Chapter 16
USING
EFFECTIVE PROMOTIONS
LO 16-1 Identify the new and traditional tools that make up the promotion mix.
Promotion consists all the techniques sellers use to motivate people to buy their products or services.
Both profit-making and nonprofit organizations use promotional techniques to communicate with
people in their target markets about goods and services, and to persuade them to participate in a
marketing exchange.
Marketers use many different tools to promote their products. Traditionally, those tools were
advertising, personal selling, public relations, and sales promotion.
Promotion mix
The combination of promotional tools an organization uses.
Integrated marketing communication (IMC)
A technique that combines all the promotional tools into one comprehensive, unified promotional
strategy.
With IMC, marketers can create a positive brand image, meet the needs of the consumer, and meet the
strategic marketing and promotional goals of the firm.
Emphasis today is on integrating traditional media, like TV, with social media, or integrating print media
with websites.
The six steps in a typical promotional campaign:
1 Identify a target market.
Define the objectives for each element of the
2 promotion mix.
3 Determine a promotional budget.
4 Develop a unifying message.
5 Implement the plan.
6 Evaluate effectiveness.
LO 16-2 Contrast the advantages and disadvantages of various advertising media, including the Internet
and social media.
Advertising
Paid, nonpersonal communication through various media by organizations and individuals who are in
some way identified in the advertising message
Television Advertising
Television offers many advantages to national advertisers, but it’s expensive.
Ex: Thirty seconds of advertising during the Super Bowl can cost more than $5.6 million. That’s not
including the production costs of the ads. How many bottles of beer or cars must a company sell to pay
for these commercials?
Product placement
Putting products into TV shows, movies, and other media where they will be seen.
The goal is to influence you to want that product yourself.
Ex: Reese’s Pieces in the movie E.T.; Olive Garden in the movie Sonic the Hedgehog, …
Infomercials
A full-length TV program devoted exclusively to promoting goods or services.
Online Advertising
If users click through an ad to get to the website, the company has an opportunity to gather their
names, addresses, opinions, and preferences.
Interactive promotion
Promotion process that allows marketers to go beyond a monologue, where sellers try to persuade
buyers to buy things, to a dialogue in which buyers and sellers work together to create mutually
beneficial exchange relationships.
Social Media Advertising
The company can measure how many times a post is viewed, how many times it is shared, and what the
user response is.
Social media make it possible for organizations to test ads and other promotions before bringing them
to traditional media, like TV, and to learn why people like and dislike messages.
Global Advertising
Global advertising requires the marketer to develop a single product and promotional strategy it can
implement worldwide.
Certainly global advertising that’s the same everywhere can save companies money in research and
design.
Global Advertising (cont.)
In some cases, however, promotions tailored to specific countries or regions may be more successful
since each country or region has its own culture, language, and buying habits. Many marketers today are
moving from globalism (one ad for everyone in the world) to regionalism (specific ads for each country
or for specific groups within a country).
In the future, marketers will prepare more custom-designed promotions to reach even smaller
audiences - audiences as small as one person.
LO 16-3 Illustrate the steps of the B2B and B2C selling processes.
Personal selling
The face-to-face presentation and promotion of goods and services, including the salesperson’s search
for new prospects and follow-up service after the sale.
The benefit of personal selling is having a person help you complete a transaction. The salesperson
should listen to your needs, help you reach a solution, and do everything possible to make
accomplishing it smoother and easier.
Steps in the (B2B) Selling Process
Prospecting: researching potential buyers.
1. Prospect and
Qualify Qualifying: choosing those most likely to buy.
2. Preapproach Gathering information before you approach the customer.
3. Approach “You don’t have a second chance to make a good first impression.”
4. Make a
Presentation Match the benefits of your value package to the client’s needs.
5. Answer Customers may have legitimate doubts, and salespeople are there to
Objections resolve them.
A trial close: a question or statement that moves the selling process
6. Close the Sale toward the actual purchase.
Handling customer complaints, making sure their questions are
7. Follow Up answered, and quickly supplying what they want.
LO 16-4 Describe the role of the public relations department, and show how publicity fits in that role.
Public relations (PR)
The management function that evaluates public attitudes, changes policies and procedures in response
to the public’s requests, and executes a program of action and information to earn public understanding
and acceptance.
Public Relations: Building Relationships
A good public relations program has three steps:
1. Listen to the public
2. Chan policies and producers
3. Inform peopeo you’re responsive to their needs
Publicity
Any information about an individual, product, or organization that’s distributed to the public through
the media and that’s not paid for or controlled by the seller.
LO 16-5 Assess the effectiveness of various forms of sales promotion, including sampling.
Sales promotion
The promotional tool that stimulates consumer purchasing and dealer interest by means of short-term
activities. These activities include such things as displays, trade shows and exhibitions, event
sponsorships, and contests.
Sales promotion programs are designed to supplement personal selling, advertising, public relations,
and other promotional efforts by creating enthusiasm for the overall promotional program.
Sales promotion can take place both within and outside the company.
Sales promotion (cont.)
One popular sales promotional tool is sampling - letting consumers have a small sample of the product
for no charge.
Ex: Grocery stores often have people standing in the aisles handing out small portions of food and
beverage products.
Sampling is a quick, effective way of demonstrating a product’s superiority when consumers are making
a purchase decision.
LO 16-6 Show how word of mouth, viral marketing, blogging, podcasting, e-mail marketing, and mobile
marketing work.
Word-of-mouth promotion
A promotional tool that involves people telling other people about products they’ve purchased.
Beyond word of mouth is customer participation, that is, getting customers to provide constructive
suggestions and share their ideas on how to shape product and service offerings.
Viral marketing
Any strategy that encourages people to pass on a marketing message to others, creating exponential
growth in the message’s influence as the message reaches thousands, to millions.
The term now used to describe everything from paying customers to say positive things on the Internet
to setting up multilevel selling schemes whereby consumers get commissions for directing friends to
specific websites.
Social Networking
Marketers have quickly noticed how social media are changing the business environment.
Companies utilize these tools to increase exposure for products or services, create loyalty among
customers, drive traffic to the company website, and even to come up with new ideas.
Social Networking (cont.)
One of the greatest advantages of social media platforms is that they offer easier two-way
communication between businesses and customers. When people participate in social media activities,
they frequently continue interacting with the company and, more importantly, are likely to share
branded content.
Though all the “likes” and “shares” may seem as if they come easy for marketers, they often are the
result of a detailed social media plan
Blogging/Vlogging
Businesses can attract new customers when they coordinate their social media profiles with their blogs.
As people click to a company’s blog through the social media profile, it helps improve the company’s
website ranking.
Managing the Promotion Mix: Putting It All Together
Push strategy Pull strategy
The producer uses advertising, Heavy advertising and sales
personal selling, sales promotion, promotion efforts are directed
and all other promotional tools to toward consumers so that they’ll
convince wholesalers and retailers request the products from
to stock and sell merchandise. retailers.
Products are pushed through the Products are thus pulled through
distribution system to the stores. the distribution system.