The Promotion Mix

• The promotion mix is the specific blend of advertising,

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The Promotion Mix
Major Promotion Tools
• Advertising is any paid form of non-personal
presentation and promotion of ideas, goods, or services
by an identified sponsor.
– Broadcast
– Print
– Internet
– Outdoor

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The Promotion Mix
Major Promotion Tools
• Sales promotion is the short-term incentives to
encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service.
– Discounts
– Coupons
– Displays
– Demonstrations

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The Promotion Mix
Major Promotion Tools
• Public relations involves building good relations with
the company’s various publics by obtaining favorable
publicity, building up a good corporate image, and
handling or heading off unfavorable rumors, stories, and
events.
– Press releases
– Sponsorships
– Special events
– Web pages

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The Promotion Mix
Major Promotion Tools
• Personal selling is the personal presentation by the
firm’s sales force for the purpose of making sales and
building customer relationships.
• Sales presentations
• Trade shows
• Incentive programs

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The Promotion Mix
Major Promotion Tools
• Direct marketing involves making direct connections
with carefully targeted individual consumers to both
obtain an immediate response and cultivate lasting
customer relationships – by using direct mail, telephone,
direct-response television, e-mail, and the Internet to
communicate directly with specific consumers.
• Catalog
• Telemarketing
• Kiosks

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Integrated Marketing
Communications
The Need for Integrated Marketing
Communications
• Integrated marketing communication is
the integration by the company of its communication
channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling
message about the organization and its brands.
• Integrated marketing communication calls for recognizing
all contact points (brand contact) where the customer
may encounter the company and its brands.

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A View of the Communications
Process
• IMC involves identifying the target audience
and shaping a well-coordinated promotional
program to obtain the desired audience
response.
• Marketers are moving toward viewing
communications as managing the customer
relationship over time.
• How communication works: nine elements

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Traditional Communication Model

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Updated Communications Model
• Consumers are now proactive in communications process
• VCRs, DVRs, video-on-demand, pay-per-view TV, Caller ID, Internet

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A View of the Communications
Process
Communications Process
• Sender is the party sending the message to another party.
• Encoding is the process of putting thought into symbolic form.
• Message is the set of symbols the sender transmits.
• Media refers to the communications channels through which the
message moves from sender to receiver.
• Decoding is the process by which the receiver assigns meaning to
the symbols.
• Receiver is the party receiving the message sent by another party.
• Response is the reaction of the receiver after being exposed to
the message
• Feedback is the part of the receiver’s response communicated
back to the sender
• Noise is the unplanned static or distortion during the
communication process, which results in the receiver’s getting a
different message than the one the sender sent

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A View of the Communications
Process
• For a message to be effective, the sender’s
encoding must mesh with the receiver’s
decoding process.
• Best messages consist of words and other
symbols that are familiar to the receiver.
• Marketers may not share their consumer’s field
of experience but must understand the
consumer’s field of experience.

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Effective Communication
1. Identify the target audience
2. Determine the communication objectives
3. Design a message
4. Choose media
5. Select the message source
6. Collect feedback

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Identifying the Target Audience
• Marketing communications begins with a clear
target audience to answer these questions:
– What will be said (message content)
– How it will be said (message structure, format)
– When it will be said
– Where it will be said
– Who will say it (source)

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Determining the Communications Objectives
• Marketers seek a purchase response that result
from a consumer decision-making process that
includes the stages of buyer readiness.

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Designing a Message
• AIDA Model: Get Attention - Hold Interest - Arouse
Desire - Obtain Action
• Designing includes the message content, structure and
format.
– Message content—what to say
– Message structure—how to say it
– Message format—through what way to express

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Designing a Message
• Message content is an appeal or theme that will
produce the desired response.
– Rational appeal relates to the audience’s self-
interest.
– Emotional appeal is an attempt to stir up positive or
negative emotions to motivate a purchase.
– Moral appeal is directed at the audience’s sense of
right and proper.

