MODULE 9: MARKETING MANAGEMENT

INTEGRATED MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS

INTRODUCTION

Promotional decisions that marketers create include choosing between the use of a push or pull strategy
and allocating budget to the essential activities. Promotion could possibly be one of the most important
roles of marketing and is what many people think of when people hear the word marketing. In any
business, it is vital to do a promotional strategy that targets the consumer precisely and reflects what
message will charm most of them.

The necessity of marketing in business is on how effectively the business can communicate information
about the product to the consumer. This function is called promotion. Promotion involves five crucial
aspects of advertising, personal selling, sales promotions, direct marketing and public relations.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Promotion Mix

Advertising

Personal selling

Sales Promotion

Public Relations

Direct Marketing

Digital Marketing and Social Media

Promotion Over the Product Life Cycle

PRE-TEST

Which of the following is covered in the promotion strategy? Explain why?

a.​ Advertising​ ​ c. Discounts modes of sales promotion

b.​ Personal selling​​ d. Public relations
OBJECTIVES:

● Justify the different promotion mix to be used for promotional decisions;

● Design a fitting promotional campaign for each stage in the PLC; and

● Distinguish between several methods in the promotion budget.

THE PROMOTION MIX

The promotion mix includes all methods of promotion tools used by the business to produce, keep and
grow the demand for goods and service.

The promotion mix is basically what promoting requires and how promoting is successfully done.

Advertising – plays an important role when stimulating business. The advertising is any paid form of
non-personal presentation and promotion of goods and services by the identified sponsor in the
exchange of payment.

Seven function of advertising:

1. Identifying brands
2. Information
3. Persuasion
4. Describing new trends
5. Demand
6. Customer base
7. Pricing

Types of advertising Media

1. Newspaper

2. Magazine

3. Radio

4. Television

5. Directories

6. Outdoor and transit

7. Direct mail, catalogues and leaflets

 8. Online

9. Social media

PERSONAL SELLING

Personal Selling is a part of the promotional mix which comprises one-on-one communication between
buyers and customers.

Here are certain circumstances that favor personal selling.

1. Product situation

2. Market situation

3. Company situation

4. Consumer behavior situation

SALES PROMOTION

The sales promotion is the temporary incentives set to the customers to have an increased sale for a
specified period.

Examples of sales promotion:

1. Trade/Consumer Discounts – when a product is discounted for the consumer, then it is known as
consumer discount. On the other side, when the discount is to the dealer when he is buying from the
company, it is known as a trade discount.

2. Gifting/Continuity Programs – this is a way to enhance the sales of the products as customers have
an expectation that they might win a gift from the store.

3. Coupons – what the coupons does is, it prompts customers to get a coupon with a 10% off on
whatever he buys from a particular store, then he will certainly get to the store and go purchasing.

4. Financing – is creative amongst the several types of sales promotions. It is a blend of various
factors. All this happens for a minor processing fee and less internet.

5. Sampling – is chiefly used in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) industries such perfumes,
deodorants, soaps or even eatables.
6. Bundling – is when a store placed a combination of products on sale for the same price.

7. Contests – can be as simple as winning a gift through a scratch card or it can be an in-house game in
a retail store or it can be online.

8. Refunds and rebates – refunds are a marketing approach when a customer gets a fractional amount
reimbursed to him based on an action he has taken. Likewise, rebate is a type of partial refund which is
most popular in the Philippines.

9. Exchange offers – are quite ordinarily used all across the world and used intensely in festive season
when sales will be more and people are in a buying mood.

10. Free trial – This is done so that the customer gets an opportunity to trial run the product before he
pays for the product in full.

11. Email marketing was, is and is pushed to always be one of the best ways to endorse a business.

12. Exhibitions/trade shows – while exhibitions are directed towards individual buyers, trade shows are
targeted towards resellers, dealers, distributors and wholesale buyers.

13. Demonstrations are an outstanding way to generate more awareness of the product and to make
customers content towards a technical product.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

On the positive side, a public relations campaign is employed using newsletters, social media, press
releases, grand openings, and major events. Social media is particularly a beneficial tool for public
relations since the masses use it and adore it.

