Promotion and Promotional Mix

Promotion and Promotional Mix

What is Promotion?

  • Promotion is an attempt by marketers to:
    • Inform
    • Persuade
    • Remind
  • It targets consumers and B2B users.
  • The goal is to influence opinion or elicit a response.
  • Most firms utilize some form of promotion.
  • Company goals vary, leading to diverse promotional strategies.
  • The aim is to stimulate action from the target market.
  • For profit-oriented firms, the desired action is for consumers to purchase the promoted item.
    • Example: Mrs. Smith’s wants people to buy more frozen pies.
  • Not-for-profit organizations seek various actions, such as:
    • Discouraging littering
    • Encouraging seatbelt use
    • Promoting military service
    • Encouraging attendance at cultural events like the ballet.
    • These are examples of products that are ideas marketed to specific target markets.

Promotional Goals

  • Promotional goals include:
    • Creating awareness
    • Getting people to try products
    • Providing information
    • Retaining loyal customers
    • Increasing product use
    • Identifying potential customers
    • Teaching potential service clients about service co-creation.
  • Any promotional campaign may seek to achieve one or more of these goals.
1. Creating Awareness
  • Firms often fail because people are unaware of their existence or offerings.
  • Small restaurants commonly face this issue.
  • Simply opening a door and putting up a sign is usually insufficient.
  • Promotion methods for creating awareness:
    • Ads on social media platforms
    • Local radio or television ads
    • Coupons in local papers
    • Flyers
  • Large companies often use catchy slogans to build brand awareness.
    • Example: Dodge’s “Hey, that thing got a Hemi?” campaign.
    • Hemi has become a brand within a brand, and Chrysler is extending it to Jeep.
2. Getting Consumers to Try Products
  • Promotion encourages people to try new products or non-users to try existing ones.
  • Tactics include:
    • Free samples (e.g., Lever mailed over two million samples of Lever 2000 soap).
    • Coupons.
    • Trial-size containers.
    • Celebrity endorsements (e.g., Oprah Winfrey partnering with Kraft Heinz).
  • Celebrity endorsements can bring trust and familiarity to a brand.
  • Celebrity endorsements provide value to a brand when done right.
3. Providing Information
  • Informative promotion is more common in the early stages of the product life cycle.
  • Informative promotion may:
    • Explain ingredients benefits (e.g., fiber).
    • Describe product superiority (e.g., high-definition television).
    • Inform about new low prices.
    • Explain where to purchase the item.
  • People need to know what a product will do and how it will benefit them before buying.
  • Informative ads can stimulate interest.
  • Consumer watchdogs appreciate informative promotion for helping consumers make intelligent decisions.
    • Example: StarKist informs customers about dolphin-safe tuna nets.
4. Keeping Loyal Customers
  • Promotion prevents brand switching.
  • Slogans remind consumers about the brand.
    • Examples: Campbell’s soups “M’m! M’m! Good!” and “Intel Inside”.
  • Marketers remind users that their brand is superior.
    • Examples: Pepsi claims taste preference; Southwest Airlines offers free baggage.
  • Firms inform customers about product or service improvements.
    • Domino’s revamped delivery operations and advertised improvements, including deliveries by reindeer in Japan and drones in New Zealand.
  • According to University of Maryland marketing professor Roland Rust, delivery improvements and customized delivery vehicles are a competitive advantage for Domino’s.
5. Increasing Amount and Frequency of Use
  • Promotion encourages increased product use.
  • Frequent-flyer or -user programs are popular.
  • Example: Marriott Rewards program awards points per dollar spent.
    • Platinum level benefits include guaranteed rooms, upgrades, concierge lounge access, free breakfast, and free local phone calls.
6. Identifying Target Customers
  • Promotion helps identify customers.
  • Listing a website in promotions is one method.
    • Examples: Ads in The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg Businessweek include web addresses for more information.
  • Fidelity Investments directs consumers to http://www.fidelity.com.
  • Sprint invites potential customers to visit http://www.sprint.com.
  • Websites often request email addresses for additional information.
7. Teaching the Customer
  • For service products, it is important to teach potential clients about the service.
  • Service providers collaborate with customers, known as “co-creation”.
  • Example: Engineers teach client team members about the design process, information gathering, and service delivery milestones.
  • For services, this is more involved than just providing information—it is actually teaching the client.

The Promotional Mix

  • The promotional mix includes:
    • Traditional advertising
    • Personal selling
    • Sales promotion
    • Public relations
    • Social media
    • E-commerce
  • Each firm creates a unique promotional mix for each product.
  • The goal is to efficiently and effectively deliver the firm’s message to the target audience.
Elements of the Promotional Mix
  • Traditional advertising: Paid, nonpersonal promotion by an identified sponsor through traditional media channels.
  • Personal selling: Face-to-face presentation to a prospective buyer.
  • Sales promotion: Marketing activities (excluding personal selling, traditional advertising, public relations, social media, and e-commerce) that stimulate consumer buying, like coupons, samples, displays, shows, demonstrations, etc.
  • Public relations: Linking organizational goals with public interest aspects and developing programs to earn public understanding and acceptance. Includes lobbying, publicity, special events, internal publications, and media like internal television channels.
  • Social media: Using platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, and blogs to generate “buzz.” Managing information and handling problems require distinct skills from traditional advertising.
  • E-commerce: Using a company’s website for online ordering, information, interactive components, and other website elements. Website development is essential today, and understanding website utilization for sales generation is crucial for marketers.

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

  • Marketing communications from each promotional-mix element should be integrated.
  • The message should be consistent across advertisements, salespeople, magazine articles, blogs, Facebook postings, and coupons.
  • IMC coordinates all promotional activities to produce a consistent, unified, and customer-focused message.
    • Includes traditional advertising, sales promotion, personal selling, public relations, social media, e-commerce, packaging, and other promotional forms.
  • Marketing managers coordinate promotional elements and their timing, monitoring campaign results for future improvements.
  • Companies often appoint a marketing communications director for overall integration responsibility.
  • Southwest Airlines used IMC to launch its “Transfarency” campaign, integrating the concept on its website, advertising, and airport signage.
  • The campaign resonated due to competitors' extra fees for baggage and premium seats.
  • One tagline is “Reward seats only on days ending with the letter ‘y.’”
  • The campaign was created with advertising agency GSD&M.