Market Promotion Strategies
Market Promotion
Promotion is the process of marketing communication to
inform, persuade, remind and influence consumers in
favor of a product or service.
Def: It is defined as the coordinated self-initiated efforts to
establish channels of information and persuasion to
facilitate or foster the sale of goods or services, or the
acceptance of ideas.
Promotion has three specific purposes
It communicates marketing information to
consumers, users and resellers.
It persuades and convinces the buyer and influences
his/her behavior to take the desired action.
Promotional efforts act as powerful tools of
competition, providing the cutting edge of its entire
marketing programme.
Promotional methods
All promotional methods try to influence consumers
attitude, beliefs, ways of living or life styles, values and
preferences towards, a company and its product and
thereby influence his/her behavior.
Publicity
It is non-personal stimulation of demand for a product or
service by placing commercially significant news about it
in a publication or obtaining favorable presentation of it
upon radio, TV, or stage that is not paid for by the
sponsor.
Publicity is more effective in the awareness stage.
Merits:
It helps business build credibility and brand awareness
It is the low cost or no cost option
It positions business and the principles of that business
as experts in industry
It helps the business to stand out and be noticed
It helps in development of partnership and strategic
alliances
Demerits:
Two major problems arise from the use of publicity: timing
and accuracy.
Timing:
Timing of the publicity is not always completely under the
control of the marketer.
Unless the press thinks the information has very high
news value, the timing of the press release is entirely up to
the media—if it gets released at all.
Thus, the information may be released earlier than desired
or too late to make an impact.
Accuracy:
A major way to get publicity is the press release.
Unfortunately, the information sometimes gets lost in
translation—that is, it is not always reported the way
the provider wishes it to be. As a result, inaccurate
information, omissions, or other errors may result.
Personal selling: It is the best means of oral and face-to-
face communication and presentation with the prospect
for the purpose of making sales.
Merits:
It is a two-way communication. So the selling agent can
get instant feedback from the prospective buyer.
It helps build trust with the customer
It also is a more persuasive form of marketing
Helps to reach the audience that we cannot reach in any
other form.
Demerits:
It is a relatively expensive method of selling.
It is an extremely labour intensive method.
The training of the salesperson is also a very time
consuming and costly.
The method can only reach a limited number of people.
Unlike TV or Radio ads it does not covers huge
demographic.
Advertising: It is defined as any paid form of non-personal
presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services
by an identified sponsor. Advertising is impersonal
salesmanship for mass selling, a means of mass
communication.
Merits:
Introduces new products
Expands the market
Increases sales
Fights competition
Educates consumers
Eliminates the middlemen
Supports salesmanship
Creates employment opportunities
Demerits:
Creates consumer unfulfillment
Encourages monopolistic control
Advertising cost might exceeds sales
Pushes out small business
Misleads consumers
Eliminates the middlemen’s
Raises the cost of products and services
Reduces small business employment
Manipulates people to spend outside of their purchasing
allowance.
Public relations: the total process of building goodwill
towards a business enterprise and securing a bright
public image of the company is called public relations.
Sales promotion:
It covers those marketing activities other than advertising,
publicity and personal selling that stimulate consumer
purchasing and dealer effectiveness.
Such activities are displays, shows, exhibition,
demonstration, and many other non-routine selling efforts
at the point of purchase.
Types of sales promotion
Consumer sales promotion: Activities intended to
educate or inform the consumers and those intended to
stimulate the consumers.
Ex: free sampling, free coupons, gift offers etc
Dealer/Distributor sales promotion: Activities intended
to increase the interest and enthusiasm of dealers and
distributors.
Ex: products sold with 30% to 40% margin, free training
facilities etc.
Advantages
Helps create awareness of new products
Strengthens customer involvement and loyalty
Sales promotions can be quickly created and made
available within a market
Used to support other promotions
Helps reduce inventory
Disadvantages
May condition customers to wait for promotion
Can lower perception of the brand
Issues with promotion clutter
Distributors may not be willing to accept
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