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Unit V

Promotion Mix

The Promotion Mix refers to the blend of several promotional tools used by the business to create, maintain and
increase the demand for goods and services.

The fourth element of the 4 P’s of Marketing Mix is the promotion; that focuses on creating the awareness and
persuading the customers to initiate the purchase. The several tools that facilitate the promotion objective of a firm are
collectively known as the Promotion Mix.

The Promotion Mix is the integration of Advertising, Personal Selling, Sales Promotion, Public Relations and Direct
Marketing. The marketers need to view the following questions in order to have a balanced blend of these promotional
tools.

Elements of Promotion Mix

1. Advertising

The advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods and services by the identified
sponsor in the exchange of a fee. Through advertising, the marketer tries to build a pull strategy; wherein the customer
is instigated to try the product at least once. The complete information along with the attractive graphics of the product
or service can be shown to the customers that grab their attention and influences the purchase decision.

2. Personal Selling

This is one of the traditional forms of promotional tool wherein the salesman interacts with the customer directly by
visiting them. It is a face to face interaction between the company representative and the customer with the objective
to influence the customer to purchase the product or services.

3. Sales Promotion

The sales promotion is the short term incentives given to the customers to have an increased sale for a given period.
Generally, the sales promotion schemes are floated in the market at the time of festivals or the end of the season.
Discounts, Coupons, Payback offers, Freebies, etc. are some of the sales promotion schemes. With the sales
promotion, the company focuses on the increased short-term profits, by attracting both the existing and the new
customers.

4. Public Relations
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The marketers try to build a favorable image in the market by creating relations with the general public. The
companies carry out several public relations campaigns with the objective to have a support of all the people
associated with it either directly or indirectly. E.g. Large Corporates such as Dabur, L&T, Tata Consultancy, Bharti
Enterprises, Services, Unitech and PSU’s such as Indian Oil, GAIL, and NTPC have joined hands with Government to
clean up their surroundings, build toilets and support the swatch Bharat Mission.

5. Direct Marketing

With the intent of technology, companies reach customers directly without any intermediaries or any paid medium.
The e-mails, text messages, Fax, are some of the tools of direct marketing. The companies can send emails and
messages to the customers if they need to be informed about the new offerings or the sales promotion schemes.

E.g. The Shopper stop send SMS to its members informing about the season end sales and extra benefits to the golden
card holders.

Advertising

“Advertising consists of all activities involved in presenting to a group a non-personal, oral or visual, openly
sponsored identified message regarding a product, service, or idea. The message, called an advertisement, is
disseminated through one or more media and is paid for by the identified sponsor”-William Stanton.

Philip Kotler: “Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods, services,
or ideas by an identified sponsor.”

Objectives of Advertising

To Inform Buyers

This objective includes informing customers regarding product’s availability, price, features, qualities, services, and
performance. Besides, it also includes informing them about changes made in the existing product and introduction of
new products. Company also highlights its location, achievements, policies, and performance through advertising.

To Persuade or Convince Buyers

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Company uses advertisement to persuade or convince the buyers about superior advantages offered by its product.
Company communicates competitive advantages the product offers to induce customers buy it. Comparative
advertising is used to prove the additional benefits of product at a given price.

To Remind Buyers

Marketer uses advertising to remind the buyers regarding existence of company, products, maintenance of quality,
superior services, and chasing customer-orientation. Mostly, the existing firms aim their advertising for this objective.

To Face Competition

Advertising is treated as the most powerful weapon to fight with competitors effectively. Advertising enables the firm
to respond the competitors strongly. It helps the firm to distinguish its total offerings from competitors.

To Achieve Sales Targets

Increase sales volume is one of the major advertising objectives. A company can advertise its products in various
media to attract customers situated in different parts of the world. National and international marketing is the result of
advertising. Even, non-users can be converted into users and usage rate can be increased. Thus, company can achieve
its sales objectives by advertisement.

