Resources for Young Entrepreneurs
Promotion and the marketing mix
Marketing communications (promotion) is one of the four major elements of your marketing mix. You must know how to use the elements of the communications mix to communicate the product’s existence, value and benefits to the target customers.
The main elements that make up the promotions/communications mix are:
Advertising
- Television
- Cinema
- Radio
- Leaflets
- Directories
- Packaging
- Hoardings/Posters
- Magazines
- Trade magazines
- Catalogues
- Brochures
- Internet
Direct Mail
- Mailshots
- CD-ROMS
Sales Promotion
- Money-off coupons
- BOGOF
- Free gift
- Samples
Direct Response
- Publicity/PR
- Seminars
- PR write-ups
- Exhibitions
- Charitable donations
Sponsorship
Word of Mouth
- Personal Selling
- Presentations
- Meetings
- Telemarketing
- Trade fairs
Steps to develop a Communications/Promotion Program
- Identify target audience
- Determine Promotion Objectives
- Set Promotion Budget
- Decide on Suitable Time-Span
- Design the Message
- Decide on Promotion Mix and Allocate Budget
- Carry out Promotion Plan
- Measure and Analyse Results
Identify Target Audience
Who? Where? What do they require?
Market research and market segmentation will have helped you to identify the audience for your product or service. You should have information on how large the audience is, where they are located and hopefully some idea of their needs, attitudes and preferences and the benefits they require from your product or service. This information will affect what is said, how it is said, when it is said and where it is said in the promotional mix.
Determine Promotion Objectives
The objectives of the promotion mix must be:
- realistic
- attainable
- attributable
- measurable
They will be based on the desired response required from the audience. The ultimate response is purchase and the temptation is to set promotion objectives solely in terms of increased in sales. This is often an unrealistic task for two reasons:
1. “Buying” comes at the end of a long consumer decision-making process that starts with unawareness of the product. So there are other stages that need to be achieved in between, such as creating awareness for the product and the business.
2. Sales are not only influenced by promotional activities, but also by the quality, design, price etc. of the product or service.
Possible objectives for promotion may be to:
- create awareness
- obtain enquiries
- obtain company name on file
- create company image
Determine Promotion Budget
There are no rules but remember to be realistic: it must be affordable!
Useful Tip: Allocate your budget wisely; money spent on a bad promotion is worse than spending no money on promotion. You must also be able to justify this cost in your business plan.
Decide on Suitable Time Span
A decision must be reached on the time scale of the Promotion campaign. This will depend on the objectives of the campaign, the medium used and the allocated budget. The timing of the campaign is also important e.g. advertising fireworks in January!
Decide on Message
What to say? How to say it? Where to say it?
The message and the medium used to convey that message will be affected by the type of product/service, the cost, legislation, what the competition is doing etc. Most importantly, it will be affected by the desired response from the consumer and the stage in the buying process that needs to be influenced.
The “AIDAS” model can illustrate this buying process:
- Attention
- Interest
- Desire
- Action
- Satisfaction
Ideally the message should get the attention of the consumer and take them through the stages until a purchase is made and satisfaction reached. In practice few messages take a consumer through the whole process, but are pitched at a certain level that meets the promotion objective.
For example, if the promotion objective was to create awareness for the product, the promotion message should be designed to get the attention of the consumer and so on.
The message content should include a unique selling proposition (USP), i.e. a benefit, motivation, identification etc. that appeals to the audience. This appeal could be:
- Rational – appeals to audience’s self interest. Show that product produces claimed benefits such as quality, economy, value, e.g. car ads.
- Emotional – stir up a positive/negative emotion that will motivate purchase, e.g. Andrex puppies.
- Moral – directed to the audience’s sense of what is right, e.g. support for social causes.
The message format should be strong in order to catch the attention of the audience. The message format depends on the promotional medium used. For printed ads, careful decision for headline illustration, colour etc. For personal selling, decision as to choice of words, portfolio, dress, body language.
Decide on Promotion Mix
Each promotional element has a different communication capacity, is effective at different stages in the buying process and we have a different level of control over each one. Therefore the decision for choice of promotion mix will depend upon:
- target audience
- objectives
- timing
- stage of product life cycle
- complexity of product
- competition
- legal restraints
- monetary restraints etc.
Advertising
Effective medium for creating awareness and interest. Low control over response. Suggestion: Most newspapers and magazines have media packs giving details of readership figures, how much it costs to advertise and so on. Why not ring or write and ask for one of these packs: they are free!
