What is Promotion ?

The process of Promotion includes all the activities that persuade and make the customers aware of the product making them interested in purchasing them. A seller can be successful in selling his product when he has good communication skills and a positive influence on his customers. He can easily convince the customers to buy the products and also invite more customers by using different promotional techniques such as providing discounts, organising contests, etc. For example, when a company uses a campaign or a logo on its products, it usually indicates an idea about the product or something that catches the attention of people and makes them interested in buying the product.

Types of Promotion

Here are a few common forms of promotions:

1. Advertisement

Advertising is one the most common forms of promotional activity in which a product or service is advertised to reach a large audience to create awareness or to educate them about it. Advertisements can be done using commercials through various media such as TV, radio, banners, newspapers, and online platforms.

2. Sales Promotion 

Sales promotion refers to short-term incentives. The main purpose of sales promotion is to encourage buyers to make immediate purchases within a fixed period using various market strategies that include discounts, coupons, contests, or gifts. Such strategies often draw in customers and increase direct sales of the promoted products or services.  Sales promotion consists of those measures that provide short-term boosts to the sales of a company.

3. Personal Selling

It is a promotional strategy that allows the marketer to orally communicate with the customers. This type of promotion helps to establish a relationship with customers and helps them understand their needs. Another benefit of this method is that it is possible to get immediate feedback from customers and act according to the change in situation.

4. Public Relations

The marketing department performs an important role in managing the public’s opinion of a business. Since the customers, suppliers, and dealers play a key role in boosting sales and profits, the company must successfully connect them.  Moreover, they advise senior management to implement plans that will improve their public image and prevent unfavourable news.

5. Publicity

Publicity is an activity that is similar to advertisements. It involves the promotion of a product or service through the press in the form of news, stories, and features. Sellers also take the help of social media to interact with customers, build brand loyalty, and produce content that can reach a larger audience. These are all examples of social media marketing. It involves sellers and famous personalities working together to promote goods or services with people who have significant support and influence in a certain area or field. They may have an impact on customer’s opinions and affect their decision to purchase.

6. Direct Marketing

Direct marketing refers to directly reaching out to customers which can be done through various means such as email marketing, direct mail, telemarketing, door-to-door sales, etc. In this process, the marketers directly communicate with the specific audience to boost sales by using various means such as direct messages or campaigns. 

7. Sponsorship 

Sponsorships are essential to promote a company’s brand or products. Sponsoring events exposes the company to a large audience and enhances the image and awareness of the brand or product. 

8. Trade Fair and Exhibition 

Businesses may promote and demonstrate their goods and services to a specific audience through trade shows and exhibits. These events bring together customers and businessmen from different industries which helps and promotes relationship-building, making sales, and gaining market knowledge. The trade fair and exhibitions include the display of samples, demos, etc., to attract customers and keep them interested. 

9. Online Promotion

Online promotion has become one of the most important means of promotion today. With the help of the recent popularity and growth of digital platforms, marketing can be done in a lot of ways through social media in the form of content marketing and influencer marketing. Small businesses greatly benefit from the technique of online promotion. This method takes the help of internet platforms to connect with a large audience and boost sales. 

Purpose and Importance of Promotion

Marketing provides many different purposes and is important to the success of any organisation. The main purposes of marketing include the following:

1. Increase Brand Awareness

Promotion makes potential consumers aware of what is available on the market, but it can also help to build brand equity. Brand equity is the overall value of a brand, based on consumer perception. Businesses may convey their brand message, values, etc., to a vast number of people through several promotional activities increasing their brand awareness, loyalty, and trust among the customers. 

2. Recall Brand Value

Businesses may improve the image of their brands and survive competition in the market by promoting their products regularly. Promotions can draw attention to a brand’s distinct qualities, such as superior quality, reliability, or outstanding customer service.

3. Increase Customer Traffic

Promotions can attract more customers and increase customer traffic. Time-limited promotional activities like contests, giveaways, or samples can generate interest among customers and create opportunities for sale. This also acts as a platform for building long-term relations with the customers.

