In business, just developing a product isn’t enough to achieve the marketing goals. This is why the marketing mix includes an important element of the promotion mix. Show
Promotion involves activities that help a business communicate the offering and its features to the customer and generate their interest in the desired action. Numerous activities can be considered a promotion. While some market the offering to the customer organically, some involve paid media or paid communication. All these activities combined form the promotion mix. Promotion mix is the set of all the promotional variables a business use to create, maintain and increase the demand for its brands or offerings. This definition of promotion mix can be understood better by dividing it into two parts
Promotion is the fourth element of the 4 Ps of the marketing mix that focuses on communicating the brand and the offering to the target customer and influencing their purchase decision. In simple terms, it constitutes all those activities undertaken by a business to generate the interest of its customers in buying the product or service offered. The marketing mix stands on 4Ps for a reason. Once the product is ready and its price and distribution channels are decided, the business needs to inform the target audience about its existence. This is where the promotion mix comes in. It helps the business develop and share the right communication message to the right audience using the right channel. While other marketing mix elements ensure that the product is developed according to the customer’s needs, requirements, and buying capacity; the promotion mix effectively informs the customers that such an offering exists and gives them reasons to purchase the same. Even the perfect product, pricing, and place strategy can go waste if the promotion mix isn’t properly configured by the business. A brand or offering is usually promoted using three mediums –
The promotion mix combines this owned, earned, and paid media into five basic elements. These components of the promotion mix are:
AdvertisingAdvertising is a paid promotion method where a sponsor calls for public attention through paid announcements. This promotional mix component uses paid media channels like TV, radio, newspaper, billboards, or even digital advertising channels like social media platforms and search engines. Advertisements have the following characteristics:
Public RelationsPublic relations involves communicating to the target audience and getting their attention using earned media channels like news, word of mouth, government announcements, etc. Simply, public relations is a strategised process of releasing organisation-related information to the public using trustable channels like news to maintain a favourable reputation of the brand. Public relations involves:
Sales PromotionSales promotion is the offering’s promotion using attractive short-term incentives to stimulate demand and increase sales. The short-term incentives are often used to –
These incentives include but are not limited to –
Personal SellingPersonal selling is a personalised promotion that involves person-to-person interaction between a brand representative and a prospective customer. It involves personalised conversations and promotion presentations by the salesperson developed after understanding the needs and wants of the target customer they promote to. Unlike advertising, personal selling develops a personal connection between the brand representative and the customer and involves more costs per person reached. Personal selling is:
Direct MarketingDirect marketing is a promotion strategy where the target customers are contacted directly by the brand instead of having an indirect medium like a retailer or wholesaler. It’s a great promotional tool that helps the brand communicate directly with the prospective customers through channels like –
But direct marketing is different from personal selling. Even though it involves direct contact between the brand and the customer, it not often involves highly personalised sales pitches. With the advancement in technology, the internet has made the world smaller. The impact of the internet in today’s promotion mix is enormous. But this doesn’t mean that the promotion mix elements have changed. The internet has just made the channels more efficient and effective. Advertisements have become more personalised as they now use data for targeting. Direct marketing doesn’t always involve a human connection now. Customers are just an SMS or WhatsApp text away. The same can be done using bots. PR campaign responses are faster now, and the business can plan and release information through many more channels. Personal selling has found a new channel on social media platforms like LinkedIn. Sales promotion is now more dynamic and personalised. Different customers can now get different offers based on their behaviour, intent, and online activities. Even direct marketing has expanded its horizon and now uses search engines and social media platforms for better reach. Many businesses make the mistake of assuming that they should focus on one kind of promotion mix. This is not always true. Different kinds of promotions will work best for different businesses. The elements of a successful promotion mix depend on the nature of the business, its goals and objectives, the budget, and the competition in the market. Here are five key factors that affect the promotion mix of a business.
Let us see how some businesses use these tools to achieve their marketing goals. Take a look at the following hypothetical example: A business produces a high-tech gadget that lets people listen to music without using headphones. It runs ads and direct response (DR) campaigns to generate interest from the customers. Then, it uses personal selling to close the sale and make the target market aware of its existence. This is a good example of how a personal selling campaign could work. For this particular example, we have made some assumptions. We have assumed that the business is selling a unique product, there is no existing competition, the customer is tech-savvy, and the customer has a high purchasing power. Based on these assumptions, we have identified five key factors that affect the promotion mix of the business. A real-life example of an effective promotion mix is that of Coca-Cola. The company uses a different promotion mix for every market it operates in. Usually, it’s a mix of:
Go On, Tell Us What You Think!Did we miss something? Come on! Tell us what you think about our article on what is promotion mix in the comments section. A startup consultant, digital marketer, traveller, and philomath. Aashish has worked with over 20 startups and successfully helped them ideate, raise money, and succeed. When not working, he can be found hiking, camping, and stargazing. Which element of the promotional mix is characterized by a customized interaction that is extremely expensive?Which element of the promotional mix is characterized by a customized interaction that is extremely expensive but very persuasive and likely to yield immediate feedback? direct marketing.
Which of the following types of promotion uses customized interaction?Mass selling refers to the promotional element that reaches out to groups of prospective buyers, rather than making individual contact with each potential buyer. Personal selling and direct marketing use customized interaction between a seller and a prospective buyer.
What are the 4 types of promotion mix?The promotion mix also contains four elements that companies use to meet their marketing objectives. The elements are sales promotion, advertising, personal selling, and public relations.
What elements are considered part of the promotional mix?A promotional mix is an allocation of resources among five primary elements:. Advertising.. Public relations or publicity.. Sales promotion.. Direct marketing.. Personal selling.. |