TV - reach large number of buyers, allows for repeated message, combines aural and visual message BUT very expensive, unselective, non-personal.
Radio – quick production, good for certain targets as more localised and segmented stations, BUT can be expensive, 16 listens for 80% retention, sound only.
Internet & E-mail – the fastest growing medium for ‘business to business’ advertising. Cheap targeted and effective. Some organisations only have an electronic presense. Ie. they are only contactable via the internet/E-mail.
Newspaper – regular communication, detailed message possible, reader identification BUT can be expensive, little colour production, not always targeted.
Local Papers – geographical targeting, relatively cheap BUT smaller audience (may not be a problem), some papers are free – can’t be sure of readership levels. Some days are better for advertising certain products.
Journals/Magazines – good for targeting, good for detailed message relatively cheap BUT lacks urgency of newspaper, monthly magazines means long wait for repeat ad.
Directories – can be localised e.g. Thompsons, relatively cheap, BUT problems with timing ads for future editions, depends on trade as to whether it is appropriate.
Cinema – can be good for targeting local market, cheap BUT low audiences.
Hoardings/Posters – good for simple message, posters cheap, used to support other media BUT low audience, hoardings can be expensive and sometimes no control over site. If using posters, make sure you put them in locations where your potential customers will see them.
Leaflets - can be good for targeting, detailed message, use of colour, cheap BUT high wastage (e.g. pick up and dump).
Cards in Newsagents/Supermarkets – very cheap BUT low audiences, not detailed.
Designing an advertisement
Always bear in mind the audience and what response you hope to achieve from them. To write a successful ad:
- Make the headline for your ad interesting and eye-catching
- Decide on the message of the ad and keep it simple; too many messages will confuse
- Read through your local paper and see what ads catch your attention
- Work out what it is about them that is interesting
- Use as few words as possible in the ad: 3 sentences maximum
- Focus the ad on a unique benefit or offer
- Make it sound believable
- Show it to people whose opinions you value to get feedback.
Sales promotion
Effective medium for creating desire and decision to purchase. Higher control than with advertising.
Sales Promotion is often used to create a quick response by buyer. SP is good for gaining attention, providing information and usually contains an inducement to buy now. The effects of SP however, are usually short-term sales rather than long term growth.
Examples: BOGOF, money -off coupons, competitions, free samples, gifts.
Publicity/PR
Effective medium for creating awareness, interest and credibility. Little control.
Publicity can be highly credible if it is well thought – out and it is extremely cheap. A feature in a paper, magazine sometimes seem more credible to readers than ads BUT it is restricted by editorial decisions by the media source used.
Useful Tip: think of some way in which your business is unique and try writing to the editor of a local newspaper to see if they would be willing to write an article about it. There’s no harm in trying.
Personal selling
Effective medium for influencing all stages of the decision making process, especially the decision to buy. High level of control. Good for small businesses with local markets complex products and services.
Useful Tips: Always try and leave the potential customer with something to remind them of your company and product e.g. business card or leaflet.
Direct mail and e-mail
Effective for creating awareness and interest for markets where the target audience is easily defined. Little control.except E-mail. Mailing info directly to target customers, telling them about your company and what you have to offer. Relatively cheap BUT dependent on very accurate forecast of target market and low response; 2% response rate if you are lucky. Secrets to success, send to the right people and make them an offer that is hard to refuse. Control is far greater and targeted using the Internet and E-mail.
Direct response
Used to encourage purchase now! Includes buying off of the TV, adverts in magazines that ask you to phone up to place your order e.g. thimble collections in the Sunday Times supplement.
Word of mouth
Effective medium for creating interest and desire for your product or service and it is extremely cheap. To get people to tell others about you, you must:
- give excellent service and produce good quality
- pay attention to packaging
- give customers something to pass onto friends such as business cards
- give customers incentive to bring new customers e.g. special discounts
- become part of local community activities
- team up with other local businesses and pass customers between you
Measure and analyse results
It is important to measure in some way the effectiveness of your promotion campaign. This should be done against your objective. If for example, main objective was to create 100 enquiries, or (giving consideration to the effect of the other 3 P’s) to achieve 20 sales, you can measure whether or not this objective was achieved. If the objective was to create awareness, this is more difficult to measure. It may involve further research and actually asking people whether they have heard of your product or service.
Measuring and analysing the outcome of the promotion campaign will help in the development of future campaigns. It may be that you need to change the medium used or the time – span etc, of the next promotion campaign.
