What is Promotion Mix?

Meaning of Promotion Mix

The last element of the marketing mix is promotion, which includes activities undertaken by the marketer to communicate with the customers and distribution channels so they can enhance the sales of the firm. Through promotional communication, an organisation’s aim is to inform and persuade the customer to purchase the goods and inform him/her regarding the benefits of the product. Hence, Promotion Mix is an important decision and includes all decisions of an organisation related to the promotion of a sale of goods and services. Some of the important decisions under promotion mix are selecting a media to advertise the product, selecting promotional techniques, public relations, etc. 

The four major elements of the promotion mix are Advertising, Sales Promotion, Personal Selling, and Public Relations. 

1. Advertising

Any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of goods and services by an identified sponsor is known as Advertising. It is one of the most common tools of promotion. Information regarding benefits, price, features, etc., of products and services, is provided with the help of advertising. It is an impersonal method of promotion because there is no direct contact between the customer and the advertiser. It targets a large number of people at a time.

According to Philip Kotler,  “Advertising is any paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of ideas, goods and services through mass media such as newspapers, magazines, television or radio by an identified sponsor”.

According to David Ogilvy, “If you are tiring to persuade people to do something, or buy something, it means to me you should use their language, the language in which they think “.

The three main features of advertising are: 

• It is in paid form.
• It is an impersonal method of promotion.
• It is always undertaken by an identified sponsor.

2. Sales Promotion

Short-term incentives, which are offered to encourage the buyers to make an immediate purchase of a product or service is known as Sales Promotion. It helps to boost the sales of a company.  It also aids other promotional efforts, such as advertising and personal selling. All the activities that provide short-term incentives to boost sales are included in sales promotion.

Sales Promotion uses its tools for:

• Customers in the form of discounts, free samples, contests, etc.
• Traders or middlemen in the form of cooperative advertising, dealer discounts, dealer incentives, contests, etc. 
• Sales Person in the form of bonuses, contests, special offers, etc.

Sales Promotion techniques are useful because:

• They bring a short and immediate effect on sales.
• They help in stock clearance.
• They induce customers and distribution channels.
• They help to win over competitors.

3. Personal Selling

The process of informing customers and persuading them to purchase the products through personal communication is known as personal selling. Two-way communication and face-to-face contact are involved in the case of personal selling. Under this, sales staff are used to create product awareness and preferences and sell products. It helps in building personal rapport with the customers, which increases the sales of the business.

According to Philip Kotler, “Personal selling is a type of personal or local presentation by the firm’s sales force for the motive of making sales and building customer relationship

According to Prof. William J. Stanton, “Personal selling is the personal communication of information to persuade a prospective customer to buy a service or idea”.

Personal selling is flexible as the sales person can change the presentation of the product according to the needs of the purchasing situation. Also, as there is direct and face-to-face contact between salespersons and customers in personal selling, direct and immediate feedback is given by the customers, which helps an organisation in making required changes in the required field. Besides, for personal selling, the companies decide in advance who will be their target customer and then approaches those customers only which results in minimum wastage. 

4. Public Relations

The deliberate, planned, and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organisation and its public is known as Public Relations. It is a continuous activity and aims to create and manage relations with the public successfully. 

According to The Public Association Relations, ” Public Relations is the art and social science of analysing trends, predicting their consequences, counselling organisational leaders and implementing planned programme of action which will serve both the organisation and the public interest”.  

According to The Chartered Institute of Public Relations, ” Public Relations is a strategic management function that adds value to an organisation by helping it to manage its reputation”.

The word ‘Public’ in Public Relation does not only include customers. It also includes shareholders, suppliers, intermediaries, investors, creditors, government, etc. Therefore, the cooperation of the public is essential for running the business smoothly. Public Relations creates a favourable image toward an organisation, its people, products, etc. It aims at establishing healthy relations between the organisation and the public.