Promotion Mix

Introduction
• The another important element of Marketing Mix is the promotion; that focuses
on creating the awareness and persuading the customers to initiate the purchase.
• Promotion is the element in the marketing mix that serves to inform, persuade
and remind the market of the product and organization is selling it in the hopes
of influencing the feelings, beliefs or behavior.
• The promotion efforts within an organization are directed at two important
goals: information and demand stimulation.
• The several tools that facilitate the promotion objective of a firm are collectively
known as the Promotion Mix.
• The Promotion Mix refers to the blend of several promotional tools used by the
business to create, maintain and increase the demand for goods and services.
• The Promotion Mix is the integration of Advertising, Personal Selling, Sales
Promotion, Public Relations and Direct Marketing.
 Cont….
• The marketers need to view the following questions in order to have a
balanced blend of these promotional tools.
• What is the most effective way to inform the customers?
• Which marketing methods to be used?
• To whom the promotion efforts be directed?
• What is the marketing budget? How is it to be allocated to the promotional
tools?
Cont… Elements of Promotion Mix
 Advertising
• The advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion
of goods and services by the identified sponsor in the exchange of a fee.
• Through advertising, the marketer tries to build a pull strategy; wherein the
customer is instigated to try the product at least once.
• The complete information along with the attractive graphics of the product or
service can be shown to the customers that grab their attention and influences
the purchase decision.
• Advertising Involves the cost.
• Advertising is Impersonal(many people are involved in the conception, design
and presentation it doesn’t require the physical presence of person to
communicate the message).
• Advertising can be in various forms(local, national, global, targeted to
consumers, industrial users, channels, professional, informative, persuasive,
reminding and reassuring)
• It promotes goods, services and ideas
• It is targeted at some actions.
 Cont….
• Objectives Of Advertising:
• Informing
• Persuading
• Reminding
• Brand Building
• Creating Demand and Increasing the Sales
• Value Addition
• Changing Customers’ attitudes, etc.
• Types of Advertising(Based on Activities):
• Above the Line Advertising (ATL): Mass media is used to promote brands and reach
out to the target consumers.
• Blow the Line Advertising(BTL): Personal form of media is used
• Through the line advertising(TTL): Combination of both
 Cont…..
• Types of Advertising( Based on media used):
• Print Advertising: Newspaper, magazines, & brochure advertisements,
etc.
• Broadcast Advertising: Television and radio advertisements.
• Outdoor Advertising: Hoardings, banners, flags, wraps, etc.
• Digital Advertising: Advertisements displayed over the internet and
digital devices.
• Product/Brand Integration: Product placements in entertainment media
like TV show, YouTube video, etc.
 Advertising Media Selection
• Advertising media refers to the various media channels through which
advertising is done.
• Advertising media is used for showcasing promotional content which
communicated in various forms such as text, speech, images, videos using
TV, radio, online, outdoor etc.
• Basically they are channels through which companies can advertise their
products and services to reach to customers.
• Companies advertise and use advertising media to reach to customers, and
to increase their market share.
• Depending upon the customer demographics, advertising budget, targets
of the company, advertising objectives etc, companies can choose the type
of media they want and they can do an advertising campaign.
• Using all media channels is often referred to an integrated marketing
communications.
 Types of Advertising Media
• Advertising media is an important domain in business and advertising. With the
passage of time, there have been several ways in which ads are being showcased and
can be communicated to customers.
• Broadcast Media: TV and radio are two of the most important advertising media
known as broadcast media.
• Television:
• Televisions have become a very important tool to advertise for companies. Companies
can targets serials, reality shows, sports events, live events etc which are showcased on
TV's and understand the demographics of the people watching the TV.
• TV is one of the most widely used advertising media in the world. Advertising slots
are sold by broadcasting companies and channels based in popularity of TV shows,
TRPs etc.
• Radio:
• As a tool for marketing and advertising, radio is the most cost effective tool which a
customer can have. Since radios have are high penetration and are easy for customers
to buy, they are a good tool for advertising.
• Radios enable companies to reach out to a wide range of customers.
 Cont….
• Print Media:
• Advertising media like newspapers, magazines, leaflets, brochures, billboards,
signages, direct mail and other print publications come under print media.
• With the massive reach of print media, it became a popular tool for
advertising. Print media caters to a regional audience and is published in
different languages.
• Hence, print media can cater to a niche audience as compared to broadcast
advertising media tools like TV or radio.
• Online Media:
• With the consistent growth in internet penetration, companies have started
using online media for promotion through advertising.
• People are connected to the internet through social media, website browsing
etc. This gives an opportunity to companies to use this advertising media and
cater to customers using online advertising.
• Online ads, blogs, content advertising, etc are all done using online as an
advertising media.
 Cont….

