Promotion

Promotion is the communication with the consumer to make him aware of a brand’s product and to persuade him to buy it.

Before we study the types of promotion we must first know why businesses promote in the first place?

To increase sales
To make the customers aware of your brand’s and product’s existence.
To make your brand look superior to other brands
To remove any misconceptions or misunderstandings regarding your product.
To achieve brand leadership

There are various types of promotion such as:

Advertisements- TV adverts, or magazine adverts that are examples of above-the-line promotion.
Promotion itself- This involves below-the-line promotion such as money-off coupons etc.
Personal selling- This involves direct interaction of sales representatives with customer.
Public relations- This involves making the public aware of the product or company through sponsorship of events or famous personalities.

Advertising involves expensive, effective and large scale use of media to get an audio visual message over to the consumer.

This is above-the line promotion which means that it is pure advertising in which the product or brand is advertised by mention of its features/uses/superiority etc. and involves more cost than the relatively cheaper below-the-line promotional methods.

An advertising process is a step by step process that describes how a product is advertised.

1^st step: SET OBJECTIVES- this means that the business would have to determine the purpose of advertising

2^nd objective- DECIDE ADVERTISING BUDEGET- The business will need to decide how much to spend on advertising.

3^rd objective: Crete an advertising campaign- the campaign will see what its target consumers are and then advertise using the most suitable form of media.

4^th objective: Evaluate the effectiveness- the business needs to analyse the result of the campaign.

Advertising is itself divided into two types. Informative advertising and persuasive advertising. Informative advertising is the mentioning of only the features and facts about a product. This is done when a technical good is being advertised during introduction. Persuasive advertising uses other methods to persuade readers to buy the brand’s product.

Advertising Media

There are various media when it comes to advertisement.

Television- is seen by a large number of people but is costly
Radio- can put across only an audio communication but even illiterate low-class people use this famous instrument.
Newspapers-This is made of paper and there is very little space to write on the page and hence communication will be affected. Also because it has got only a one-day life magazine ad is not the most successful or, of organization.
Internet- This form of advertisement is good because it not only reduces expense but is also available for many people to see. It is also a great form of armchair buying, because people do not have to get out of their house to buy the good. So if a company both promotes and sells its products online, it can benefit hugely from this source, if it has the right type of consumers.
Cinema- This form of promotion has the advantage of good visual quality and being relatively cheaper than television. However, it can only be seen by a limited number of people.

Now, I hope you guys have some idea about above the line promotion methods. Ok, so let’s move onto Below-the-Line.

Promotion

Price-off coupons are an ideal example of below-the-line advertising as they encourage consumers to come and visit the outlet or store.

Loyalty cards are also a very important form of advertisement as they instill a sense of importance in the consumer’s mind and they also make him feel that in order to avail the special discount, he must buy from the respective brand. This automatically leads to the increased sales of that business.

After sales service is a form of below-the-line promotion as it makes the consumer impressed by the caring and quality behavior of the salespeople, this automatically leads to more repeated visits by the consumer thus leading to even more sales.

However all these forms of below-the-line promotions have one disadvantage, they increase the production cost of the business, because they all lower the prices of the brand’s products.

Public Relations

Public relations is a very important tool for promoting and improving your brand and its image. Sponsoring sports or other publicity events is an ideal form of public relations. This makes the general public aware of your brand’s existence and thereby increase your sales.

Another form of public relations is taking part for a cause, such as the various companies that helped the flood affectees of the recent flood in Sindh and its rural areas. This helps make a better image of a business in the public’s mind and helps increase sales.

With this I will end today’s lecture, I hope you guys understood most or everything I have explained.

FAQs

Q:1 What is promotion?

Ans. Promotion is the communication that takes place between a business and its consumers. There are two main types of promotion, above-the-line and below-the-line promotion.

Q:2 Analyse the features of advertising a product on TV and newspapers.

Ans. Advertising is the communication of an audio visual message from the business to the consumer.

If a product is advertised through television, it will reach a wide audience, especially if it is aired for a longer period, this will increase its effectiveness. The message to the consumer will also be attractive as the image of the product can be modified and made to look more pleasing to the eye, thereby increasing the probability of consumers buying the product. However, it is very expensive as compared to other forms of advertising media, And if it is nit aired at the right time when the target market is watching the TV, it will bear huge losses.

However if a newspaper is used, the price would be relatively cheaper and even those people can read it who don’t have a tv in their homes making it accessible to a much wider audience. But in the other hand, the advert will have a very short lifespan of only one day after which the newspaper will expire. Also only a limited space is allotted for advertising leaving limited content to be used in the promotion.

These are the features of newspaper and TV advertising.