4. Increase Sales and Profits

One of the main purposes of marketing is to increase the sales of the business. Once the customers are properly made aware of the product or service, they buy those products that they find worthy of purchase. This helps the seller to sell more products and draw more customers. In marketing, the sellers are always looking for ways that can increase the worth or value of their products. This will make sure that the customers prefer their products instead of their competitors.

Characteristics of Promotion

There are various characteristic features of Promotion. Some of these characteristics are as follows:

1. Providing Information

One of the main characteristics of promotion is to persuade potential consumers to purchase their products or services. This can be done by providing information about the qualities, advantages, and values of the product or services known to the customers. This creates a subconscious desire among the buyers to purchase that product.

2. Limited Time

Promotions are often time-limited. For example, advertisements on TV, contests, or giveaways are all promotional activities that are limited up to a specific time. As a result, both customers and sellers have to act in that limited time frame. Also, doing these promotional activities regularly keeps the customers interested.

3. Different Channels of Approach

There are several ways through which the seller can promote its brand product or services. Some of these platforms include media, such as television, radio, print ads, and direct mail, as well as electronic media, such as websites, emails, social media, and search engine marketing. These channels make it easier to reach more customers and increase sales.

4. Adapt to Changes

Promotional activities must be by the changes in the economic as well as technological world. Earlier, the companies would advertise their brand’s product, or services through mediums like newspapers or posters, etc. But now, with the technological change, the interest of a large number of audiences has shifted to electronic media. Therefore, promotions can also be done through online platforms such as social media.

5. Building Awareness

Promotion helps to create awareness about a product service or brand among the target audience. This allows the customers to know about the existence and the usage of the product. Promotional activities such as advertisements, public relations, and social media campaigns play a significant role in building awareness.

6. Creating Interest

The main purpose of promotion is to generate positive interest and impression among the buyers. This encourages the customers to further explore the products. Promotional activities like engaging in campaigns or brand messages can catch the attention of people and generate curiosity.

7. Reinforcing

Promotion does not only include creating customers but also has the role of reinforcing the loyalty of existing customers. This can be done by keeping the existing customers informed and updated about their products with the help of promotional campaigns. This builds trust and loyalty among the customers and they are encouraged to repeat their purchases.

Promotional Mix

Promotion Mix is an important decision and includes all decisions of an organisation related to the promotion of a sale of goods and services. Some of the important decisions under promotion mix are selecting a media to advertise the product, selecting promotional techniques, public relations, etc.

• Advertising: Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods and services by an identified sponsor is known as Advertising. 

• Sales Promotion: Short-term incentives, which are offered to encourage the buyers to make an immediate purchase of a product or service is known as Sales Promotion.

• Public Relations: The deliberate, planned, and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and its public is known as Public Relations.

• Direct Marketing: Direct marketing is defined as a marketing strategy that is used by businesses to introduce a product, service, or idea directly to consumers through some channels without intermediaries. 

• Personal Selling: The process of informing customers and persuading them to purchase the products through personal communication is known as personal selling.

Promotion Strategies

Promotion strategy is a plan for promoting your product or service. It outlines the specific tactics you’ll use to create awareness, generate interest, and ultimately, persuade customers to purchase. Promotion strategies are usually classified into five main categories, and they can be best tailored to fit your product or service by combining different ones together:

1. Pull Strategy

This approach is about attracting customers to come to you. It involves using methods such as social media marketing and content marketing so that people can find out about your product on their own.

2. Push Strategy: This method requires you to actively push the products or services towards the potential consumers. You reach out directly through things like cold emails and advertisements to your specified audience.

3. Sales Strategy: This kind of promotional approach encourages the buyers to make a purchase by giving them discounts, coupons or any other special deals. It can be categorized under two divisions; inbound methods which entails such things as free shipping offers among others while outbound methods includes email promotions.

4. Retail Strategy: In comparison with other enterprises, traditional retail shops face unique opportunities and challenges. They can promote their offers through in-store loyalty programs and strategic placement of products.

