Marketing Mix

UNIT 15 PROMOTION STRATEGIES

Structure
15.0 Objectives
15.1 Introduction
15.2 Promotion as Communication
15.3 Advertising
15.4 Public Relations
15.5 Personal Selling
15.6 Sales Promotion
15.7 Promotional Strategy
15.8 Promotional Budget
15.9 Key Aspects of Promotional Campaigns
15.10 Let Us Sum Up.
15.1 1 Avwers to Check Your Progress Exercises

15.0 OBJECTIVES
After reading this Unit, you will be able to:

learn the basic purpose of communication in promotion,

understand the major elements of promotional mix,
" identify the various types of proniotional strategies,
learn how marketers budget for promotion, and
have an understanding about promotional campaigns.

15.1 INTRODUCTION
Once you have designed and developed a product or service and priced it attractively as per
the requirements of your target market, what do you do now? Well you have to not onlymake
it available to your target customers but also promote it among them. Remember that there
is intense competition among the suppliers of tourism products or services and success of
tourism business depends largely on the use of an appropriate promotion strategy:The idea
is to stimulate or motivate the target customer into purchasing your product. And it is through
different communication activities that you attempt to influence your target market. In
tourism it is not only the customers but also retail agents, suppliers, opinion makers (like
journalists, travel writers, politicians) and important professional groups that need to be
influenced. There are a range of promotional methods and you have to identify the required
method which is most suitable for your objective. This Unit defines promotion along with the
different elements of promotional mix It also takes into account the aspects that are
considered while deciding your promotion strategy.

15.2 PROMOTION AS COMMUNICATION

There is need to create awareness and to persuade tourists to step out of their homes and
visit a destination that attracts or interests them. There are many motivators which stimulate
their interest in taking a trip or tour to a place of attraction. However, these motivators may
remain dormant and therefore, there is always a need to arouse them. In tourism, the
Promotion-Mix are the communication efforts made by a destination or service organisation
to create awareness, arouse interest, develop desire and persuade tourists to act and take a
journey to places of attractions. All segments of the tourism industry use communication to
inform and persuade customers. For example, airlines or Road transport organisations
inform about routes, schedules and fares; Hotels create awareness about accommodation
26 and other related facilities available with them; Destinationlattractions inform customer
 Promotion strategies
about leisure, pleasure and relaxation activities offered at a given place etc. Hence, every
destinationlprincipal supplierlproduucer of tourism product or service, to use the words of
Philip Kotler, "is inevitably cast into the role of communicator and promoter." This
communication is aimed at not onlycreating awareness about the productlservice but also at
persuading the customer to use and experience it. In other words the productlservice
promotion is carried through communication and certain tools are adopted for this : Promotion mlx h
a h k n m a8
Advertising Communication mix.

Direct Marketing
Sales Promotion
Public Relations and Publicity, and
Personal Selling.

Kotler has listed certain specific tools within these categories (see Table- I).
Table 1-

Trade-in allowances

Here it must be "oted that any form of communication is required to catch attention of the
receiver (customer). Once the attention is caught, there must be something in communication
to arouse interest in customer about the productlservice. This interest should be turned into
desire for the productlservice. Ultimatelyit should make the customer to buylexperience the
idea/product/service. The objectives of communication mix or the purpose of any
communication is summed in AIDA formula which is:

Attention
~nte'rest AIDA

Desire

Action
An important aspect in promotional communication is building of brand and product
awareness. A promotion campaign should provide necessaryinformation ofthe product and
should try to develop a favourable image of the product in the market. Promotion campaign
has to be designed in such a way that the customer finds something special and credible in
your product. In order to develop effective communications or promotion programmes,
Philip Kotler has identified certain aspects that have to be accounted for stepwise. These are
equallyapplicable in the case of tourism products.

1) The target markets (customers) have to be dle'arly identified. For example the
destination wants to attract up-budget tourists who are high spenders or budget tourists.

2) Communication objectives must be determined. This means that the marketeer must
have clarityas regards to what has to be put into the tourists mind to influence the tourisit's
decision making process. The objectives may vary as per the levels of the tourists s t a e
 of readiness to buy. For example:
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Ifthe tourists are unaware ofyour product the objective will be to createawareness,

The tourists may be aware of the ptoduct but may not be having any further
knowledge. Hence, in such a situation the objective would ..to provide knowledge,
. be

mi. i. 1m&l The tourists may have the knowledge but theymay not have a liking for the product. Here
Wait India!
the objective will be to adopt such measures that may help in developing a likiqg,

India swab YOU! -

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tourists may like the product but maynot prefix it to the'others available. The
gbjective in this case may be to develop preferences amongst the customers,
Wby not hdia!
'The destination (product) may be preferred by the tourists but they may not have
'
the conviction to go there (buy it). The objective ofthe communication in this case
would be to build conviction.
Lastlythere would be a situation where the tourists in spite of having a conviction,
muy still not make thepurchase. The objective in this case would be to lead the
tourists towards making the purchase.

