Week 3 Project

Promotion Mix

© 2016 South University

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Marketing Management

©2016 South University

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Week 5 Lecture 1

Marketing promotion is the last element of the marketing mix. In economic terms, it creates time utility because it informs consumers as to where the product is available for purchase. Marketing promotion informs consumers about the product's availability and where the target market would be able to purchase it. Promotion also builds the image of the brand in the marketplace.

Marketing promotion involves all activities that communicate the firm's image and products to the public. These goals are accomplished by using the following elements of the promotion mix:

• Advertising • Public relations • Sales promotion • Personal selling • Direct marketing • Interactive marketing

The first two components of the promotion mix, advertising and public relations, are often grouped together under the term mass communication. This is because both use mass media to communicate to the organization's target market.

RACE

Public relations is required by all organizations. The basic functions of public relations are best summed up by the acronym RACE. The role of the public relations professional is to understand and integrate these functions at the organization level.

Research (R)

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Marketing Management

©2016 South University

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Week 5 Lecture 1

Research is important because an organization needs to know what the public thinks about its existence, policies, and products. This requires public relations professionals to conduct research regularly through surveys on the attitudes and opinions of the different stakeholder groups. They also need to monitor news media to determine what is being written or shown about the organization. Through a better understanding of their target audience and how attitudes toward the firm are being formed, public relations professionals can find ways to influence these attitudes.

Action (A)

After research comes action. Using the knowledge gained from research on the different audiences, the public relations team develops an action plan for communicating with the audience. This plan serves as a road map to guide the organization's efforts in developing its communication strategy.

Communication (C)

Communication involves informing the various target audiences of the organization’s story, purpose, and plans. The goal is to increase the acceptance, understanding, and support for the organization’s operations and mission among its different target groups.

Evaluation (E)

The last function is evaluation of the organization’s public relations efforts. This is accomplished by monitoring the attitudes of the different audiences to determine how these are changing in response to the organization’s efforts in public relations.

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Marketing Management

©2016 South University

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Week 5 Lecture 1

Tools of Public Relations

There are three basic tools of public relations that help in carrying out its functions.

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Marketing Management

©2016 South University

5 Promotion Mix

Week 5 Lecture 1

Press releases are the most common public relations tool. These are prepared by the firm's public relations department and sent to the appropriate news media. These are also posted on the firm's Web sites.

News stories, by contrast, are written by reporters. They may be based on interviews with the firm's officers or even interviews with competitors. The public relations department has little control over news stories, but it must cooperate to ensure that the coverage is as favorable as possible.

News interviews give reporters direct access to the firm's officers. These are valuable in presenting the human face of the firm. One job of public relations is to train and prepare all of the firm's officers for press interviews. The three tools are combined to present the firm's story to its stakeholders, including investors, employees, and the public at large.

Sales Promotion

The function of sales promotion is to increase the sales of the firm's products. The firm accomplishes this by increasing product's exposure to the public and its desirability in the minds of the consumers. Thus, sales strategies are focused on bringing about an increase in the demand for the firm's products. The four most common sales promotion techniques are sales, contests, coupons, and cause marketing. These techniques are integrated into a sales promotion strategy focused on a specific target market. Performance is measured by the increase in sales resulting from the promotional efforts. (See table below)

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Marketing Management

©2016 South University

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Week 5 Lecture 1

Other Elements of Promotional Mix

Personal Selling

Personal selling is used for infrequently purchased goods. Consumers are familiar with personal selling from buying cars or real estate. Because these things are bought infrequently, consumers often need a large amount of information before they make the purchase. Personal selling is focused on meeting the informational needs for infrequently purchased products. Sales personnel serve this function by providing the consumers the information they need to make the purchase. A successful sales presentation should close with the sale of the firm's product. Personal selling is used in the promotion mix when products are complex and consumers need a lot of information before making a decision.

Direct Marketing

Direct marketing is used as a strategy to reach a firm’s target market directly through the mail or telemarketing. Since this kind of marketing reaches consumers without any intermediary media, it’s possible to reach and interact with individual consumers. This makes direct marketing an ideal tool to reach small and dispersed market segments.

Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing is the newest component of the promotion mix. It describes promotional techniques that make use of the Internet to reach the target markets. The key to interactive

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Marketing Management

©2016 South University

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Week 5 Lecture 1

marketing is the use of Web sites to provide in-depth information on the brand, its attributes, and the nearest retail outlets where the consumer will be able to purchase the products.