5. Ecommerce Strategy: Digital promotions are the strong suit of ecommerce businesses when it comes to marketing their goods. For instance, they may carry out search engine optimization (SEO) specifically meant for online stores.

Examples of Winning Promotion Strategies

Here’s are the real-world examples to understand how successful brands implement promotion strategies:

• Apple iPhone: Apple always focuses on the quality of the products in its advertising of iPhones as can be seen from the #shotoniphone campaign. They make use of commercials, print ads, and keynote speeches to build excitement for new releases.

• Starbucks Refreshers Beverages: Starbucks embraces various promotional channels, including innovative technology. In the early days of mobile advertising, they utilized mobile ads within apps like Pandora to promote their packaged Refreshers beverages.

Factors Affecting Promotion Mix

1. Type of Product

Type of product plays an important role in deciding on promotion mix. Product can be categorized in terms of branded products, non-branded products, necessity products, luxury products, new products, etc. All these types of products need different promotional tools.

For example, advertising is suitable for branded and popular products. Personal selling may be fit for non-branded products. Advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity – all four tools – are used for a newly launched product to get a rapid consumer acceptance.

2. Use of Product

Product may be industrial product, consumable and necessity product, or may be luxurious product that affects selection of promotion tools and media. For example, advertising and sales promotion techniques are widely used for consumer goods while personal selling is used for industrial goods.

3. Complexity of Product

Product complexity affects selection of promotional tools. Personal selling is more effective for complex, technical, risky, and newly developed products as they need personal explanation and observation. On the other end, advertising is more suitable for simple and easy-handled products.

4. Purchase Quantity and Frequency

Company should also consider purchase frequency and purchase quantity while deciding on promotion mix. Generally, for frequently purchase a product, advertising is used, and for infrequently purchase a product, personal selling and sales promotion are preferred. Personal selling and advertising are used for heavy users and light users respectively.

5. Fund Available for Market Promotion

Financial capacity of company is a vital factor affecting promotion mix. Advertising through television, radio, newspapers and magazines is too costly to bear by financially poor companies while personal selling and sales promotion are comparatively cheaper tools. Even, the company may opt for publicity by highlighting certain commercially significant events.

6. Type of Market

Type of market or consumer characteristics determine the form of promotion mix. Education, location, income, personality characteristics, knowledge, bargaining capacity, profession, age, sex, etc., are the important factors that affect company’s promotion strategy.

7. Size of Market

Naturally, in case of a limited market, personal selling is more effective. When market is wide with a large number of buyers, advertising is preferable. Place is also an important issue. Type of message, language of message, type of sales promotion tools, etc., depend on geographical areas.

8. Stage of Product Life Cycle

Product passes through four stages of its life cycle. Each stage poses different threats and opportunities. Each stage needs separate marketing strategies. Each of the promotional tools has got a different degree of suitability with stages of product life cycle.

9. Level of Competition

Promotional efforts are designed according to type and intensity of competition. All promotional tools are aimed at protecting company’s interest against competition. Level of promotional efforts and selection of promotional tools depend on level of competition.

10. Promotional Objectives

It is the prime factor affecting the promotional mix. Different objectives can be achieved by using different tools of the promotional mix. If a company’s objective is to inform a large number of buyers, advertising is advisable. If a company wants to convince limited consumers, it may go for personal selling. Even, when a company wants to influence buyers during specific season or occasion, the sales promotion can be used. Some companies use publicity to create or improve brand image and goodwill in the market.

11. Other Factors

Over and above these factors, there are certain minor factors that affect promotion mix. These factors may include:

• Price of Product

• Type of Marketing Channel

• Degree of Product Differentiation

• Desire for Market Penetration, etc.

The list of factors stated above is not complete. There may be more factors. Promotional strategy should be formulated only after considering the relevant factors. Marketing manager must be aware of these variables. Note that these factors affect different firms in varying degree depending upon its internal and external marketing environment.