Why is the Promotion of a Product Important? Promotion is all about getting your message out to the right people and convincing them to take action. A company might have a great product, with a great pricing and distribution system, but if it can’t reach the target market, it’s all for naught. Promotion is responsible for waking up and driving consumer demand for your product.
How to best Promotion of Product Worth the Investment?
In the broadest sense of marketing, promotion includes all selling activities, including advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations. The specific way a marketer mixes these activities know as the promotion mix. For many customers, marketing, and promotion are synonymous. While promotion certainly makes up a large portion of most firms’ marketing efforts, it’s just one part of the overall marketing mix. Promotion isn’t just a business activity. Many non-profits also use it.
Of these four components, promotion is the most widely used by non-profits. For example, universities use promotion to attract students, political candidates hold meetings (promotions) to win votes, and the government uses promotion techniques to popularize family planning programs, etc. Therefore, promotion is a major focus of non-business organizations.
The promotion activity ultimately manages by the marketing manager. However, in many large companies, each type of promotion mix works independently. It is the responsibility of the marketing manager to coordinate and interconnect all the methods to reach the marketing goals. Within the marketing framework-work, advertisements, personal selling, and sales promotion refer to as a promotional mix.
Why Should You Consider Different Types of Promotion?
There are two main types of promotion mixes:
- Push Blend
- Pull Blend
Exploring
- Push promotions are closely tied to the distribution channel
- Push promotions focus on personal selling
- Producers push the product to the intermediaries
- The intermediaries orchestrate promotion to reach the consumer
- Firms build strong sales forces
- Push products through the distribution channel and dealer
- Pull promotions focus on the impersonal selling
- The producer organizes advertising
- Sales-promotion campaigns
- Pull strategies have proven to be very successful in difficult distribution cases
- A firm implementing this strategy would be spending more on advertising
- Sales promotion
There are three types of promotion: informative, persuasive, and reminiscent.
- Informative promotion requires when a company has a new product for sale. For example, a company that produces radio sets decides to also produce television sets. The buyers must be aware of this fact, hence informative promotion.
- Persuasive promotion requires when the company has a product that is similar to others. For example, consumers are convinced to buy a product that is better than others, hence persuasive promotion.
- Reminiscent promotion employs after the company’s products are well established on the market. Consumers are often reminded of a product by its brand name, which becomes a household name through repeated advertisement.
How to Identify the Difference Between a Push and a Pull Strategy
The difference between a PUSH and a PULL strategy is that a PUSH strategy calls for the use of the sales force and the use of trade promotion to drive the product through all channels.
In a PUSH strategy, the producer aggressively pushes the product to the wholesalers, the wholesalers aggressively push the product to the retailers, and the retailers aggressively push the product through to the consumers.
In contrast, a PULL strategy calls for a large investment in advertising and consumer promotion to drive consumer demand. If the strategy works, consumers will want to buy the product from their retailers, the retailers will want to buy it from their wholesalers, and their wholesalers will want to buy from the producers.
Promotional Mixes and Techniques
The promotional mix is a term used by marketing professionals to describe a combination of personal selling and advertising, sales promotion, and other forms of marketing. It becomes the overall promotional strategy. A mix of at least two methods is necessary for the promotion.
Advertising should support by personal selling or display. If personal selling is used on its own, it will be costly to make sales. However, a small expenditure on advertising with personal selling will significantly increase sales.
Each component of the promotional mix manages by management. Management sets goals, sets policies, and formulates strategies. These strategies are combined to form the overall marketing strategy, known as the “Promotional Blend”.
The promotional mix combines product-market, distribution, and pricing strategies to form overall marketing strategies. Many factors influence the promotional mix. These call product-market factors.
How to Analyze the Nature of the Product:
Depending on the nature of the product, different promotional mixes need. For example, consumer goods and industrial goods need different strategies. For consumer goods, advertising, personal selling, and displays require. Raw materials need to be sold through personal selling. For industrial products, such as road graders and machine tools, personal selling requires.
Brand Differentiation:
The promotional mix is influenced by brand differentiation and how different your brand is from your competitor’s brand.
Purchase Frequency:
If buyers buy a product frequently, such as soap, paste, etc., then the marketer will spend a lot of money on advertising to push it on your competition brands. If buyers rarely buy a product, such as household furniture or garden tool, then personal selling will convince them to buy your product and push it over your competition’s brand.
How to Analyze the Nature of the Market:
Like the market, the promotional mix and strategies are different depending on the market. In the industrial market, advertising is more informative than persuasive for industrial buyers. In the personal selling market, information and persuasion are more important in the industrial market than in the consumer market.
A Step-by-Step Guide to the Product Life Cycle
The product life cycle determines the promotional product mix and the nature of demand. During the first stage of the life cycle, the customers are unaware of or do not understand the product’s qualities.
- In the first stage, sellers need to stimulate the first demand. They need to make the buyers aware of the product’s information and its benefits.
- In this stage, the importance of personal selling and trade shows increases.
- In the second stage, the customers are more aware of the qualities.
- Also, In the third stage, the demand is more selective.
- In the fourth stage, advertising is more persuasive.
- In the fifth stage, the sales and profits decrease and all promotional activities need to reduce.
How to Increase Your Market Penetration:
If the product already knows the buyers, then a long-term promotional strategy is appropriate. Retailers and middlemen are trying to stock the products and become ‘best sellers’.
If a brand has a low market penetration, that is, it has a small or struggling market, then it is appropriate to develop a developmental promotional strategy. This could be a personal selling, push strategy, advertising, or a full strategy.
What is the product market size and location?
If the product market is small, then direct mail will use. If the market is large, then advertising will use. The product market is located in urban and rural areas, where there are many buyers. If there are few buyers in rural areas, then personal selling will use.
Features of Buyers:
The features of potential buyers have a big impact on the promotional mix. Professional buyers, like industrial purchasing agents, need personal selling. Housewives, on the other hand, require advertising. Some buyers prioritize time, while others prioritize the purchase of products. Some buyers influence by friends, relatives, etc. These factors affect the promotional mix and strategy.
The distribution strategy:
Companies that are fighting more through distribution to establish their brand, should invest more money into personal selling and advertising, while companies that have already established themselves in the market should invest only a small sum.
When selling directly to the consumer, the method should be personal selling. When selling through a longer channel, the marketer should place more emphasis on advertising and less emphasis on personal selling.
For consumer products sold through channels, advertising to the final buyers is crucial. Promotional packaging and display.
How Pricing Strategy Influences Your Promotional Mix Strategy
If your brand price is above the competition. You’ll need to do more personal selling to get a third party to stock and promote your brand. If your brand price is below the competition. You won’t need to do as much personal selling.
If your marketer allows third parties to charge lower markups on your brand than on your competitors. You will need to do a lot of advertising to ‘force’ the third party to handle your brand. You’ll need a lot of personal selling to keep your current customers and attract new ones.
