In a dynamically developing economic environment, it is important for companies to remain competitive. Marketing management and promotion are used in combination with each other to attract new customers and increase sales for the business. In the marketing mix, promotion is one of the four main components. To be successful in business, you need to understand the basics of promotion and understand the role of promotion. Without promotion, it is impossible to successfully bring a new high-tech product to the market.
The concept of promotion means the process of persuading people to accept the products, concepts, and ideas of the company.
Promotion is a combination of various activities to bring information about the merits of the product to potential consumers and to stimulate their desire to buy it.
Functions of Promotion
The most important promotion functions are:
- creating an image of prestige, low prices, innovation,
- information about the product and its characteristics,
- preservation of the popularity of goods (services),
- change the way you use the product,
- the creation of enthusiasm among market participants,
- convince buyers to move to more expensive goods,
- answers to consumer questions,
- favorable information about the company.
The company’s promotion plan usually allocates separate goods and services to push consumers from awareness to buying. However, the company can also try to express its general image, position on a particular issue, take part in local life or have an impact on society.
A good promotion plan links goods, distribution, marketing and price components of marketing.
Informing, Persuading, Reminding
Promotion implies any form of actions used by the firm to inform, persuade and remind consumers about their products, services, images, ideas, social activities.
The firm can transmit the messages it needs through brand names, packaging, shop windows, personal sales, industry exhibitions, lotteries, mass media, direct mail messages, outdoor ads, magazines and other forms. These messages can focus on information, persuasion, fear, sociability, product performance, humor or comparisons with competitors.
The consumers need to be informed, about new products and their characteristics, while they do not have any relation to it.
For products that consumers are well aware of, the main thing in promotion is the transformation of knowledge about the goods into a benevolent attitude towards it.
For the products firmly established in the market, the emphasis is on reminding - strengthening the existing attitude of consumers
What Are the Benefits of Promotion?
What benefits does the company receive when promoting the goods?
- First of all, increasing the brand awareness among consumers.
- Provide relevant information
- Increase in potential customers and traffic of customers
- Increase in profits and sales
- The introduction of products in a constantly competitive market with the help of promotions.
Role of Promotion in the Marketing Mix
Mix-marketing is a concept that deals with the main components of a marketing plan. The four main components of the marketing mix are price, location, promotion and product. These four components work together to help create a marketing plan for the business. Without any of the four parts, the marketing plan can suffer and not be as effective as it could be. You could rely more on one aspect than others, but they all play a role.
All components of the marketing mix are interrelated. The marketing manager manages the creation of a product with certain consumer characteristics, assigns a retail price, chooses the place of sale and delivery channels of the goods, informs the potential buyer about the advantages of the goods and convinces them to make a purchase.
In today’s highly competitive environment, companies are forced to seek hidden reserves to create competitive advantages for their products. These reserves are concentrated in the main elements of the marketing mix.
Elements of the marketing complex is a certain set of tools that affect the market and significantly affect consumer demand.
In the context of the organization’s Marketing Mix, promotion means all marketing communications, with which you can draw the consumer's attention to the product, provide the necessary information about the product and its key characteristics, form a need to purchase goods and make repeated purchases.
Promotion includes such marketing communications as advertising, promotion in points of sales, search engine optimization, PR, direct marketing.
Rebates, Sweepstakes & Contests
Sales promotion methods have a more sustainable and lasting effect compared to advertising. However, it is advertising and merchandising techniques that support the effectiveness of any incentive.
Reduction in price, discount for the second unit - quite popular measures to increase consumer demand. However, price methods of raising sales are quite expensive for manufacturers and are effective only for a short period of time. In contrast to them, non-price methods of sales promotion (soft-selling) appeared in marketing. In addition to increase turnover, they help maintain the image of the company and mentally involve the client in interaction with the product.
Sweepstakes, contests, guaranteed prizes for collected chips - all these are soft tricks that increase the sales of goods. Sweepstakes and contests can be effective standalone tactics. With their help, you can expand and strengthen the brand value of the goods to achieve high results with a limited budget. They create an emotional mood of consumers for the goods, stimulate interest and participation. However, it is worth considering the fact that there is a low selectivity to pre-selected consumer groups. Also, they can undermine the prestige of the brand.