• Outdoor Media:
• Another popular form of advertising is using outdoor hoardings, billboards, OOH (out of
home) media etc.
• Outdoor advertising it basically useful in capturing those customers who are travelling
from one place to another.
• This gives an opportunity to companies to use outdoor advertising media to create brand
awareness by putting large bill boards and hoardings above buildings, near streets etc to
give maximum visibility.
• Mobile:
• With the increasing penetration and usage of mobile phones, mobile advertising has
become a critical aspect for every business.
• Mobile as an advertising media helps to reach out to customer by promoting messages
through SMS, social media chat groups etc.
• Online and mobile media are also overlapping at times as websites can be accessible both
through desktop, laptop and smartphones.
 Web Advertising in Marketing Communication
• Internet/Web advertising is a set of tools for delivering promotional messages to
people worldwide, using the Internet as a global marketing platform.
• Almost 4.57 billion people were active internet users as of July 2020, encompassing 59
percent of the global population.
• This gives a huge boost to internet advertising. People look for products by using
search engines, following their favorite brands in social media, and subscribing to their
campaigns via email and push notifications.
• Advertising opportunities are enormous, but using them correctly is not that easy.
• Types of Web Advertising:
• Search engine ads.
• Email marketing.
• Social media.
• Display ads.
• Video advertising.
• Mobile marketing.
• Web push ads.
 Personal Selling

• Have you noticed different salesmen come to your house to sell different
products and services?
• This is an example of personal selling. So, personal selling refers to a face-to-face
product selling method.
• Personal selling is another important components of promotion mix.
• Personal selling is where businesses use people (the "sales force") to sell the
product after meeting face-to-face with the customer.
• The sellers promote the product through their attitude, appearance and
specialist product knowledge.
• They aim to inform and encourage the customer to buy, or at least trial the
product.
• It is a process of informing customers and persuading them to purchase
products through personal communication in an exchange transaction.
• A customer can get advice on how to apply the product and can try different
products. Products with relatively high prices, or with complex features, are
often sold using personal selling.
 Nature of Personal Selling
• It is a face to face communication between buyer and seller.
• It is a two way communication.
• It is an oral communication.
• It persuades the customers instead of forcing them.
• It provides immediate feedback.
• It develops a deep personal relationship apart from the selling
relationship with the buyers and customers.
• It is used in an exchange transaction
 Objectives of Personal Selling

• Attracting the Prospective Customers:

• The first and foremost objective of a salesperson is to attract the attention of people who
might be interested to buy the product he is selling.
• Educating the Prospective Customers:
• The salesman provides information about the features, price and uses of the product to the
people.
• He / She handles their queries and removes their doubts about the product. He / She
educates them as to how their needs could be satisfied by using the product.
• Creating Desire to Buy:
• The salesman creates a desire among the prospective customers to buy the product to satisfy
specific needs.
• Concluding Sales:
• The ultimate objective of personal selling is to win the confidence of customers and make
them buy the product. Creation of customers is the index of effectiveness of any salesperson.
• Getting Repeat Orders:
• A good salesperson aims to create permanent customers by helping them satisfy their needs
and providing them product support services, if required. He tries for repeat orders from the
customers.
 Types of Personal Selling
• Retail Selling:
• Retail selling involves selling to consumers through the retail outlet or door to door
selling.
• Trade Selling:
• It involves selling to wholesalers and retailers.
• Missionary Selling:
• Missionary sales persons normally work for manufacturers. They do not sell the
product directly. They visit retail outlets and encourage them to order products from
distributors or wholesalers.
• Direct Selling:
• It involves selling products directly to users. They contact the consumer at their home.
• Industrial Selling:
• It involves selling capital goods.
 Process of Personal Selling
• Indoor Selling Process:
• Drawing Attention :
• It begins when a customer enters into the store. The sales person’s job is to
politely draw the buyer’s attention by saying may I help you?
• Ascertaining Needs:
• Listening carefully to understand the needs or problem of buyer.
• Presentation:
• Once the needs are accurately understood the sales person presents the
solutions to the buyer’s problem through offer of the product(features,
attributes, benefits , function).
• Meeting Objections:
• The primary value of personal selling lies in the sales person’s ability to receive
and deal with potential customers’ objections tactfully.
• The sales person should never push the buyer to make a choice.
• Closing the Sale:
 Cont…
• Sales Process of Travelling Sales Person:
• Prospecting and evaluating:
• The effort to develop a list of potential customers is known as prospecting.
• Sales people can find potential buyers, names in company records, customer
information requests from advertisements, telephone and trade association
directories, current and previous customers, friends, and newspapers.
• Prospective buyers predetermined, by evaluating (1) their potential interest in the
sales person’s products and (2) their purchase power.
• Approach :
• During the approach, which constitutes the actual beginning of the
communication process.