3) An effective message has to Gdevelopd for communication keeping in view the target
. audience response livels. The message has to be effective in terms of gainingattention,
holding interest, arousing desire and eliciting action (AIDA model). For this:

the contents ofthe message have to be figured out,

the structureof the message has to be decided ether it should be conclusion
drawing or one which raises questions and the target audience to draw
its own conclusions,
the message must have a strong format e.g. attractive headlines in print or voice
qualities in audio etc.,
the message should be delivered through an attractive source, e.g. use of models,
celebrities etc. by advertisers.

4) The communication channels have to be selected with care to deliver the message. These
may be personal i.e. direct communication with customers which include :

'face to face communication,

telephonic communication,
person to audiences, or
. direct mailing.

On the other hand there are non-personal communication channels which include :
media, '

promotional events, or
atmospheres or packaged environments.

Besides these aspects ~ o t l e rhas laid stress on managing and coordinating Ithe total
marketing communication process" and measuring 'the promotion's results". Deciding on a
promotion budget and the promotion mixto be adopted are other aspects in this regard. Each
of the promotion tools mentioned earlier have their own features and in the subsequent
Sections we shall discuss them individually.

ADVERTISING
Advertising is one of the 'most important and visible,elements of a promotional strategy.
Advertising is a communics\tion that appears through non personal media to inform and
persuaqe customers to tryor buy an ide4 product or service. It is paid form ofcommunication
as against ihlicity which is re'rreiwd liecause of being news worthy. Adwrtising is always
associated by an identified sponsor. Thus, according to Kotler Advertising is "any paid form
' _
 form of non personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods or services byan identified
sponsor. Advertising is done to inform or persuade the customers to try or buy a
prgdudservice or an idea'!
Advertising Process
Advertising Process like any other communication inwlves, four elements. These are:

Sender,
Message,

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Channel,
Receiver.

v i) Sender : Sender is the organisation or party which wants to communicate some message
related to its product or service to its customers. Sender of course is advertiser but in
advertisement, the spokeperson is sender. Spokeperson can be a model, character or
celebrity.

Advertising, to be effective, needs right spokeperson.'~hereare three requirements of

any sender / spoke person:

Trust worthyness
Attractiveness, and
Expertise.

ii) Message: Message in print media advertisements is copy. It involves Headline,

sub-headline and copytext. The message is supported by visuals in case of prmt media,
by audio visual in case of TV media.

iii) Channel: Channel is the media that is used for transmitting the message. The channel /
media used for advertising are as follows.

Print Media - Newspaper, Magazines, Hand bills.

Broadcast Media - TV, Radio, Cinema Slides

<.Outdoor -
Media Hoarding, Bill boards, Wall1 Roof Paintings.

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..~rarisitMedia Bus / Rail Panel, Sky writing, balloons.

' Point of Purchase (POP) - Posters, Cut-outs, dummy, shop signs, Window display.

iv) Receiver: Receiver is target customer who is to be informed or to be persuaded to buy

i,
the product / service.
I .

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Advertisements are classified on various basis. Some of the classification are given below.

1F Brand Advertisement :
Corporate Advertisement:
Advertisement focused on productlbrand.
Advertisement focused on building image ofthe
company and not any specific product/braid.
i Social Service Advertisement focused on Advertisement creating
! awareness about social cause like anti smoking,
Cancer care; safe driving etc.

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Tbe advertising manager has to take certain decisions:

0 Objective/s ofadvertising are decided. These can be creatingawareness, increase in sales

by given percent, to combat competitors, information about a new service, etc.
. Appropriation i.e., how much money shall be allocated for advertising budget.
r What is the message for communication?
Marke$mg Mix Media Mix: What mediumlmedia to be used. The timing or scheduling of advertisement
is also to be decided. Besides the reach, frequency and impact of the medium are to be
considered.
Creative Strategy: What appeal to be used, Rational Appeal or Emotional Appeal.
Evaluation Technique: Whether to use one ofthe pretesting and 1or post testingmethods
to find ad effectiveness.

In small organisations advertising is looked after by sales or marketing people whereas big
organisations have their own advertising departments. Today there are professional
advertising agencies who offertheir services for a price.

15.4 PUBLIC RELATIONS ,

Public Relations (PR) is a broader (Publicity) concept which includes publicity. Earlier
marketeers were using the term publicity which is now being replaced by Public Relations.
We can define Public Relations as deliberate, planned and sustained activities of an
organisation to develop and maintain good relations,with publics of the Organisation.