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Choosing Media
• Personal communication
• Non-personal communication

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Personal Communication
• Personal communication involves two or more people
communicating directly with each other.
• Face-to-face, Phone, Mail, E-mail, Internet chat
• Personal communication is effective because it allows
personal addressing and feedback.
• Control of personal communication
• Company - salespeople
• Independent experts - Consumer advocates, Buying guides
• Word of mouth – Friends, Neighbors, Family

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Personal Communication
• Opinion leaders are people within a reference group
who, because of special skills, knowledge, personality, or
other characteristics, exerts social influence on others.
• Buzz marketing involves cultivating opinion leaders and
getting them to spread information about a product or
service to others in their communities.

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Non-Personal Communication Channels
• Non-personal communication is media that carry
messages without personal contact or feedback—
including major media, atmospheres, and events—that
affect the buyer directly.
– Major media include print, broadcast, display, and
online media.
– Atmospheres are designed environments that create
or reinforce the buyer’s leanings toward buying a
product.
– Events are staged occurrences that communicate
messages to target audiences - Press conferences, Grand
openings, Exhibits, Public tours
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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Selecting the Message
• The message’s impact on the target audience is affected
by how the audience views the communicator.
• Celebrities, e.g. athletes, entertainers
• Professionals, e.g. health care providers

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Steps in Developing Effective
Communication
Collecting Feedback
• Involves the communicator understanding the
effect on the target audience by measuring
behavior resulting from the behavior.

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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix
Setting the Total Promotion Budget
• Affordable budget method
• Percentage-of-sales method
• Competitive-parity method
• Objective-and-task method

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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix budget method sets the budget at an
• Affordable
affordable level.
– Ignores the effects of promotion on sales
• Percentage-of-sales method sets the budget at a
certain percentage of current or forecasted sales or
unit sales price.
– Easy to use and helps management think about the
relationship between promotion, selling price, and
profit per unit
– Wrongly views sales as the cause than the result of
promotion

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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix
• Competitive-parity method sets the budget to
match competitor outlays.
– Represents industry standards
– Avoids promotion wars
• Objective-and-task method sets the budget based
on what the firm wants to accomplish with promotion
and includes
– Defining promotion objectives
– Determining tasks to achieve the objectives
– Estimating costs

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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix
Shaping the Overall Promotion Mix
The Nature of Each Promotion Tool
• Advertising
• Personal selling
• Sales promotion
• Public relations
• Direct marketing

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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix
• Advertising reaches masses of geographically
dispersed buyers at a low cost per exposure and
enables the seller to repeat a message many
times; is impersonal, cannot be directly
persuasive as personal selling, and can be
expensive.
• Personal selling is the most effective method at
certain stages of the buying process, particularly
in building buyers’ preferences, convictions, and
actions and developing customer relationships.

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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix
• Sales promotion includes coupons, contests,
cents-off deals, and premiums that attract
consumer attention and offer strong incentives to
purchase. It can be used to dramatize product
offers and to boost sagging sales.
• Public relations is a very believable form of
promotion that includes new stories, features,
sponsorships, and events.
• Direct marketing is a non-public, immediate,
customized, and interactive promotional tool that
includes direct mail, catalogs, telemarketing, and
online marketing.
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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix
Promotion Mix Strategies
• Push strategy involves pushing the product
to the consumers by inducing channel
members to carry the product and promote it
to final consumers.
• Used by B2B companies

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Setting the Total Promotion Budget
and Mix
Promotion Mix Strategies
• Pull strategy is when the producer directs its
marketing activities toward the final consumers
to induce them to buy the product and create
demand from channel members.
• Used by B2C companies

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Socially Responsible Marketing
Communication
• Communicate openly and honestly with consumers and
resellers.
• Avoid deceptive or false advertising.
• Avoid bait and switch advertising.
• Conform to all regulations.
• Follow rules of “fair competition.”
• Do not offer bribes.
• Do not attempt to obtain competitors’ trade secrets.
• Do not disparage competitors or their products.

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