A variety of promotional tools in marketing are made in order to generate the targeted objective of the business in the particular field. They are offered in different packaging sizes, shapes and styles along with different kinds of materials or fabrications.
Promotional tools are a variety of marketing materials that communicate the benefits of your products and services. In addition to your sales staff, promotional tools can also be included in the sales process by adding them to direct mail communications or displaying them at trade shows, conferences or on Web sites.
Advertising
Advertising is defined as any form of paid communication or promotion for product, service and idea. Advertisement is not only used by companies but in many cases by museum, government and charitable organizations. However, the treatment meted out to advertisement defers from an organization to an organization.
Advertising development involves a decision across five Ms Mission, Money, Message, Media and Measurement.
Mission looks at setting objectives for advertising. The objectives could be to inform, persuade, remind or reinforce. Objective has to follow the marketing strategy set by the company.
Money or budget decision for advertising should look at stage of product life cycle, market share and consumer base, competition, advertising frequency and product substitutability.
Message’s development further is divided into four steps, message generation, message evaluation and selection, message execution, and social responsibility review.
Once the message is decided the next step is finalizing the media for delivering the message. The choice of depends on reach of media, frequency of transmission and potential impact on customer. Based on this choice of media types are made from newspaper, television, direct mail, radio, magazine and the internet. After which timing of broadcast of the message is essential as to grab attention of the target audience.
Checking on the effectiveness of communication is essential to company’s strategy. There are two types of research communication effect research and sales effect research.
Sales Promotion
Promotion is an incentive tool used to drive up short term sales. Promotion can be launched directed at consumer or trade. The focus of advertising to create reason for purchase the focus of promotion is to create an incentive to buy. Consumer incentives could be samples, coupons, free trial and demonstration. Trade incentive could be price off, free goods and allowances. Sales force incentive could be convention, trade shows, competition among sales people.
Sales promotion activity can have many objectives, for example, to grab attention of new customer, reward the existing customer, increase consumption of occasional users. Sales promotion is usually targeted at the fence sitters and brand switchers.
Sales promotional activity for the product is selected looking at the overall marketing objective of the company. The final selection of the consumer promotional tools needs to consider target audience, budget, competitive response and each tool’s purpose.
Sales promotion activity should under-go pretest before implementation. Once the activity is launched it should be controlled as to remain within the budget. Evaluation program is a must after implementation of the promotional scheme.
Promotion with Traditional Media
Traditional mass-media advertising remains a prominent promotional tool for marketing. This includes paid messages designed and presented through television networks, radio stations, newspapers and magazines. Additionally, companies use support media in ongoing campaigns, such as billboards, telephone directories, bus station ads, aerial displays (like those you often see at the beach), in-store and point-of-purchase displays. Local radio and newspapers tend to be most affordable for smaller companies.
New Possibilities with Digital Technology
The Internet and mobile technology have enabled use of a host of digital and interactive promotional tools. Online and e-mail marketing are common elements of promotional campaigns. Social media and blogs offer additional interactive tools that companies can use to reach consumers directly. Mobile devices with applications for electronic communication and social media allow companies virtually 24/7 access to consumers on the move.
Digital technology has enabled the possibility of employing highly targeted promotional activities. By learning the online habits of individual users, and through text recognition technologies that identify the subject matter of websites and emails, advertisers can post precisely the types of ads that should be of greatest interest to the viewing audience.
Sales Promotion
These Promotional tools include sales promotion which further contains a broad assortment of elements like:
- Coupons
- Cent-off Deals
- Premiums
- Other Tools
The tools of sales promotion are applied to boost sagging sales by attracting the customers and offerings of distinct incentives of purchase. A quick response is generated by using this promotion tool for sales promotion. If advertising is related to “buy our product” then sales promotion is the representation of “buy the product now”.
In the short run, sales promotion can be regarded as an effective promotion tool. However in the case of the long run it is not favorable in developing long-lasting customer relationships. Thus the brand preference just like advertising and personal selling do.
Events and Community Activities
Sponsoring major events and community activities serve as promotional opportunities for companies as well. Small businesses often gain public favor by active involvement in local events. A presence at local fairs, non-profit events and school functions can all improve your rapport and goodwill with the communities in which you operate your business. It’s common, for example, for local business to devote a portion of a day’s sales to a community school or non-profit; the activity generates goodwill and, hopefully, an increase in sales that offsets any loss of income.
Salespeople and Influencers
Among the more direct promotional tools are salespeople and influencers. Salespeople are employees who contact or engage customers using assertive selling techniques. This often includes asking questions, listening to customer needs and using persuasive efforts to sell product or service benefits.
Peer or professional influencers are prominent people in the public who favor your product. Companies often ask consumers or professionals to share company news, information and experiences with others.
Conclusion
Marketing promotional tools are any type of product imprinted with a marketing message. The message is typically used as a form of advertising, and the purpose of that advertising is to promote your business. Marketing tools can include bags, clothing items, pens, mugs and all types of products that can easily be imprinted with your marketing message.