Every organisation has various internal and external groups which have an actual or potential
interest in the organisation. These groups are known as publics. It is necessary to develop
good relation with these public. We give below examples of the publics of two segments of
the tourism industry

I) Publics of Travel Agency

Internal Employees, Share Holders, Managers, Trade Union.
, Ewmal Airline, Touroperators, Corporate Clients,
Individual Customers, Destinationl'vents Managers,
Transportors, Government (DOT) Media, Hoteliers etc.

ii) Publics of Airlines

Internal A u Crews, Ground Crews, Managers, Share holders.
External Travel Agencies, Tour Operators, Suppliers
(Fuel, Food etc.), Government, Media, Competitors,
Hoteliers, Destination Organisations, Corporate Clients,
Individual Customers etc.

The Public Relations include:

I) Research (R)
2) Action (A)
3) Communication (C)
4) Evaluation (El

This process we explain through a case example of

1) Research: A research was conducted among Indian Airlines travelers to findout their
opinion about its service quality. One of the important findings of this research was
related to opinion oftravelers regarding "Empty Seats". They felt that even though there
are empty seats Airlines does not offer seats.

2) Action: The opinion was developed because of lack of understanding about operations
ofan airline particularly related to flight requirements. The total load an aircraft can take
depends upon various conditions l i e type of aircraft, length of runway, air density,
temperature, etc. Therefore, at times because of these kctors load to be carried by
aircraft is to be limited. This makes it compulsoryto keep few seats vacant to reduce load.
Lack of this technical information made people to believe that airlines is inefficient
regarding filling the empty seats.
 Promotion Strategies
3) Communication: Indian Air Lines designed an Advertising Campaign to make public
aware about this critical information. Even every issue of Swagat (In- flight magazine of
Indian Airlines) carries the message explaining why the seats may be empty..

4) Evaluation: A research was conducted to find out the opinion of travellers. It proved
that the opinion oftravellers has become favourable and their perception has changed.
Public relations is important not only in obtaining editorial coverage but also in suppressing
bad coverage.

A typical opportunistic use of PR can be illustrated by the following example. Let us think
that you are planning to open a holiday resort in Andaman. In the inauguration you should
tryto invite a leadingpersonality, either politician or who matters to the press. At the opening
ceremony, journalists and other guests would typically be invited to a reception and
information booklets would be given to them. Press releases with major highlights ofthe resort
would be available for the busy journalists. All the details of the opening should be
pre-planned with precision using every opportunity to secure good media coverage.

15.5 PERSONAL SELLING

Personal selling is one to one 1 group presentation of service or product for the purpose of
making sales. Travel agents 1tour operators may explain clients about various destinations,
packages, choices of hotels, cost, etc, so as to make a sale of travel / tour.
Personal selling becomes an art in this service industry as what is sold is a dream or a hture
performance.

There are Three Cs for good Personal Selling:

Know p u r Customer's needldesire,

Know p u r Company and its Services, and
Know your Competitors.

The tourists are either vaguely aware about their needs or they may not be able to verbalise
them. It is very important for tourism professional to understand the needs 1 wants and
limitation of their customers. Similarly they should have complete knowledge about the
destjnation, accommodation, transportation choice, cost, time and also facilities available.
The procedure involved 'in performing the services should be clearly known and
communicated to the clients. This becomes more important for international outbound
tourists. The clients have to be told about the Visa, passport, health, currency regulations,
social and legal practices etc. Finally, the sales force should be aware about the competitors
and their offerings. For example, an airline sales executive should know what are the services
and costs of these services that are being offered by its competitors. To make Personal selling
1 be effective. There should be coordination between the efforts of suppliers and customers.

I Sales Promotion is short ttrm incentive provided by any organisation to customers so as to

make them decide in favour ofthe organisation. Stress given in sales promotion is for a short
11 term and on incentives. One night free stay for three d a y booking children under 12 no
charges or a free ticket on every ten seats sold are the examples of sales promotion schemes.
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I There are three types of sales promotion:

Customer Sales Promotion (Incentives are offered to customers)

Trade Promotion (Incentives are offered to middlemen)
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' .Sales Force Promotion. (Incentives are offered to sales people)
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S O M EXAMPLES OF SALES PROMOTION IN TRAVEL AND TOURISM INDUSTRY
ARE

Frequent Flyers Programmes of Airlihes.

Incentive scheme for group travel by Airlines.
Welcome Group Hotel and Indian Airlines have jointly started a scheme "We fly your
spouse to you for week-end"for business executives.
Incentive tours to SingaporeMongkongto travel agents and tour operators for achieving
a given targeted business., etc.

