The Marketing Mix: Promotion (Leaving Cert Business): Revision Notes
The Marketing Mix: Promotion
Promotion is a crucial element of the marketing mix that helps businesses communicate with their customers. It involves increasing awareness among both existing and potential customers about a company's brand, products, and services. The goal is to persuade people to make purchases and maintain customer relationships.
The promotional mix consists of the various techniques and methods that businesses use to persuade consumers to buy their products. It contains four key elements: advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and personal selling.
1. Advertising
Advertising serves to inform, persuade, and remind customers about products and their features. Its main purpose is to let the market know that a business has something for sale, encourage people to try it, and remind them to buy it.
Functions of advertising
Advertising serves several important purposes for businesses, each playing a vital role in connecting with consumers and driving business success:
- Informing consumers about products (such as Dyson vacuum cleaners) or services (like winter flu vaccines)
- Creating awareness of new products and services entering the market
- Persuading consumers to choose one business's products over competitors' offerings
- Building confidence in products or services and creating desire to purchase
- Reminding consumers that products or services continue to exist
- Developing brand loyalty and strengthening customer relationships
- Increasing sales and market share through the combined effect of these functions
These functions work together to create a comprehensive communication strategy. For instance, when Apple launches a new iPhone, they inform consumers about new features, create awareness through media coverage, persuade through compelling advertisements, and remind existing customers about the brand's innovation.
Advertising medium
An advertising medium refers to the method or channel through which a business communicates its message to consumers, such as magazine advertisements, social media posts, or radio slots.
Different advertising mediums offer various advantages and suit different business needs. Understanding these options helps businesses make strategic decisions about where to invest their marketing budget:
Press advertising:
- National newspapers can be expensive but reach large audiences, making them suitable for bigger businesses
- Local newspapers cost less to advertise in but reach smaller, localised audiences
- Magazines target specific markets and often feature glossy visual advertisements
- Print publications have short shelf lives and declining sales compared to online versions
Broadcast media:
- Television reaches large national markets but costs significantly more to produce and broadcast
- Cost varies depending on time slots - prime time shows like The Late Late Toy Show command extremely high advertising prices
- Radio advertising costs less than television and targets specific demographics
- Different radio stations attract different age groups - teenagers might listen to Spin 1038 whilst older listeners prefer RTÉ Radio 1
Online advertising:
- Reaches large target audiences effectively
- Businesses can place advertisements on websites their target market visits
- Allows for sponsorship collaborations with bloggers or influencers
- Social media platforms like Facebook provide immediate feedback opportunities
- Can be precisely targeted based on search terms, GPS location, or user behaviour
Other mediums:
- Cinema advertising reaches captive audiences but costs more
- Posters and billboards catch attention in public spaces and can target specific locations
- Direct marketing sends offers directly to potential customers through post or email
Factors affecting choice of advertising medium
When selecting an advertising medium, businesses must carefully evaluate multiple considerations to ensure their marketing investment delivers the best return:
- Cost: What can the advertising budget cover for each medium?
- Time: How quickly does advertising need to happen and for how long?
- Product type: Which medium best suits the product being advertised?
- Brand image: Will the chosen medium enhance the product's brand?
- Target market: Will the medium effectively reach the intended audience?
- Competition: What advertising methods are competitors using?
Worked Example: Choosing an Advertising Medium
A local bakery wants to promote their new wedding cake service:
Budget: €2,000 per month Target market: Engaged couples aged 25-35 in local area Timeline: Immediate start, ongoing campaign
Analysis:
- National TV: Too expensive and reaches too broad an audience
- Local newspaper: Cost-effective (€300/week) and reaches local market
- Social media: Highly targeted to engaged couples, visual format perfect for showcasing cakes
- Best choice: Combination of local newspaper and Instagram/Facebook advertising
2. Sales promotion
A sales promotion is a short-term marketing incentive designed to attract consumers to buy a product or service. These promotions increase a product's attractiveness without using traditional advertising methods.
Sales promotions work by offering price reductions, special deals, coupons, samples, prizes, free draws, in-store displays, or other incentives directly related to the product. They provide immediate value to consumers while encouraging quick purchasing decisions.
