With a wide variety of promotion tools available, from coupons to contests to product placement, it can feel tough to choose the ones that will have your products flying off the shelves. In fact, you can’t do all of them. Each tool has its own purpose and when used correctly, will add to your bottom line.
The Internet, telemarketing, direct mail, banner advertising and public relations. The Internet and telemarketing take top billing as the two most effective and affordable forms of mass promotion. Direct mail and banner ads are other attractive marketing tools for small businesses, while publicity is the best way to promote a business on a one-to-one level.For any business, promotion is essential. Without it, you’ll be hard-pressed to draw in new customers and keep those that you have. Promotion can take a variety of forms, from paid ads to social media campaigns to PR stunts. In this article, we will explore the five major promotion tools for marketing and how to use them best for your business. From targeting your audience to crafting the right message, these tools are essential for any business looking to reach new heights.
There are five components to a promotional or marketing mix (sometimes known as the Five P’s). These elements are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, direct marketing, and publicity. A promotional mix specifies how much attention to pay to each of the five subcategories, and how much money to budget for each. A promotional plan can have a wide range of objectives, including: sales increases, new product acceptance, creation of brand equity, positioning, competitive retaliations, or creation of a corporate image. Let’s focus specifically on the promotion element of the marketing mix. There are three basic objectives of promotion and these are:
- To present information to consumers as well as others;
- To increase demand;
- To differentiate a product from other similar or competing products;
There are different ways to promote a product in different areas of media. Promoters use Internet advertisement, special events, endorsements, and newspapers or magazines to advertise their product. Many times with the purchase of a product there is an incentive like discounts, free items, or a contest. These methods are used to increase the sales of a given product.
Product promotion is the act of advertising a good or service with the short or long-term goal of increasing sales. Many companies use different techniques to promote their products through a vast array of communication mediums. In this day and age, there is not necessarily one communication medium that is better than another simply because the most effective medium depends upon on what type of product you are promoting. There is the physical form (magazines and newspapers) of product promotion and the digital form (websites and e-books), both of which require clear and concise textual information about the product being advertised.
Since the turn of the twenty-first century, many companies have been trying to utilize online social media for product promotion. Some of the most popular forms of online social media are Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. Within an online social media network, companies have the ability to advertise and promote their products to anyone, at any time, anywhere in the world. Because of the vast popularity and expansion of social media, companies have had great success in marketing products to the younger generation who otherwise might not see an ad in a newspaper or on TV.
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.
1. Advertising: the most common way to promote a product or service is through advertising. Ads can be in print, online, or on television. They can be creative and target specific demographics, or they can be more traditional and rely on broad appeals. There are many types of ads, including direct mail, banner ads, and TV commercials.
2. PR: public relations is another common tool for marketing. PR helps create relationships with customers, investors, partners, and other stakeholders by providing them with information they need to make informed decisions. This could include issuing press releases announcing new products or services, arranging meetings with reporters or industry experts, or putting out positive comments about competitors on social media.
3. Community building: one of the best ways to connect with potential customers is through community building. This could involve hosting events such as webinars or live chats where customers can ask questions and get help using the product/service. It could also involve participating in online communities and responding to customer feedback.
4. Content marketing: creating valuable content that people will want to read is another great way to connect with customers and build relationships. This might include blog posts about the product/service, video tutorials explaining how to use it better, or even original articles written from a customer’s perspective.
5. Social media: social media platforms are a great way to connect with potential customers and share your content with an even wider audience than you would otherwise. Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are all great resources for content marketing. You can also use social media to build relationships with customers and promote your products and services.
Public Relations
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.
Sales promotion covers those marketing activities other than advertising, publicity, and personal selling that stimulate consumer purchasing and dealer effectiveness. Sales promotion mainly involves short-term and non-routine incentives, offered to dealers as well consumers. The popular methods used for sales promotion are demonstration, trade show, exhibition, exchange offer, seasonal discount, free service, gifts, contests, etc.
Characteristics of sales promotion are as follows:
i. The primary purpose of sales promotion is to induce customers for immediate buying or dealer effectiveness or both.
ii. Excessive use of sale promotion may affect sales and reputation of a company adversely.
iii. It is taken as supplementary to advertising and personal selling efforts.
iv. It involves all the promotional efforts other than advertising, personal selling, and publicity.
v. It consists of short-term incentives, schemes, or plans offered to buyers, salesmen, and/ or dealers.
vi. It involves non-routine selling efforts.
Effects of Promotion
There are a number of different promotion tools that can be used for marketing. These tools can be divided into two categories: offline and online. Offline promotion includes things like advertising, PR, and content marketing. Online promotion includes things like search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, and email marketing.
Each type of promotion has its own advantages and disadvantages. For example, online promotion is typically more effective than offline promotion because it reaches a wider audience quickly and cost less to do overall. However, online promotion can also be more difficult to track or measure than offline promotion.
Overall, the most effective way to promote your business is to use a combination of different promotional methods.
How to use Promotion Tools Effectively
Promotion tools can be used to increase brand awareness, attract new customers, and generate leads. There are a variety of tools available, but some common ones include online advertising, paid search engine marketing (P SEM), email marketing, and social media campaigns.
Online Advertising
E-commerce sites such as Amazon and Alibaba use online advertising to promote their products to a global audience. The ads can be placed on websites that sell the same product or on competing websites that have a similar audience. Ads can also be targeted at specific demographics (such as age, location, or interests), which makes them more effective.
P SEM
P SEM is a form of paid search advertising that uses search engines to drive traffic to websites. Advertisers bid for ad space on the search engines and specify what keywords they want their ads to appear for. This allows them to target their ads at potential customers who are likely to visit their website because of the keywords they’ve chosen.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of online marketing and it’s still one of the most effective ways to reach out to potential customers. Email campaigns can be automated using software such as Mailchimp or Constant Contact and they can be designed in different ways (such as drip campaigns). This type of campaign is perfect for reaching small segments of your target audience over time (instead of all at once).
Social Media Campaigns
Facebook was originally designed
Dos and Don’ts of Promotion
There are a number of effective promotion tools available to market your product or service. However, not all tools are appropriate for every business. Before using a promotion tool, research its potential benefits and drawbacks. Here are five Dos and Don’ts of Promotion:
Do use social media platforms to promote your product or service.
Social media is one of the most popular promotion tools out there, as it allows you to reach a large audience quickly and cheaply. However, make sure that your content is engaging and appropriate for a social media platform. Fill out profiles correctly and use hashtags that will be relevant to your target audience. Posts should be updated on a regular basis to keep people interested.
Don’t overpromote your product or service on social media.
Too much promotional content can actually damage your brand’s reputation. Stick to posting helpful information about the product or service, rather than promoting it at length. Also avoid posting irrelevant content that will bore followers or turn them off completely.
Do create targeted ads and email campaigns targeting potential customers.
Targeted ads allow businesses to focus their advertising efforts on specific groups of consumers who may be interested in what they have to offer. This results in higher click-through rates (CTRs) and leads conversion rates, which can improve sales figures significantly. Email campaigns can also be highly successful if they are customized properly and sent at the right time – just before someone is likely to make a purchase, for
Conclusion
Promotional marketing is seen by many as a systematic approach to delivering targeted information about an organization’s products or services. These materials are often produced by the marketing department with the purpose of providing customers with relevant, helpful information about an organization, its product line, and its clients. Because they are made available at low cost or no cost at all, promotional marketing tools help companies to effectively reach their target audience with their marketing messaging.