To Build and Improve Brand Image

Advertising is used for brand recognition and acceptance. A company can distinguish its brand by magnifying major
benefits the product offers. Advertisement attracts customers toward the brand; they try it and accept it over time. In
the same way, bad image related to brand can be changed by systematic presentation of facts and scientific evidences,
and removing misunderstanding.

To Help or Educate People

Advertising is not always used only for company’s benefits. It is meant for helping customers to make the right choice
of product. It educates people about availability of new products, its features and qualities, price, services, and other
related aspects. Such information is instrumental for purchasing suitable products. Thus, it guides customers to choose
the most appropriate product.

To Build Company Image and Reputation

A company opts for advertisement to build prestige and reputation in the market. Most of the companies, though they
are satisfied with the volume of sales, go for advertising to acquire fame in the market. Many companies advertise its
policies, activities, and achievements to make a permanent place in the mind of people.

To Assist Sales Force and Middlemen

Advertising is an aid to middlemen and salesmen. Advertising also popularizes the name of dealers. Likewise,
advertising provides necessary information to the buyers. Middlemen and salesmen are not required to do the same. It
eases the task of sellers. In the same way, advertising encourages sales force.

Other Objectives
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There are certain minor objectives of advertising, such as:

@ To promote new products.

@ To build long-term relations.

@ To remove misunderstanding.

@ To expand of market.

@ To gain confidence of buyers.

@ To request customers to compromise with unavoidable circumstances.

@ To seek apology of the buyers for any undesirable events, etc.

5 M’s of Advertising

The 5 m’s of advertising are Mission, Money, Message, Media, and Measurement. They serve different purposes. The
details are as follows:

Mission: What are the goals of the marketing effort?

Money: How much funding is needed to accomplish the goals?

Message: What is the message and what is the message strategy that will be used?

Media: What media channel(s) will be used to convey the message?

Measurement: How should the effectiveness of the ad campaign be assessed?

The “5 M’s of Advertising.” as explained below:

Mission

What is the objective of the campaign? Broadly, there can be three types of objectives:
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# To promote the brand – brand promotion is the most common objective of advertising.

# To disseminate information and increases awareness – common examples are:

$ Informing the launch of a new product or opening of a branch

$ Informing an upcoming version of a product

$ Informing an upcoming branch or shop in a new market

$ Highlighting features of a product or service

$ Educating the market about the best way to use a product

$ Informing special offers or changes in price

@ Rectifying negative perceptions about a product

Money:

Although money is not the main factor for the success of an advertisement, it plays an important role in determining
the length and volume of reach of your promotional campaigns. In the context of advertising, money denotes the
budget for advertising.

The budget of an ad campaign may vary depending on:

% Nature and type of product

% Nature, habit, buying capacity, and other characteristics of the target audience

% The geographic segmentation of the market

% Type of media used for the campaign

% Time duration of advertising

Message:

The success of the advertisement is heavily dependent on the advertising message. The message here refers to the
advertisement’s content, which can be of multiple types or forms, such as voice, video, photographs, and text. There
are fundamentally two types of message generation:

1) Inductive:

Brainstorming is necessary for this approach. Customers can be a good source for message creation. You can get
enough insight and ideas from how they feel about the product, its advantages and disadvantages, and so on to create a
compelling message. Similarly, dealers, suppliers, professionals, and even competitors can be possible sources of
messaging ideas.

2) Deductive:
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The deductive method for message creation is founded on the idea that a consumer expects four different kinds of
rewards from a product:

$ Rational $ Sensory $ Social $ Ego

Media

Media disseminates the advertising message to the target demographic. It is how you transmit the message to the
intended audience. The use of digital media for advertising has grown in recent years, owing to the rapid advancement
of digital technology.

The following factors are to be considered while deciding on the best advertising medium:

 What geographical area is being targeted?