Types of sales promotion
Understanding different types of sales promotions helps businesses choose the most effective approach for their specific goals and customer base:
Customer loyalty programmes: These reward returning customers through discounts, cashback, points, or free monthly draws. Customers register their details on loyalty cards or fobs, receiving benefits like free coffee after purchasing nine drinks.
Special offers: Free gifts encourage occasional customers to use services more often or buy additional items. For example, No7 cosmetics might offer a free gift set with two purchases. 'Buy one get one free' deals and introductory offers help businesses increase trade volume and encourage customers to try new products.
Money-off vouchers and coupons: These increase sales for newspapers and magazines whilst forming business alliances. Dunnes Stores frequently uses this method by offering £10 vouchers with The Independent on Saturdays.
Social media promotions: Businesses run competitions or offer free giveaways, usually requiring customers to share posts or advertisements. Hotels might offer customers sharing Facebook posts the chance to win £200 vouchers.
Free samples: Consumers receive small free samples to test products or trial periods for services. Supermarkets often have stands offering free samples of new cheese varieties.
Merchandising: Themed displays positioned at point of sale locations create strong impressions. Brown Thomas shop windows exemplify attractive displays that employ specialist staff skills.
Sales promotions help attract new consumers, reward loyal customers, and increase purchase frequency among occasional buyers. They cost less than advertising whilst helping businesses retain market share.
3. Public relations (PR)
Public relations (PR) encompasses all activities related to creating a positive public image for products or services amongst stakeholders. This includes press releases, press conferences, and events where media receives information about business activities.
Large companies often employ public relations officers who use various media channels to create positive company images. PR officers write press releases, handle public and media enquiries, analyse media coverage, and speak at events.
Methods of PR
Public relations employs various strategies to build and maintain a company's reputation, each offering unique benefits and challenges:
Publicity: This relies on media or public to spread news stories about businesses, boosting visibility and brand recognition. PR officers sometimes create stories but cannot control how they're received. Publicity can backfire - Pepsi had to withdraw and apologise for a 2017 advertisement featuring Kendall Jenner within 48 hours due to public outrage.
Sponsorship: Businesses pay to have their product names or logos displayed by individuals, organisations, events, or locations. Irish examples include Cork Guinness Jazz Festival, Kellogg's GAA Cúl camps, Aviva Stadium, and 3Arena in Dublin. Product placement within television programmes or films, like KFC, Coca-Cola, and Burger King appearing in Netflix's Stranger Things, helps businesses position themselves as popular or traditional brands.
Celebrity endorsements: Celebrities receive payment to endorse or associate with brands, marketing products through television, radio, magazines, events, or social media. Examples include Amy Huberman for Newbridge Silverware and Billie Eilish for Calvin Klein. Businesses use celebrity associations to increase sales and positively impact profits.
Worked Example: Successful PR Campaign
Campaign: Guinness's sponsorship of the GAA All-Ireland Championships
Strategy:
- Long-term sponsorship creates strong association with Irish culture
- Brand becomes synonymous with celebration and community
- Regular visibility during matches and events
Results:
- Enhanced brand loyalty among Irish consumers
- Positive association with national pride and tradition
- Consistent brand exposure throughout the sporting calendar
Challenges of PR
Public relations can present difficulties for businesses. Negative publicity proves damaging - Toyota's car recalls due to faulty airbags led to sharp market share drops and loss of trust in product quality. Companies must carefully manage their public image to avoid reputation damage.
Unlike advertising, businesses cannot fully control how their PR messages are received or interpreted by the public and media. This makes reputation management both crucial and challenging.
Key Points to Remember:
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The promotional mix contains four elements: advertising, sales promotion, public relations, and personal selling - all working together to persuade customers to buy products
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Advertising mediums vary in cost and reach: businesses must consider their budget, target market, timing needs, and product type when choosing how to advertise
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Sales promotions provide short-term incentives: loyalty programmes, special offers, and free samples help attract new customers and reward existing ones without expensive advertising campaigns
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Public relations builds brand image: through publicity, sponsorship, and celebrity endorsements, but negative publicity can seriously damage business reputation
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Different promotional methods suit different situations: combining various promotional mix elements creates more effective marketing campaigns than relying on just one approach