integrated Marketing
Communications (IMC)
 Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

• IMC is a planning process designed to assure that all brand contacts received
by a customer or prospect for a product, service, or organization are relevant
to that person and consistent over time.

• The concept under which a company carefully integrates and coordinates its
many communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling
message about the organization and its products.

• Integrated marketing communication refers to integrating all the methods of brand

promotion to promote a particular product or service among target customers. In
integrated marketing communication, all aspects of marketing communication work together
for increased sales and maximum cost effectiveness.
 Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

• The goal of IMC is to generate both short-term financial returns and to build
long-term brand and stakeholder value.

• This definition also recognizes IMC as a business process, and the importance
of stakeholders’ internal employees, as well as externally, such as customers,
prospects, suppliers, investors, interest groups, and the general public
Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

• IMC plan is NOT a marketing plan. It is a portion of the marketing plan that involves
all promotional aspects of the marketing plan.
• All communications with customers, including
• personal selling
• consumer sales promotions
• trade (channel) promotions
• advertising
• public relations
• corporate as well as product positioning
• customer service experiences
Traditional Approach to Marketing
Communications
Contemporary IMC Approach
 Integrated marketing communication plan needs to include:

• Detailed summary of your marketing plan as to how it intends to promote products and
services among target customers.
• Background, history and vision of your organization.
• Know your products well. Include features and essential components of your brand.

• Compare your brand with the competitors. Write down how your brand is better than
competitors? You need to keep a close watch on competitor’s activities. Have clarity as
to how your brand is better than your competitors and why should consumers only buy your
product and not go anywhere else.

• Do a SWOT analysis which highlights the strengths, weaknesses, threats and opportunities

of the marketing plan.

• Specify the tools and methods which would help you create awareness of your brand.
The Communication Process Models
Macro-model of Communication Process
 Micro Models of consumer process

• Micromodels of marketing communications focus on consumers’ detailed

responses to communications.
• All these models assume the buyer passes through three distinctive stages that
are cognitive (learning), affective (feel), and behavioral (do) stages, in that order.
• This ―learn-feel-do sequence is suitable when the audience has high
involvement with a product category along with high level of perceived
differentiation such as an automobile or house.
• An alternative sequence, ―do- feel-learn is relevant when the audience has
high involvement but perceives little or no differentiation within the product
category, such as an airline ticket or personal computer or insurance.
 Micro Models of consumer process

• A third sequence, ―learn-do-feel is appropriate when the customer has

low involvement and perceives little differentiation, such as with salt or
batteries. By choosing the right sequence, the marketer can do a better job
of planning communications with the customers.

• Let’s assume the customer has high involvement with the product category
and perceives high differentiation within it. We will demonstrate the
hierarchy-of-effects model (the second column of the figure below) in the
context of a marketing communications.
Micro Models of consumer process
 Hierarchy of effects model
• Awareness - If most of the target audience is not aware of the object that is
brand name, the communicator’s task is to build awareness.
• Customers see many advertisements each day but remember a few of them.
• Where the consumer has understood the brand but has limited understanding of
the brand.

• Example- Imperial institute seeks applicants from engineering & commerce

colleges but has no name recognition there, although 30,000 final year students
of engineering commerce graduation are keen to join management programme.
• The college might set the objective of making 80 percent of these students
aware of its name within one year.
 Hierarchy of effects model
• Knowledge. The target audience might have brand awareness but not know much about
it.
• The customer starts collecting the knowledge about the brand from internet, store etc.
• Consumer will move to competitor brand if they do not get detailed knowledge of the
brand or product.

• Imperial may want its target audience to know it is a private management institute with a
excellent infrastructure and competent faculty offering various two year post graduate
programs in marketing, finance and operations.

• It needs to study how many people in the target audience have little, some, or detailed
knowledge about imperial. If knowledge is weak, Imperial may select brand knowledge as
its communications objective.
 Hierarchy of effects model

• Liking: this stage is about confirming that consumers are liking your product.
• Liking means consumer sees positive benefits associated with the brand
• Given target members aware about brand name and also have knowledge about the
brand. But key question is - how do they feel about it?
• For example- it’s a good product, within my budget, it is available, it’s a quality product

• If the audience looks unfavorably on Imperial Institute, the communicator needs to

discover out why.

• In the case of real problems, Imperial will need to fix these and then communicate its
renewed quality.
 Hierarchy of effects model

• Preference. The target audience might like the product more than others.