 The timing of advertising and media use.
 Choosing the media channels that are available in the geographical market within the specified time period.
 Choosing the best (most efficient and effective) media channel among the available options.
 Determine the media’s reach, frequency, and desired impact.

Measurement

The evaluation of the effectiveness of an advertising campaign is critical since it always aids in preventing future
waste of money and aids in making essential corrections that are significant and vital for the subsequent advertising
program.

The most common approach to measuring the efficiency of the advertisement programme is to conduct research on the
effectiveness of the advertisement. There are two kinds of research:

 Communication-effect research
 Sales-effect research

Communication-effect research evaluates whether or not an advertisement communicates effectively. It is also known
as copy testing and can be performed either before or after the advertisement is released (pretesting).

Sales Promotion

Sales Promotion is one of the elements of the promotional mix. (The primary elements in the promotional mix are
advertising, personal selling, direct marketing and publicity/public relations). Sales promotion uses both media and
non-media marketing communications for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate
market demand or improve product availability. Examples include contests, coupons, freebies, and loss leaders, point
of purchase displays, premiums, prizes, product samples, and rebates.

Sales promotion includes several communications activities that attempt to provide added value or incentives to
consumers, wholesalers, retailers, or other organizational customers to stimulate immediate sales. These efforts can
attempt to stimulate product interest, trial, or purchase. Examples of devices used in sales promotion include coupons,
samples, premiums, point-of-purchase (POP) displays, contests, rebates, and sweepstakes.
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Advantages of Sales Promotions

The main advantages in using sales promotional activity, either alone or to support mainstream marketing activity and
communications, are:

(i) Very flexible and adaptable in terms of tackling specific problems or supporting mainstream marketing
communications Bata national or local level

(ii) Capable of specific action through specific focus and structure

(iii) Relatively short lead times to design and implement (compared with media communications)

(iv) Often more easy to monitor the effect or tangible results

(v) Economical and cost saving, possibly with economies of scale

(vi) Can be adapted to large and small markets, major or minor products or brands.

11 Important Techniques of Sales Promotion

 Rebate

Under it in order to clear the excess stock, products are offered at some reduced price. For example, giving a rebate by
a car manufacturer to the tune of 12,000/- for a limited period of time.

 Discount

Under this method, the customers are offered products on less than the listed price. For example, giving a discount of
30% on the sale of Liberty Shoes. Similarly giving a discount of 50% + 40% by the KOUTONS.

 Refunds

Under this method, some part of the price of an article is refunded to the customer on showing proof of purchase. For
example, refunding an amount of 5/- on showing the empty packet of the product priced 100/-.

 Product Combination
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Under this method, along with the main product some other product is offered to the customer as a gift. The following
are some of the examples:

 Quantity Gift

Under this method, some extra quantity of the main product is passed on as a gift to the customers. For example, 25%
extra toothpaste in a packet of 200 gm tooth paste. Similarly, a free gift of one RICH LOOK shirt on the purchase of
two shirts.

 Instant Draw and Assigned Gift

Under this method, a customer is asked to scratch a card on the purchase of a product and the name of the product is
inscribed thereupon which is immediately offered to the customer as a gift. For example, on buying a car when the
card is scratched such gifts are offered – TV, Refrigerator, Computer, Mixer, Dinner Set, Wristwatch, T-shirt, Iron
Press, etc.

 Lucky Draw

Under this method, the customers of a particular product are offered gifts on a fixed date and the winners are decided
by the draw of lots. While purchasing the product, the customers are given a coupon with a specific number printed on
it.

On the basis of this number alone the buyer claims to have won the gift. For example, ‘Buy a bathing soap and get a
gold coin’ offer can be used under this method.

 Usable Benefits

Under this method, coupons are distributed among the consumers on behalf of the producer. Coupon is a kind of
certificate telling that the product mentioned therein can be obtained at special discount.

It means that if a customer has a coupon of some product he will get the discount mentioned therein whenever he buys
it. Possession of a coupon motivates the consumer to buy the product, even when he has no need of it.

