Promotion Tools and Its Nature

The Promotion Mix

The term "total promotion mix" refers to the combination of advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing tactics that an organization employs to communicate persuasively with its target market, convey value to customers, and foster long-term relationships with them. The following is a description of the five main promotion tools:

Advertising: Advertising is a compensated method of the specified sponsor's nonpersonal presentation and promotion of the various elements of their ideas, products, or services.

Sales promotion: Sales promotion refers to the temporary incentives used to promote the purchase or sale of any good or service.

Personal selling: Sales representatives from companies make personal presentations to customers in order to close deals and create relationships.

Public relations: Fostering positive relationships with the company's many publics through obtaining positive press, addressing or preventing unpleasant rumors, stories, and events, and developing a positive corporate image.

Direct marketing: In order to generate a quick response and build long-lasting relationships with the clients, direct marketing entails making direct connections with specifically targeted individuals.

The Nature of Each Promotion Tool

The promotional tool has distinct qualities and expenses. While creating the promotion mix, marketers must grasp these features.

Advertising

Advertising enables the vendor to repeatedly repeat a message to large numbers of geographically scattered purchasers at a low cost per exposure. For instance, television advertisements can be seen by large numbers of people. According to estimates, 106 million Americans watched the most recent Super Bowl, 42 million saw at least a portion of the most recent Academy Awards broadcast, and 30 million viewers watched the premiere of American Idol's ninth season. TV is the primary promotional tool used by businesses looking to reach a large audience since viewers tend to regard advertisements as more trustworthy due to their public aspect. It is also incredibly expressive; by skillfully combining sights, sound, print, and color, the organization can emphasize its products. Advertising can be used to develop a long-term brand for any product, on the one hand (such as ads of Coca-Colas). Conversely, promotion aids in generating speedy sales. There are however some drawbacks to advertising. Advertising is impersonal and cannot be as immediately convincing as salespeople from a company, despite the fact that it reaches the greatest number of people quickly. Most of the time, advertising can only have a one-way conversation with a consumer, and the consumer does not feel obligated to listen or reply. Additionally, advertising can be highly expensive. Although some types of advertising, such as those in newspapers and on the radio, can be done on a smaller budget, others, such as network TV advertising, demand enormous sums.

Personal Selling

At a certain point in the purchasing process, particularly when establishing a buyer's preferences, convictions, and behaviors, personal selling is one of the most powerful strategies. It involves direct communication between two or more individuals, enabling each to quickly adapt in response to the demands and features of the other. Personal selling enables a variety of consumer interactions to emerge, from business partnerships to close friendships. When fixing a customer's concerns, a competent salesperson maintains the interests of the customer at heart in order to develop a long-term connection. The buyer typically feels more pressure when personal selling is involved, even if the response is a polite "No, thank you." However, these distinctive features have a price. Compared to advertising, which could be turned up or down, a sales force required a longer-term commitment. A sales team's size is also more difficult to alter. The most expensive kind of promotion for a firm is personal selling, which can cost $350 or more each sales call on average, depending on the sector. Up to three times as much money is spent on personal selling by American businesses as on advertising.

Sales Promotion

Coupons, cent-off offers, competitions, rewards, and other instruments with a variety of distinctive characteristics make up the vast majority of those used in sales promotion. They draw in the public's attention, provide compelling reasons to buy, and can be utilized to dramatize the items' offers and boost declining sales. Sales incentives encourage and reward prompt response. The message in advertising and sales promotions is "Buy our product," and "Buy it immediately." However, the impacts of sales promotions are sometimes fleeting, and they are typically less successful in creating long-term brand preference and customer relationships than advertising or personal selling.

Public Relations

News pieces, sponsorship features, and events made public by PR are significantly more convincing to readers than advertisements are. Many prospects who shun salespeople and commercials can also be reached by personal relationships; the message reaches the buyer as "news" rather than as a communication with a sales orientation. The personal relationship can exaggerate a company or product, much like in advertising. Marketers attempt to underuse or use personal relationships as a secondary consideration. However, a well-planned campaign for personal relationships combined with other components of the promotion mix could be very efficient and cost-effective.

Direct Marketing

Direct mail and catalogs, web marketing, telephone marketing, and others are all different types of direct marketing, but they all have four things in common. Direct marketing is less transparent because the message is typically addressed to a single individual. Direct marketing is instantaneous and individualized: Messages may be prepared quickly and adapted to appeal to particular clients. Direct marketing is interactive, too. It enables communication between the marketing team and the customer, and depending on the reaction, messages may be changed. Consequently, direct marketing is perfectly suited for highly focused marketing campaigns and developing a personal connection with customers.

Reference :

Kotler, P., & Armstrong, G. (2013).Principles of Marketing.Chennai: Pearson India Education Services Pvt Ltd