Elements of Promotion Mix – BMS Notes

The combination of various promotional tactics that a company uses to generate, sustain, and grow demand for its products and services is known as the “promotion mix.”

Promotion is the fourth component of the marketing mix, with the aim of raising consumer awareness and convincing them to make a purchase. The Promotion Mix is the aggregate term for the many instruments that help a company achieve its promotion goal.

“A company’s promotional mix comprises advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, and direct marketing,” according to Gary Armstrong. Product design, shape, packaging, colour, label, and other elements are all included since they all convey information to the customer.

According to Philip Kotler, a company uses a combination of advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, and direct marketing techniques to achieve its advertising and marketing goals. This combination is known as the company’s total marketing communication mix, or promotion mix.

The communication process of promotion involves persuasion, influence, and information. It covers all forms of contact, whether personal or impersonal, that a producer has with potential clients and distributor intermediaries.

The aim of promotional efforts is to educate, convince, and sway potential clients. Direct marketing, public relations, sales promotion, public selling, and advertising are all often used to let people know about items’ availability and pique their interest in purchasing them.

In order to accomplish certain organisational goals, promotion is a kind of corporate communication that use a variety of techniques to reach a specific audience with a particular message. In one way or another, almost every organization—profit or nonprofit—in every sector of the economy has to promote itself.

These efforts may take many different forms, from multinational corporations shelling out big bucks to hire well-known celebrities as brand ambassadors to a single company owner handing out business cards at a local business association meeting.

Promotion is the means by which marketers communicate with potential customers in the market. It attempts to ingrain en consumers’ thoughts the perceptions that will lead them to purchase the product (via publicity, sales promotion, personal selling, and advertising).

The combination of public relations, direct marketing, sales promotion, personal selling, and advertising is known as the promotion mix. To ensure that these promotional methods are used in a well-balanced manner, marketers should review the following questions.

• Which method of informing consumers works the best?
• Which advertising strategies should be applied?
• Whom should the promotion activities target?

Promotion Mix Goals

Promotion may be used for a variety of purposes, including as developing a brand image, raising awareness of certain topics, changing public opinion, and increasing sales.

The following might be among the promotion mix’s potential goals:

Increase Knowledge

Since new firms and goods are often unknown to the market, the first step in any advertising campaign must be to build a brand. To successfully contact customers and inform the market about their identity and offerings, marketers in this circumstance need to concentrate their advertising efforts.

arouse curiosity

Getting a buyer to go from being aware of a product to buying it may be quite difficult. The purchasing behaviour of customers varies based on their individual needs, therefore before actively considering a purchase, a client must first acknowledge that they have a need.

For a long time, the hallmark of marketing has been the emphasis on crafting messages that persuade consumers that there is a need, with promotional appeals aimed at fundamental human traits like emotions, fears, comedy, sex, etc.

Information Provision: A few promotions are made to help clients throughout the research phase of the buying procedure. There are instances when a product is so unique that it establishes a new product category with few rivals. It is possible that no rivals will be included; the information will just serve to clarify what the product is.

Informational marketing may support a product positioning strategy in other scenarios when the product is a competitor in an already-existing market.

Encourage Demand

A well-crafted campaign has the power to encourage consumers to buy. When it comes to things that a client hasn’t bought before or hasn’t bought in a while, the goal of promotions can be to persuade them to give it a try.

This is often seen on the internet, where software vendors provide free download samples or even free product demos. When it comes to items that appeal to a certain client base, promotions may motivate buyers to make larger or earlier purchases by giving them an incentive to do so.

Strengthen the Brand

After a sale is accomplished, a marketer may use promotion to establish a solid rapport with the consumer, which may eventually turn them into a devoted one. For example, in order to improve the customer-marketer interaction, many retail businesses now request a customer’s email address. With this information, follow-up emails with further product details or even an incentive to buy more from the retailer may be sent.

Components, tools, or methods are other terms for promotional mix elements. Essentially, the promotional mix consists of five components. A few writers have also taken into account other factors. But we’ll focus on the five components shown in Figure 1.

Advertising

Any paid, non-personal presentation and promotion of concepts, products, and services by a designated sponsor is referred to as advertising. It’s a kind of widespread communication. It’s the most extensively used and well-liked method for promoting a product or service. The majority of the promotional spending goes into advertising alone. The product is advertised using a variety of media, including radio, television, newspapers, magazines, outdoor advertising, and so on.

The following are characteristics of advertising:

I Mass or impersonal communication is what advertising is. It is not feasible to have personal interaction.

(ii) The mode of communication is compensated.

(iii) The communication is one-sided.

(iv) A distinguishable entity, sponsor business, or individual provides advertising.

(v) Using this strategy to increase sales is expensive.

(vi) It is repeatable as often as necessary.

(vii) The least expensive per contact.

(viii) A variety of print, outdoor, and audio-visual media may be employed for advertising.

(ix) It is a very well-liked and often used instrument for market marketing.