Such coupons are published in newspapers and magazines. Some companies distribute coupons among its
shareholders. Sellers collect the coupons from the customers and get the payment from the company that issues the
same.

 Full Finance @ 0%

Under this method, the product is sold and money received in installment at 0% rate of interest. The seller determines
the number of installments in which the price of the product will be recovered from the customer. No interest is
charged on these installments.

 Samples or Sampling

Under this method, the producer distributes free samples of his product among the consumers. Sales representatives
distribute these samples from door-to-door.
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This method is used mostly in case of products of daily-use, e.g., Washing Powder, Tea, Toothpaste, etc. Thus, the
consumers willy-nilly make use of free sample. If it satisfies them, they buy it and in this way sales are increased.

 Contests

Some producers organize contests with a view to popularizing their products. Consumers taking part in the contest are
asked to answer some very simple questions on a form and forward the same to the company. The blank form is made
available to that consumer who buys the product first.

Advantages and Disadvantages of sales promotion

Publicity and Public Relations

Publicity

Publicity is defined as the way of disseminating information to the public at large, through media. It can be in the form
of news, stories, event information or write-ups, that creates awareness and credibility in the people regarding a brand,
product or the company offering them.

Public Relations

Public Relations can be understood as the strategic management tool, which helps an organization to communicate
with the public. Here, ‘public’ means the group of people that have an interest in or impact on a company’s ability to
achieve business objectives. It is not only concerned with getting public attention, but it also aims at reaching the
goals of the organization, by communicating the message to the target audience. It includes press releases, crisis
management, social media engagement, etc.
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Key Differences between Publicity and Public Relations

The difference between publicity and public relations can be drawn clearly on the following grounds:

 Publicity can be described as public visibility, wherein news or information is communicated to the general
public so gas to build credibility or awareness in them, with the help of a channel, i.e. mass media.
 While publicity is not under the control of the company, public relations is fully under the company’s control.
 Publicity can be positive or negative, in the sense that it can be positive or negative feedback regarding the
product or service concerning a product given by the customer or controversial news about the company.
Conversely, public relations is always positive, because it is strategised and managed by the public relations
department of the company.
 Publicity is free of cost; as it is made by the third party. As against, in case of public relations, the company
incurs money to organize events, sponsor programs, third-party endorsement, etc.
 Publicity involves, gaining the attention of the media, that communicates any information or news, regarding
a product, service, person, organization, etc. so as to create awareness in people. In contrast, public relations
seek to attract the target audience, for the purpose of boosting the company’s sales.

Direct Marketing

Direct Marketing is a form of advertising in which companies provide physical marketing materials to consumers to
communicate information about a product or service. Direct marketing does not involve advertisements placed on the
internet, on television or over the radio. Types of direct marketing materials include catalogs, mailers and fliers.
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How Direct Marketing Works?

Direct-marketing messages generally include a call to action, encouraging the recipient to respond via a toll-free
phone number or a reply card or by clicking on a link in an email promotion. Companies are able to measure the
effectiveness of their direct-marketing campaigns by tracking responses.

Pros and Cons of Direct Marketing

Companies that use direct marketing benefit from being able to focus limited resources on a targeted promotion,
which also allows them to personalize the marketing message. Because it is easy to measure responses, companies can
test different marketing messages for improving the response rate. Direct marketing can be cost-effective if the
customer database is well-managed.

Interactive Marketing

Interactive marketing is defined as a type of marketing campaign that interacts with existing and potential customers
as per their actions, reactions, and inclinations. Interactive marketing strategies are triggered by the behavioral
preferences of the prospects.

