Promotion in the marketing mix refers to communication with the specific objective of informing, persuading and remembering a target audience.
A few days ago, the New Delhi Airport, had its activities paralyzed for a few hours due to a drone.
The drone was flying over the runways of the airport and preventing the landing and take-off of the planes.
Imagine, for example, that you, coincidentally, are developing a new device to block drones in areas such as airports, prisons, etc. This is a new product.
After creating the product and resolving patent issues, your next step will be to put it on the market, for sale. However, we know very little about your new product.
Your big challenge, then, is to make the product known, convince people to buy it and make them remember when they have problems.
In the perspective of Advertising and Marketing studies, you must deal with one of the 4p’s: the promotional P in marketing.
The 4p’s of marketing are Product, Price, Place, and Promotion. These 4p’s are also known as Marketing Mix.
They are the four fundamental pillars of any marketing strategy and, when they are in balance, they influence the conquest of the public.
Today, however, we will present in-depth for you one of these 4p’s: the P promotion.
What is a promotion in marketing?
Some scholars of Advertising and Marketing, such as McCarthy and Perreault, define promotion as the action of transmitting information between the seller and potential buyers or other members of the channel to influence their attitudes and behaviors.
Other scholars, in turn, such as Stanton, Etzel, and Walker, define promotion as all the personal and impersonal colors of a salesperson to the salesperson’s representative to inform, persuade and remind a target audience.
The fact is that promotion refers to communication with the specific objective of informing, persuading and remembering a target audience.
So what is marketing promotion for?
Promotion is a marketing tool that seeks to interfere in the behavior and attitudes of people in favor of the product or service offered by a company.
Therefore, promotion serves to give strength to your product or service, make it known, convincing and unforgettable.
Main promotional tools in marketing
To achieve the specific objectives of informing, persuading and remembering, the promotion has its own strategic tools. These tools are:
1. Advertising
Refers to any form of presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services. Through advertising, you can inform, make known, persuade or stimulate the consumption of the product or service. For instance, you can use social media for food, as a means of advertising for your restaurant, cafe, or take-out food & drink spots.
You can also enable consumers to remember your product or service through impersonal means.
The most recurrent channels of advertising are TV ads, radio, internet or print.
For the adoption of advertising channels, it is essential to follow these 5 steps for efficient decision making:
- Define objectives (What am I looking for through advertising?)
- Decide on the budget (How much am I willing to spend with advertising?)
- Adoption of the message (What message do I want to convey through advertising?).
- The decision on the means to be used (What is the scope, frequency, and impact I am looking for for my advertising?).
- Evaluation (Did the adopted advertising strategies reach my goal?)
2. Sales Promotion or Merchandising
Sales promotion refers to a set of techniques, incentives or activities to stimulate the influx of people and maximize the purchase or sale of a product or service.
The primary forms of merchandising are: setting up tasting stands, giving away advertising items that carry the logo or brand of the company such a: T-Shirts, caps, key chains, custom pins, raffles, games, promotional gifts, promotional packages, personalized stickers, promotions at POS, etc.
The sales promotion can also be of 3 types, according to the blog Business Promotion:
- Commercial Promotion: aims to get the support of the reseller and increase their desire to sell.
- Promotion for the sales force: aims to stimulate the sales force and achieve more effective results in the sales colors of the group.
- Promotion to establish a franchise with the consumer: aims to promote product positioning and a sales message in the deal.
3. Events and Experiences
Through events, you can make your product or service known and offer the consumer the possibility of being in contact and experimenting with the product or service.
The most strategic events of this marketing promotion tool are art exhibitions, factory visits, company museums, sports events, and street activities.
4. Personal Sale
Personal selling is a marketing promotion strategy in which you promote a product or service through a direct and personal (“face-to-face”) interaction between the seller and the individual consumer.
In order to adopt a personal sales strategy, it is essential to follow these steps:
- think of potential customers,
- rank potential customers in order of importance,
- collect information on potential customers and plan how to approach them,
- introduce yourself to potential customers,
- present the product to potential customers and be prepared with proper argumentation,
- do business and close the sale,
- and keep in touch with the client for follow-up.
The main personal sales strategies are incentive programs, sales representations, samples, sales meetings, and trade shows.
5. Direct Marketing
Direct marketing allows you to promote the product or service to an individual consumer through means that will enable you to communicate directly with him.
This promotion strategy allows greater adaptability of the product or service to the need or interests of the consumer.
The main direct marketing channels are:
- e-mail,
- Internet,
- telemarketing,
- mail,
- Internet shopping.
Since we have just considered some traditional types of marketing, we take this opportunity to invite you to know our complete guide on the subject.
6. Public relations
Public relations are essential to your company’s image. They are a set of attitudes whose purpose is to create and maintain the right image of your product or service before the public and before the workers themselves.
This is one of the least commented promotion tools, but it is the one that has the most impact when promoting the preference for a product or service.
The main mechanisms for maintaining public relations are press releases, donations, community relations, participation in and support of cultural and sporting events.
Strategies and techniques for marketing promotion
The promotion in marketing requires a series of marketing techniques to achieve specific objectives with diversified stimuli in a given time.
The main objective is to offer an incentive to the consumer to be stimulated to buy a certain product or service, increasing the sales of the company.
But for that to happen effectively, we need to develop strategies and techniques to make the promotion work. Let’s look at some of these types now:
1. Events
It is vital to have creativity at this moment since in many places this type of activity can be carried out.
2. Contests
It is a marketing classic that still has effective results, as it requires the direct participation of people.
3. Loyalty programs
The client is the central axis of the professional and commercial strategy, where the program makes the person as part of a select group of the company, which generates a type of importance for the client.
4. Economic promotions
This includes all developments that have some kind of financial reward: discounts, vouchers or coupons, for example.
5. Product Promotions
These are promotions of a direct attraction to the product: Delivery of free samples, higher delivery of the product with the same price, tastings, gifts, etc..
6. Social networks
It is an essential tool for everyone today, as it is free or low cost. In addition, it is of little use and celebrated attraction. But here there is more to it than just publishing and waiting for it to reach the client. You have to develop strategies that help your business to reach the right customers.
7. Email Campaigns
Having clear the concept of a good email marketing (the one where the mail is well explored, knowing which customers to reach and the best way to do it), we select what best attracts the attention of customers, attending to our needs and apply in the sending of mail.
8. Mailing
This strategy is in line with the previous one, but it is obsolete. Keep in mind that this strategy will not always reach the person your company is looking for.
9. Be sympathetic
It’s not enough to publish a good text or add a good image: If you don’t understand everything, any effort you make can go down. If a client is looking for you with doubt, answer them.
Make the effort to respond to everyone, one by one, in a friendly and respectful manner. It is not sufficient to worry only about quantity and not about quality. It’s important to consider what kind of strategy you want for what type of development. Within the approach above, we can have the following divisions:
Impulse strategies
The idea is to encourage the people in charge of selling the product to do so in the best way possible.
Attraction strategy
Different from the previous approach, in this one the objective is the consumer of the service or product.
Hybrid or combined strategy
This strategy combines elements of impulse and attraction strategies. In other words, both sellers and end consumers will be given away.
