Promotion
| Author | Allen Truell, Michael Milbier |
| Pages | 618-622 |
Page 618
It would be safe to say that most companies engage in some form of promotional activity every day of the year. Promotion is one of the four Ps of marketing—price, product, place, and promotion. Promotion is generally thought of as a sequence of activities designed to inform and convince individuals to purchase a product, subscribe to a belief, or support a cause. All of the various tools available to marketing managers for promotional activities constitute what is known as the promotional mix.
Marketing managers use different components of the promotional mix as tools for achieving company objectives—advertising, personal selling, public relations, and sales promotion. Each of these elements can be further divided into additional subcomponents or strategies. The majority of a company's promotional resources are usually spent on these four elements for a simple reason: Companies perceive these methods as the most effective means to promote their products. Other specialized promotional techniques, however, are also used to enhance promotional objectives.
Advertising is often thought of as the paid, nonpersonal communication used in the promotion of a cause, idea, product, or service by an identified sponsor. The various advertising delivery methods include banners at sporting events, billboards, Internet Web sites, logos on clothing, magazines, newspapers, radio spots, and television commercials. Among the common forms of advertising are advocacy, comparative, cooperative, informational, institutional, persuasive, product, reminder, point-of-purchase, and specialty.
Personal selling is considered one of the most effective promotional techniques because it facilitates interaction between consumer and seller. With personal selling, a salesperson can listen to and determine a consumer's needs by asking questions and receiving feedback from the consumer. Furthermore, personal selling activities can generate long-lasting friendships between consumers and sellers that typically generate many repeat purchases. Personal selling can also occur by means of interactive computers, telephone conferences, and interactive videoconferencing. A drawback of personal selling, however, is its high cost. Examples of products promoted through personal selling include automobiles, life insurance, real estate, and many industrial products.
Public relations has been described as building goodwill with a company's various constituencies, including consumers, employees, government officials, stockholders, and suppliers. The overall goal of any public relations effort is to project a positive company image when dealing with such issues as community and government relations, employment practices, and environmental issues.
Public relations efforts are extremely important for maintaining a company's consumer base. Consumers must believe that they are buying from a caring, honest, and trustworthy company. Negative media stories about, for example, exploiting workers or producing substandard products can do enormous damage to a company in the eyes of consumers. Erosion of a company's
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Sporting events, such as the FoodCity 500 NASCAR race seen here, are popular venues for advertising.
client base is likely to result in both lost sales and lost market share.
The most valuable asset a company has is its employees. Therefore, it is essential that employees believe in their company. Public relations communications are extremely important in ensuring that employees receive information about the company before outside media receive and report the information. A good example of providing superior public relations would be to inform company employees that a small reduction in the work force is required but that a full severance package will be provided for laid-off employees. Although this news is not positive, the employees are hearing about it first from the company and are also aware that they will be receiving assistance from the company. If employees read or see negative reports about the employer without a credible public relations explanations, they may find other work or reduce their productivity because of low morale.
Maintaining a positive public image is also important because government agencies and offices (e.g., Federal Trade Commission, Federal Communication Commission) monitor the media and have regulatory oversight over company activities. Positive stories in the media obviously help promote a positive image to government regulators, which reduces the chance of being investigated and possibly fined. The opposite is also true as stories about client complaints or other dishonest practices or potentially illegal actions...
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