On the negative side, engaging with those negative situations is something that a public relations
director is able to manage effectively.

Public relations allow a company to affect a target audience. Through this, it builds an advantageous and
optimistic image for the company.

DIRECT MARKETING

Direct marketing is beneficial since it targets individuals that devote small amounts of money at different
times as they do not spend as much cash as often. It has become essential in the promotional mix
recently because people are always using the internet more than they used to years back. Companies
apply direct marketing to engross in one-way communication with its customers, about product
announcements, special promotions, order approvals and customer inquiries.
DIGITAL MARKETING AND SOCIAL MEDIA

Digital marketing is defined as the use of internet-connected devices such as computers, tablets,
smartphones, and game consoles to engage consumers with online advertising.

Social media has become one of the most influential sources for news updates, online collaboration,
networking, viral marketing and entertainment.

Digital Marketing

1. Pull digital marketing – is characterized by consumers aggressively looking for marketing content.

2. Push digital marketing – occurs when marketers send messages with or without the content of the
recipients.

Types of Social Media

1. Social networks

2. Visual social networks

3. Web blogs

4. Microblogs

5. Content communities

6. Wikis

7. Podcasts

8. Other types of social media include the following:

a. Rating and review sites (Yelp)
b. Social bookmarking or social tagging features (Digg; Stumble Upon)
c. Forums and discussion boards (yahoo; Answers)
d. Virtual social worlds (Second Life; World of Warcraft)
e. Music and audio sharing (Spotify; Pandora Radio)

PROMOTION OVER THE PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE (PLC)

As products move through the four stages of the product life cycle different promotional strategies
should be employed at these stages to ensure the healthy success and life of the product.
Introduction Stage -Product is introduced in the market with the purpose of building a distinct identity
and heavy promotion is usually done for maximum awareness. Before actual offering of the product to
customers passes through product development, it consists of prototype and market tests.

Growth Stage- In this stage, the company's sales and profits begin increasing and competition also starts
to become stiff. The product becomes well established at this stage and some of the buyers repeat the
procurement patterns.

Maturity Stage- At the maturity stage, brand awareness is tough so sales remain to grow but at a
decreasing rate as compared to past. At this stage, there are more competitors with similar products.
So, companies protect the market share and prolong the product life cycle, rather than making the
profits.

Decline stage - Declines in sales, change in trends and unfavorable economic conditions explain the
decline stage. At this stage the market becomes flooded so sales declines. It may also be due to
technical obsolescence or customer taste has been changed. At decline stage company has three
options:

1. Maintain the product

2. Harvest the product by reducing marketing cost and continue offering the product to loyal niche
until zero profit.

3. Discontinue the product when there’s no profit or a successor is available. Selling out to
competitors who want to keep the product.

SETTING THE PROMOTION BUDGET

A promotional budget is a specified amount of money set aside to stimulate the products or beliefs of a
business.

How Promotional Budgets are spent

Promotional budgets usually include money placed towards advertising across mediums such as radio,
television, Internet and print. The promotional budget might also go towards hiring outside experts and
consultants who develop the campaigns and situate ads in fitting media and locations.
Four common methods used to set the total budget for promotions:

1. Affordable method – this is a method often used by small businesses, where companies’ promotion
budget is at a level that the management finds the company can afford.

2. Percentage-of-sales method – this is a simple method that links the relationship between
promotion spending, selling price and profit per unit. This is done by allocating the promotion budget at
a certain percentage of present or forecasted sales, or by budgeting, a percentage of the unit sales price.

3. Competitive-parity method – under this method, advertising expenditure of the company is equal
to the amount spent by the competitors. This method follows the policy of the competitors regarding
promotion budget.

4. Objective-and-task method. Under this method, marketers determine promotion budget by

defining specific objectives, determining tasks to be performed to accomplish the objective and
estimating the cost of performing these tasks. This method is sensible as it sets the promotion budget at
a cost which is necessary to realize the objective of the company.