Two-way Interaction

The content you share in a public space should have the ability to start a conversation of some sort. That is what
makes interactive marketing a successful endeavor. Active participation on the part of the consumer is the goal of
these campaigns. To make your content interactive, a marketer needs to keep communication open for the customer.
There are various types of interactive tools a marketer can incorporate into their content. A few of the tools mentioned
above include:

 Contests

Companies have been hosting contests for ages now. It is one of the oldest tricks in the book of interactive marketing.
Contests have evolved, but they succeed at catching the audience’s attention. Raffles, giveaways, or social media
contests are proven ways to capture the audience’s attention. Now contests are not approached as a standalone
strategy. Contests are a single aspect of the complete and holistic marketing strategy. They are a fun way to approach
all your clients or focus on a specific group of clients based on the prize that may interest only that group.
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 Quiz

In 2015, 90% of the most shared Facebook posts were quizzes. That data may not be so outdated yet. You may have
hated quizzes back in high school, but companies have found ways to make quizzes fun. The best thing about a quiz is
that it is an inherently shareable piece of content. If one customer takes the quiz and likes it, that quiz will likely be
shared with friends and family of that customer. Nowadays, companies first encourage customers to take a quiz before
showing them a catalog of their products. Based on how the customer fares in the quiz, products that will suit them are
suggested.

 Videos

Interactive videos can be of many types but, these include a different call to action. As a result, it is easier to capture
and retain the audience’s attention as they are constantly re-engaging with the content. Interactive videos have become
so popular that now they have entered the film industry in the form of interactive movies. An interactive video is also
a great way to layer information for the consumer.

 Polls

Polls are usually quicker to complete as opposed to a quiz or a contest. An incentive to finish a poll is that people want
to know how similar or different their views are from others. This encourages them to at least finish the poll and be
rewarded with immediate results. Polls are a great tool to enhance user engagement but are not great at lead
generation.

 Emails

Email marketing is a prevalent practice followed by most companies if they have access to your email address.
However, with the increase in spam and junk emails, it isn’t easy to ensure that your email marketing efforts are
fruitful in being interactive.

 Personalized Content

Personalized content can only be created if the company has an insight into consumer behavior, preferences, demands,
or expectations. This means that the company needs a lot of data about the consumer to guess their likes and dislikes.

Disadvantages:

 Control:

As this is a direct contact between the company and the customer, so it is clear that company does not have proper rule
to take control over customers. Moreover, the different ways of sharing designs of their requirement may create
problem for a company.

 Accessibility:

How to know about a product? The accessibility to an advertisement depends on some particular products. Suppose
for a website, a purchaser must have a suitable peripheral as computer to access the internet to see the products.
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Word-of-Mouth Marketing

David Kindness is a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and an expert in the fields of financial accounting, corporate
and individual tax planning and preparation, and investing and retirement planning. David has helped thousands of
clients improve their accounting and financial systems, create budgets, and minimize their taxes.

What Is Word-of-Mouth Marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing (or WOM marketing) is when a consumer's interest in a company's product or service is
reflected in their daily dialogues. Essentially, it is free advertising triggered by customer experiences—and usually,
something that goes beyond what they expected.

 Word-of-mouth marketing can be encouraged through different publicity activities set up by companies or by
having opportunities to encourage consumer-to-consumer and consumer-to-marketer communications. Also
referred to as "word-of-mouth advertising," WOM marketing includes buzz, viral, blog, emotional, and
social media marketing.
 Word-of-mouth marketing (WOM marketing) happens when consumers talk about a company's product or
service to their friends, family, and to others with whom they have close relationships.
 WOM marketing is one of the most powerful forms of advertising as 88% of consumers trust their friends'
recommendations over traditional media.
 Companies can encourage WOM marketing by exceeding expectations on a product, providing good
customer service, and giving exclusive information to consumers.
 The Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) cites the best word-of-mouth marketing strategies as
being honest, credible, social, repeatable, measurable, and respectful.
 WOM marketing includes various marketing techniques, such as buzz, blogs, and social media marketing.
 Word-of-mouth marketing differs from natural word-of-mouth references to a company's products and
services in how it may come as the result of a promotion, encouragement, or other influence by a company,
otherwise known as "seeding."
 When a diner has a wonderful time at a restaurant because their expectations were exceeded and later tweets
about it, or when someone had a great experience using a product in a new way and tells everyone they know
about it, those are examples of word-of-mouth marketing. Also, word-of-mouth marketing does not stop at
the first interaction; it tends to lead to a cascade of follow-on interactions.