• This occurs when consumer recognizes the product is suitable option for
future purchase.

• The communicator must then try to build consumer preference by

comparing quality, value, performance, and other features with likely
competitors.

• The communicator wants the consumer disconnect and focus on their

product.
 Hierarchy of effects model

• Conviction: this is the stage about generating the consumer’s desire

to purchase the product.

• A target audience might prefer a particular product or brand but not

develop a conviction about buying or availing it.

• The communicator’s job is to build conviction and intent. Eg- test drive,
free sample

• The communicator’s job is to build conviction and intent to apply among

students interested in Imperial Institute.
 Hierarchy of effects model
• Purchase. Finally, some members of the target audience might develop
conviction but not quite get around to making the purchase.

• The communicator must lead these consumers to take the final step,
perhaps by offering the product at a low price, or letting them try it out.

• Imperial Institute might invite selected high commerce and engineering

students to visit the campus and attend some classes, or it might offer
partial scholarships to deserving students or help students to get
education loan through banks and financial institution.
Developing effective marketing
communication
Steps in Developing effective communication
 Step – 1 Identifying the Target Audience

• The process must start with a clear target audience in the mind of communicator – potential
buyer, current user, deciders or influencer, individual or a group etc.

• The target audience is a critical influence on communicator’s decision about what to say,
how , when, where & to whom.

• Is the audience new to the category or current user? Is the target loyal to the brand, loyal to
the competitor or someone who switches between brands? Is he or she heavy user or light
user?

• Communication strategy will differ depending on the answers.

 Step – 2 - Determine the Communication
Objective
• Rossiter and Percy identify four objectives as follow,

1. Category Need – establishing a product or service category as necessary to

remove or satisfy a perceived discrepancy between a current motivational state
and desired emotional state.

2. Brand Awareness – ability to identify (recognize or recall) the brand within the
category, is sufficient detail to make a purchase.
Brand recall is important outside the store . Brand recognition is important
inside the store.
 Step – 2 - Determine the Communication
Objective

3. Brand Attitude - evaluating the brand with respect to its perceived ability to
meet a currently relevant need.

4. Brand Purchase intensions – self-instructions to purchase the brand or take

purchase related action.
Promotional offers in the form of coupons or two-for-one deals encourage
consumers to make a mental commitment to buy a product.
 Step – 3 – Design the Communications

• Formulating the communication to achieve the desired response will require

solving three problems:

• Message Strategy: What to say,

• Creative Strategy: how to say it,

• Message Source: Who should say it?

 Step – 4 – Select the communication Channel

• Communication channels may be personal or non-personal within each are many

subchannels.

• Personal Communication Channel- face-to-face, over the telephone, through

email etc.

• Nonpersonal Communication Channel- media, sales promotions, events and

experiences and public relations
 Step – 5 – Establish the total Marketing
Communications Budget

• One of the most difficult marketing decision is determining how much to spend on
marketing communications or promotions.
• Four methods of setting the promotion budget.
A. Affordable Method
B. Percentage-of-Sales Method
C. Competitive-Parity Method
D. Objective-And-Task Method
 Step – 6 – Deciding on the Marketing
Communications Mix
• Companies must allocate the marketing communication budget over the eight major
modes of communication –
advertising, sales promotion, public relations and publicity, events and experiences,
direct marketing, interactive marketing, word-of-mouth marketing and the sales force.

• Within the same industry company can differ considerably in their media and channel
choices.

• Companies are always searching for ways to gain efficiency by replacing one
communication tool with others.
 Step – 6 – Deciding on the Marketing
Communications Mix

• Factors in setting the Marketing Communication Mix –

• Companies must consider several factors in developing their communication
mix,
A. Type of product market
B. Buyer-readiness stage
C. Product life-cycle stage
 Step – 7 – Measuring Communication Results

• Senior managers want to know the outcomes and revenues resulting from their
communication investments.

• After implementing the communication plan, the communication director must measure
its impact on the target audience.

• Members of audience group are asked - Whether they saw it, what points they recall,
how they felt about the message and their previous and current attitude towards the
product and company.

• The communicator also collect behavioral measures of audience responses like- how
many people bought the product, liked it and talked to others about it.
 Step – 8 – managing the Integrated Marketing
Communication Process

• IMC is a concept of marketing communication planning that recognizes the added

value of comprehensive plan.

• The expanded capabilities make it easier for marketers to assemble various

media properties in an integrated communication program.

• Coordinating Media

• Implementing IMC
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