• It may be based on referrals of some other customers. Some sales person follows
the cold canvass method( without prior appointment).
• Interview:
• It is the interaction with buyers and it is important steps to understand the needs
or problems of buyer.
 Cont….
• Proposal:
• It involves making the sales talk and presenting the product features and benefits to
the buyer.
• In this step the sales person answer all queries and objections raised by the buyer on
the product.
• Demonstration:
• Negotiations:
• The sales person negotiates the price and terms and conditions(mode of payment,
delivery, after sales services) and takes the order from buyer.
• Closing the Sales:
• Follow-up:
• To maintain customer satisfaction, the sales person should follow up after a sale to be
certain that the product is delivered properly and the customer is satisfied with the
result.
 Sales Promotion
• It refers to activities of non- recurrent nature that are used to reinforce
personal selling and advertising for stimulating consumer purchasing and
dealer effectiveness.
• Sales promotion is the process of persuading a potential customer to buy the
product.
• Sales promotion is a set of marketing technologies aimed to stimulate the
demand in particular products and increase brand awareness.
• Sales promotion is designed to be used as a short-term tactic to boost sales – it
is rarely suitable as a method of building long-term customer loyalty.
• It consists of a diverse collection of incentive tools, mostly short term,
designed to stimulate quicker and greater purchase of particular
product/service by consumer or the trade.
• Some sales promotions are aimed at consumers. Others are targeted at
intermediaries and at the firm's sales force.
 Objectives of Sales Promotion
• To attract the new buyers
• To introduce the new product
• To encourage the more use of product
• To educate customers on product improvement
• To draw the buyers to the retail store
• To stabilize fluctuating sales
• To increase resellers inventories
• To counter competitors incentives
• To obtain better product display in retail stores.
 Types of Sales Promotion
• Consumer Promotion Methods:
• Consumer promotion methods encourage consumers to visit a particular
store, purchase a particular brand and purchase it in more quantity.
• Consumer promotions are launched by retailers as well as manufacturers.
• The choice of tools also varies between new products and existing products.
• New Product Promotions:
• Demonstrations:
• It could be arranged in a retail store , central locations or consumer’s
residences. The product is demonstrated to general public in its use
situation.
• Free Samples:
• Free samples are distributed to consumers for free trial. It is a very effective
promotion method during the introduction stage of the product life cycle.
• This method is suitable for the low priced, light weight consumer items that
 Con…..
• Coupons or Trading Stamps:
• Coupons are certificate of purchases awarded to buyers that can be redeemed into
cash or another product.
• Coupons are distributed by manufactures as well as retailers.
• Coupons and trading stamps result in reduction in the actual price of the product as
they can be converted into cash or used for buying another product.
• This approach is equally effective for a new as well as an established product.
• Money Refunds or Rebates:
• It is generally used by manufactures to reward consumers for the purchase of
product.
• When consumers buy the product they are required to mail the proof of purchase
directly to manufacturer
• On the receipt of proof manufacturer refunds the rebate amount promised in the
 Cont…
• Trade Fair and Exhibitions:
• Point of Purchase Display:
• They normally placed in retail outlet. POP material are very effective in
building consumer awareness about product.
• Established Product Promotions:
• Premium:
• Premiums are items offered for free or at minimum costs as a bonus for
purchase of product.
• Price – offs:
• Consumer Contests:
• Consumer Sweepstakes:
• Consumer participate in sweepstakes( lottery) by entering name as
participants.
• Sweepstakes are less expensive but more effective than contests in stimulating
sales.
 Cont….
• Trade or Dealer Promotion Methods:
• These methods are directed at the resellers. They are targeted to increase inventory
level of resellers and build sales traffic at retail level.
• Methods also encourage resellers to actively participate in the promotion of the
product at local level.
• Buying Allowance:
• Buying allowance is granted to those dealers who purchase in stipulated period of
time.
• It is very much useful in introducing new products to consumers.
• It motivates dealers to buy in huge quantity, dealers get immediate benefit in the form
of price reduction.
• Merchandise Allowance:
• Manufacturer may offer an allowance in return for the retailer’s agreement to feature
the manufacturer’s product in some way.
• For example, an advertisement allowance compensates retailers for advertising the
product. A display allowance compensate the retailers for the usage of special
 Con….

• Cooperative Advertising:
• Dealers are given an allowance to advertise the manufacturer’s product. Dealers
claim such allowance by producing to the manufacturer the proof of
advertisement.
• Dealer’s Sales Contests:
• A sales contest is a contest for dealers to encourage them to increase their sales
performance over a period of time.
• Sales contests recognize good performers. They may be in the form of holiday
trips, cash prizes or other gifts. Some companies award points for performance to
achievers.