Benefits of Word-of-Mouth Marketing

 Eighty-eight percent of people around the world said they trust recommendations from friends and family all
other forms of advertising. This shows just how effective word-of-mouth marketing can be. 1
 Consumers are more emotionally bonded to a company when they feel they are listened to by the company.
That is why many companies will have sales representatives discuss their products and services with
consumers personally or through a feedback phone line.
 This kind of interaction, as well as promotional events, can stimulate conversations about a company's
product.
 There is a significant temptation to fabricate word-of-mouth marketing. Accordingly, the Word of Mouth
Marketing Association (WOMMA) crafted a code of ethics checklist for the industry, advising that the best
word-of-mouth marketing strategies are credible, social, repeatable, measurable, and respectful, and there is
no excuse for dishonesty.2
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 WOM marketing expert Andy Sernovitz has boiled down WOMMA's code of ethics into three key rules to
avoid issues:

What Are Some Examples of Word-of-Mouth Marketing?

Word-of-mouth marketing includes the marketing tactics companies use to prompt their consumers to talk about their
levels of satisfaction with the company's service or product. These strategies include brand loyalty programs, which
reward customers for repeated business and provide them platforms to provide user feedback; giveaways, contests,
and sponsored influencers.

What Is the Digital Version of Word-of-Mouth Marketing?

Digital word-of-mouth marketing employs technology, particularly the Internet, to facilitate word-of-mouth
exchanges. Review boards, social media sites, and blogs are popular digital platforms consumers use to share their
experiences, good and bad, and these shared testimonials significantly influence consumer purchase decisions.

Why Is Word-of-Mouth Marketing So Important?

Word-of-mouth marketing is important as it is an effective way to increase sales, promote products and services,
increase brand recognition, and build customer loyalty. Many companies employ strategies that prompt customers to
recommend their services and/or products and share positive experiences. Essentially, companies create the spark
that causes the firestorm of chatter among consumers, and since studies show that most people trust the advice of
family and friends, focusing on word-of-mouth marketing can be more beneficial and cost-effective than other forms
of marketing.

The Bottom Line

Word-of-mouth (WOM) marketing is when a consumer shares a positive experience with their peers about a good or
service. WOM marketing is great for businesses as it generates business without incurring additional marketing
costs. Businesses can, however, purposely contribute to word-of-mouth marketing efforts.

WOM marketing is usually experienced over dinner parties, texts, and casual encounters between friends and family.
It can also be set through buzz, viral media, blogs, and social media marketing.

Personal Selling

Personal selling can be termed as the oral presentation given by the salesperson to one or more than one consumers
face to face to sell the product or service. Personal selling is a highly peculiar form of promotion. It is mostly two-way
communication, which not only involves a particular individual but also social behavior.

Salespersons are also called salesman or salesgirl or sales representative and their payment is made as the commission
to push the product in the market by motivating the customer through oral conversation.

The consumer wants all kinds of goods and services in the market but lack of interest keeps them away from making
decisions or purchasing products. This is where the salesman needs to act as a catalyst and explain the product or
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service to the customer. He/she should motivate the customer by giving a presentation and he may sometimes act as a
consultant. This helps the consumer to make a decision.

Objectives of Personal Selling

Personal selling contributes in achieving the long-term objectives for the organization. The following are some of the
objectives of personal selling:

 To do the complete selling job when there are no other components in promotional mix
 To provide service to the existing customers and try to maintain contacts with the present customers
 Identify and find new prospective customers
 Promote the products to increase sales
 Provide the information to the customers regarding the change in product line
 Provide assistance to the customers to help in decision-making
 Provide technical advice to customers for complex products
 Gather the data in relation to market and provide it to company’s management.