Promotion of Sales

Marketing initiatives that encourage consumer purchase and dealer effectiveness that go beyond the purview of advertising, publicity, and personal selling are referred to as sales promotion. Short-term, irregular incentives are the primary component of sales promotion, and they are provided to both dealers and customers. Demonstrations, trade shows, exhibitions, exchange offers, seasonal discounts, free services, presents, competitions, etc. are common techniques used to promote sales.

The following are attributes of sales promotion:

I The main goal of a sales promotion is to persuade consumers to make an instant purchase, increase dealer effectiveness, or do both.

(ii) Overuse of sales promotions may have a negative impact on a company’s sales and reputation.

(iii) It is considered an add-on to attempts at personal selling and promotion.

(iv) It encompasses all forms of promotion outside of publicity, personal selling, and advertising.

(v) It comprises of transient offers made to customers, salespeople, and/or dealers in the form of incentives, programmes, or plans.

(vi) Non-routine selling activities are involved.

Individual Marketing

In order to market things, personal selling involves having face-to-face interactions and presentations with prospects, or prospective and real consumers. It entails having one-on-one conversations and product presentations with clients. It is regarded as an expensive and very successful technique for commercial marketing.

The following is a list of personal characteristics:

I A personal, in-person, spoken presentation to customers is known as personal selling.

(ii) The main goal is to advertise goods or boost sales.

(iii) Two-way communication is involved.

(iv) It is possible to quantify instant feedback.

(v) Salespeople’s capacity to influence or convince consumers.

(vi) It’s a more adaptable method of communicating with consumers.

(vii) The cost per interaction is more than that of advertising.

(viii) It include instructing, informing, and helping individuals make purchases.

Publicity

Another means of mass communication is publicity. It is not a sponsored kind of mass communication whereby commercially relevant news is placed in mass media to elicit a positive reaction from consumers. “Publicity is any promotional communication involving an organisation and/or its goods when the message is not paid for by the group benefitting from it,” according to William J. Stanton’s definition.

It is public relations in its conventional sense. The company doesn’t pay for publicity. Journalists, columnists, and reporters are the source of publicity. It fits within the category of public relations. Giving speeches in public, being interviewed, holding seminars, donating to charities, having a politician, actress, cricket player, or other well-known person inaugurate someone, doing a stage play, etc. are all examples of publicity that draws the attention of the media to cover them.

One of publicity’s primary characteristics is I securing favourable presentations of a firm or its offerings on radio, television, or stages without sponsorship funding.

(ii) It’s an unpaid method of promoting your brand. Nonetheless, publicity comes with a number of secondary expenses.

(iii) In order to boost sales, it may include promoting a new product, attempting to reduce pollution, highlighting staff accomplishments, announcing new rules, etc. Publishing or showcasing the company’s operations and goods is its main focus. Its goal is to improve the company’s reputation.

(iv) Publicity may primarily be distributed by radio, television, newspapers, and magazines.

(v) The company has no influence on the content, timing, frequency, information, or medium of publicity.

(vi) Its credibility level is rather high. The audience is more likely to read and respond to a publicity message.

(vii) Compared to advertising, publicity may be done for a lot less money. The company must invest a little sum to promote the activity or event.

(viii) The social importance or news values of an advertisement determine its frequency or recurrence in the mass media. It usually only shows up once.

Public Relations: This all-encompassing word encompasses keeping positive working relationships with a wide range of interested publics as well as with suppliers, customers, and intermediaries. Keep in mind that publicity is a component of public relations, not the other way around.

“Public relations efforts are often aimed to develop or maintain a favourable image for an organisation and a favourable connection with the organization’s numerous publics,” according to William Stanton’s definition. Customers, investors, workers, unions, environmentalists, the government, local residents, and other social groupings might all be considered members of these publics. Therefore, an organization’s wide-ranging and comprehensive communication activities meant to shape different groups’ perceptions of the organisation are included in public relations. According to some analysts, publicity extends into public relations.

Publicity’s primary attributes are as follows:

I Paid market promotion takes the shape of public relations. The business must spend money.

(ii) The goal of public relations efforts is to create and preserve a positive perception of a company and positive connections with its many constituencies.

(iii) It is essential to the management role. Numerous businesses have a dedicated division for this purpose, called the public relations department.

(iv) It entails a variety of contacts, including reaching out, extending an invitation, providing information, answering questions, explaining, interacting, transacting, and so on.

(v) Both official and informal publics are covered by public relations. Customers, shareholders, workers, unions, environmentalists, the government, local residents, and other social groupings might be considered examples of these publics.

(vi) There is constant activity in the field of public relations. It is a customary aspect of life.

(vii) Public relations is a responsibility of every official, from the highest ranking to the most junior.

(viii) Public relations is seen as a profession in connection to contemporary management techniques.

Consequently, the promotion mix consists of five main components. Every tool or component has its own benefits, restrictions, and usefulness. One or more tools are utilised, depending on the internal and external circumstances of the firm. A company’s promotional campaign often consists of many aspects, each of which supports the others