1) How does communication occur?

- . - ..

..................................................

2) List some advantag?s of cohmunication through advertising.

3) What is sales promotion?

15.7 PROMOTIONAL STRATEGY I

The broader goal of promotion is to communicate between organisatiow and customer.

Generally, communication is meant to create a favourable impression of a cornpony, to raise
consciousness for an idea or to influence legislation that may favourably a s c t an indusk$
Whatever be the objective the promotion should be planned. Plan involves setting goals and
then designing strategies taachieve those goals. Strategies used by marketeer to promote
I
 product are as follows:

Push Strategy
Pull Strategy

t Push strategy is wherebya supplier promotes a product to marketing intermediaries with the
aim of pushing the product through the channel of distribution. For example, airlines give
special incentives to travel agents for promoting their product (seats).

Pull strategy is wherebya supplier promotes a product to the ultimate customer with the aim
.of creating demand and thus pulling the product through the channel of distribution. For
instance special discount coupons given by some hotels for promoting product. Customers
are most familiar with the pull strategy.

Effective marketing plans generally make use of both push and pull strategy. The choice of
strategy is generally determined by:

type of product,
customer's type, and
.the strategy of competitors.

15.8 PROMOTIONAL BUDGET

At the time of developing a workable strategy for the promotion of a product, due
consideration should be given to budgeting. Whatever the amount an organisation can afford
for promotionalcampaign bycareful budgetingand selection ofappropriate messages, media
and schedule, one can effectively transmit the desired message. Various methods have been
suggested for setting promotional budget. These are as follows:

i) The Objective and Task Method

Under the objective and task method, the budget is based on an estimate ofthe amount
needed to accomplish established objectives. Consider a promotion for a fist-food
-restaurant. Assume that your objective is to establish its brand image through advertising
within a year. The tasks to accomplish this and their costs may be like this:

Advertising through television Rs.2,00,000/-

Advertisement in Newspapers and Magazines Rs. 1,00,000/-
Publicity Rs. 1,00,000/-
Sales Promotion Rs. 1,00,000/-
Total OOO/-

ii) Percent of Sales ~ ~ ~ i o a c h

In this approach, the amount to be spent for promotion is fured as a standard percentage
of sales. Thus if a hotel desires to spend 5 percent of sales revenues on promotion and it
, expects to sell 100 crore, it will allocate 5 crore for promotion.
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iii) The Competitive Comparison Method

. Under this method, the amount is fixed based on what the competitors spend.

iv) The FixedSum-Per-Unit Method

A specific amount is fixed for the promotional purpose.

' These are some of the standard approaches to decide a promotion budget. However, by
having proper market information about your product and reading the market position
carefully, you can deyicq your own method of &g the budget for promotion.
7
Marketing Mix
15.9 KEY ASPECTS OF PROMOTIONAL CAMPAIGNS -
So far we have discussed various elements of promotional mix and its budgeting mechanism.
In this Section, we will explain how to develop promotional campaign. Promotional campaign
is a part of a company's promotionalmix Promotional campaign includesservices or activities
to achieve the desired objective. Different products need different approaches to convey
messages to the customers. A new product may require a promotional campaign which is
entirely different from an established product. The four major approaches, suggested by
market experts, to develop a promotional campaign are as follows :

i) Image Building: Under this approach, emphasis is given to communicate an image and
generate customer preference for a particular brand or company.

ii) Product Differentiation: In this promotional approach, the marketer stresses those
aspects of a product or brand that set it apart from its competitors.
iii) Positioning: A positioning approach promotes a brand in relation to other competitive
brands & the market.

iv) Direct Response Campaign: It expects a direct measurable response from the market.
Personal selling activity falls in this category.

n
1)
Cheek Your Progress-2

How does push strategydiffer from pull strategy?

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2) What are the different approaches in making budget for promotion?

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Promotion Strategies
15.10 LET US SUM UP
Promotion is communication designed to inform, persuade and remind buyers about your
product. The four key elements of promotion are advertising, public relations, personal
sellingand sales promotion. Promotional strategies include a push strategyand apull strategy.
Proper budgeting of promotional activities and selecting a useful method of promotional
campaign are essential components in promotion. We hope in the light ofthis discussion, you
would be in a position to decide appropriate strategy to promote your product.

15.11 ANSWERS TO CHECK YOUR PROGRESS EXERCISES

rCheck Your Progress-1

1) See Sec.15.2.

2) See Sec. 15.3.

3) See Sec. 15.6.

rCheck Your Progress 2

1) See Sec. 15.7.

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2) See Sec. 15.8.