Factors Influencing choice of Promotional Mix.

Main factors influencing promotion mix has been briefly discussed as under:

1. Type of Product:

Type of product plays an important role in deciding on promotion mix. Product can be categorized in terms of branded
products, non-branded products, necessity products, luxury products, new products, etc. All these types of products
need different promotional tools.
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For example, advertising is suitable for the branded and popular products. Personal selling may be fit for non-branded
products. Advertising, personal selling, sales promotion and publicity – all four tools – are used for a newly launched
product to get a rapid consumer acceptance.

2. Use of Product:

Product may be industrial product, consumable and necessity product, or may be luxurious product that affects
selection of promotion tools and media.

For example, advertising and sales promotion techniques are widely used for consumer goods while personal selling
is used for industrial goods.

3. Complexity of Product:

Product complexity affects selection of promotional tools. Personal selling is more effective for complex, technical,
risky, and newly developed products as they need personal explanation and observation. On the other end, advertising
is more suitable for simple and easy-handled products.

4. Purchase Quantity and Frequency:

Company should also consider purchase frequency and purchase quantity while deciding on promotion mix.
Generally, for frequently purchase product, advertising is used, and for infrequently purchase product, personal selling
and sales promotion are preferred. Personal selling and advertising are used for heavy users and light users
respectively.

5. Fund Available for Market Promotion:

Financial capacity of company is a vital factor affecting promotion mix. Advertising through television, radio,
newspapers and magazines is too costly to bear by financially poor companies while personal selling and
sales ]promotion are comparatively cheaper tools. Even, the company may opt for publicity by highlighting certain
commercially significant events.

6. Type of Market:

Type of market or consumer characteristics determine the form of promotion mix. Education, location, income,
personality characteristics, knowledge, bargaining capacity, profession, age, sex, etc., are the important factors that
affect company’s promotion strategy.

7. Size of Market:

Naturally, in case of a limited market, personal selling is more effective. When market is wide with a large number of
buyers, advertising is preferable. Place is also an important issue. Type of message, language of message, type of sales
promotion tools, etc., depend on geographical areas.

8. Stage of Product Life Cycle:

Product passes through four stages of its life cycle. Each stage poses different threats and opportunities. Each stage
needs separate marketing strategies. Each of the promotional tools has got different degree of suitability with stages of
product life cycle.
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It can be concluded that, in normal situations:

(1) Advertising, personal selling, and, even, sales promotion are used during the introduction stage. However,
advertising is given more priority,

(2) More intensive advertising and sales promotional techniques are used during the second stage,

(3) More rigorous advertising along with personal selling are followed in the third stage, and

(4) Company prefers to curb the expenses in forth stage, and promotional efforts are reduced.

9. Level of Competition:

Promotional efforts are designed according to type and intensity of competition. All promotional tools are aimed at
protecting company’s interest against competition. Level of promotional efforts and selection of promotional tools
depend on level of competition.

10. Promotional Objectives:

It is the prime factor affecting promotional mix. Different objectives can be achieved by using different tools of
promotional mix. If company’s objective is to inform a large number of buyers, advertising is advisable. If company
wants to convince limited consumers, it may go for personal selling. Even, when company wants to influence buyers
during specific season or occasion, the sales promotion can be used. Some companies use publicity to create or
improve brand image and goodwill in the market.

11. Other Factors:

Over and above these factors, there are certain minor factors that affect promotion mix.

These factors may include:

# Price of Product

# Type of Marketing Channel

# Degree of Product Differentiation

# Desire for Market Penetration, etc.

The list of factors stated above is not complete. There may be more factors. Promotional strategy should be formulated
only after considering the relevant factors. Marketing manager must be aware of these variables. Note that these
factors affect different firms in varying degree depending upon its internal and external marketing environment.