The four Ps of marketing are product, price, place and promotion. The world keeps changing, most say it is making rapid progress, but these four Ps of marketing have remained sacrosanct. Thank God for that. True there have been many best sellers, the television changed perceptions and then the Internet turned everything topsy turvy but these four Ps have stayed in place and on target even today.
Here we shall acquaint you with promotion alone. The purpose of promotion is to disseminate information about a product, products or services and egg the potential customer to buy your product or subscribe to your service. Easier said than done. In the sales force parlance, promotion is also referred to as sales promotion and usually involves product promotion or service promotion in the market place. . We shall here briefly run you through the key aspects of promotion as outlined in the books, but without being bookish. The real battle is out there in the market place and that is when you know who was a big boy.
There is above the line promotion which entails promotion in the media, namely radio, television, newspapers and the World Wide Web. Then there is below the line promotion which includes product placement, endorsements,direct mail, personal selling, corporate communications, public promotion activities such as product or service launches, trade shows, sponsorship and merchandising. Market research at all stages has an important bearing.
|
A promotional plan usually has as its objectives positioning, new product or service acceptance, acceptance, creation of brand image, first time sales and sales increases, defensive and offensive trade strategies and creation of a corporate image. The end idea is that the customer becomes your loyal high volume consumer starting off by saying, " Hey it is great, why did I not take it? Let me get it quick!"
|
|
To the field sales team, the corporate marketing game plan has to be just right, they want all their inputs included. In the field, they value highly product placement, merchandising and personal selling. Word of mouth opinions of all marketing and sales related issues become highly critical for them. Possible fire fighting scenarios should be lined up in advance.
There has to be a complete connect and synergy between the corporate teams and the field selling teams. Well before a promotion, it is desirable to acquaint the both the teams with each other and on mutual work on a "need to know" basis. The corporate management should also cajole and goad the teams for better decision making inputs BEFORE the promotion. As it is not our intention here to make a marketing directory we stop here and wish you luck.
|