• Buy Back Allowances:
• Theses are the bonus paid to resellers. The amount of bonus is calculated on the
purchase of product by a resellers during a specified time period.
• Free Merchandise:
• The resellers are offered more units of the product at the regular price.
• This method also encourages resellers to buy in larger quantity.
 Public Relation
• Marketing has to take care of the interest of various types of publics such as media,
government, pressure group, local people, general public and staff.
• Activities targeted at maintaining good relations with publics are known as public
relations.
• Now a days it is being practice of utilizing public relation as a separate unit as a part
of marketing department to make it effective.
• Public relations involve a variety of programs designed to promote or protect a
company’s image or its individual products.
• Objectives:
• Build market place excitement before product launch( it uses the media to inform
company’s initiation)
• Build and maintain the customer loyalty
• Build direct relationship with consumers
 Cont…
• Tools of Public Relations:
• Public relations activities are focused on establishing, maintaining and
enhancing a favorable image of the firm and its products among its publics.
• Media Relations:
• It uses the local. National and international media to place favorable news
stories about the firm and its products.
• The news may be based on a press release, company events ( conference, release
of annual reports and new product and service launch) and sponsorship
programs of the firm.
• Group Relations:
• It may work with local community, employee group( trade union), customer
group( distributors) and social institutions.
• Lobbying:
• It involves maintaining individual relationship with important people
( legislators, government officials and social leaders) to influence their
 Publicity
• Publicity is also a way of mass communication. It is not a paid form of mass communication
that involves getting favorable response of buyers by placing commercially significant news
in mass media.
• Publicity is not paid for by the organization. Publicity comes from reporters, columnists,
and journalists.
• It is a vital part in the organization’s promotion mix. It can be considered as a part of public
relations.
• Publicity materials may provide more detailed and non biased information to general
public to build the organizational image.
• Objectives:
• To announce the new product
• To announce the new policies
• To announce the technological breakthrough
• To report performance
• To counter negative rumors.
 Cont…
• Forms of Publicity:
• News Releases:
• Features Articles
• Press Conferences
• Sponsorship of Social Events
 Selection of Promotion Mix
• The design and selection of promotion mix are the critical issues in marketing.
• Creation of right promotion blend is highly essential for successful marketing.
• The following factors need to be considered in the selection of promotion mix:
• Nature of Product:
• Convenience Product( Advertising and publicity), shopping product( personal selling),
specialty products( public relation and personal selling), unsought product( personal selling)
• The different type of product requires different promotional tools.
• Such as, for the industrial products Viz. Machinery, equipment or land personal selling is more
appropriate as a great deal of pre-sale and after-sale services is required to sell and install such
products.
• On the other hand, advertising and publicity are more suitable for the consumer goods,
especially the convenience goods.
• Nature of Market:
• The number and location of customers greatly influence the promotion mix. In case the group
of potential customers is small and are concentrated in a particular locality, then personal
selling is more likely to be effective.
• Whereas, if the customer base is large and widespread, then the blend of advertising, personal
selling, and the sales promotion is required to sell the product.
 Cont….
• Stage of Product’s Life Cycle:
• The promotion mix changes as the product moves along its life cycle.
• During the introduction stage, the principal objective of the promotion is to
create the primary demand by emphasizing the product’s features, utility, etc.
therefore, the blend of advertising, personal selling and publicity is required.
• In the growth stage personal selling is not effective but advertising should
continue with different theme than the introduction stage.
• As the product reaches its maturity stage the advertising, personal selling
and sales promotion is required to maintain the demand of the customers.
• In the decline stage all forms of promotion become irrelevant.
• Availability of Funds:
• The marketing budget also decides the promotion mix. If the funds available
for the promotion are large, then the blend of promotional tools can be used,
whereas in the case the funds are limited then the management must choose
the promotional tool wisely.
 Cont…
• Promotional Strategy:
• The promotion mix largely depends on the company’s promotional strategy, i.e. whether it
accepts the Push Strategy or a Pull Strategy.
• In a Push strategy, the manufacturer forces the dealers to carry the product and promote it to
the customer, i.e. convince the potential buyers to buy it. Here, personal selling and trade
promotion are likely to be more effective.
• In the case of a Pull Strategy, the consumers ask the dealers to carry the product, i.e.
customers themselves purchase the product. Here, advertising and consumer promotion are
more appropriate.
• Readiness of Buyer and Promotion Objectives:
• Different promotional tools are required at different stages of buyer readiness.
• Such as, at the comprehension stage, the blend of advertising and personal selling plays a
vital role.
• Whereas at the conviction stage, personal selling is more effective.
• At the time of sales closure, the blend of sales promotion and personal selling is likely to be
more effective.
• Hence, the advertising and publicity are more effective at the early stages of buying decision
process while the sales promotion and personal selling are more effective during the later