13-Promotion: Chapter Introduction to Integrated Marketing
Communications
Sunday, April 24, 2011
5:49 PM
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Promotion Communicates to Target Markets
1.a.
Promotion: communicating information between the seller and potential buyer or
others in the channel to influence attitudes and behavior
1.a.i.
Involves telling customers that the right Product is available a the right
Place at the right Price
Several Promotion Methods are Available
1.a.
Personal selling-flexibility is its strength
1.a.i.
Personal selling: involves direct spoken communication between sellers
and potential customers
1.a.ii.
Get immediate feedback, which helps them to adapt
1.a.i.
Can be very expensive
1.a.
Mass selling involves advertising and publicity
1.a.i.
Mass selling: communicating with large numbers of potential customers
at the same time
1.a.ii.
Advertising: any paid form of non-personal presentation of ideas, goods,
or services by an identified sponsor; main form of mass selling
1.a.
Publicity avoids media costs
1.a.i.
Publicity: any unpaid form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, goods,
or services
1.a.ii.
Problem: the media doesnt always say or show what the firm intends
1.a.
Sometimes customers pass publicity on
1.a.i.
People have always been able to tell friends about an interesting ad,
story, or product, but customers can instantly spread internet messages to many people
at once
1.a.
Sales promotion tries to spark immediate interest
1.a.i.
Sales promotion: refers to promotion activities (other than advertising,
publicity, and personal selling) that stimulate interest, trial, or purchase by final
customers or others in the channel
1.a.ii.
May be aimed at consumers, intermediaries, or at a firm's own
employees
1.a.iii.
Designed to produce immediate results
1.a.
Less is spent on advertising than personal selling or sales promotion
Someone Must Plan, Integrate, and Manage the Promotion Blend
1.a.
Usually the responsibility of specialists (sales managers, advertising managers,
and promotion managers) to develop and implement the detailed plans for the various parts
of the overall promotion blend
1.a.
Sales managers manage salespeople
1.a.i.
Sales managers: are concerned with managing personal selling
1.a.i.
Responsible for building good distribution channels and implementing
Place policies
1.a.
Advertising managers work with ads and agencies
1.a.i.
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Advertising managers: manage their company's mass-selling effort (in
TV, newspapers, magazines, and other media)
1.a.i.
Public relations: communication with noncustomers (labor, public
interest groups, stockholders, and the government)
1.a.
Sales promotion managers need many talents
1.a.i.
Sales promotion managers: manage their companys sales promotion
effort
1.a.
Marketing manager talks to all, blends all
1.a.i.
The marketing manager must weigh the pros and cons of the various
promotion methods and then devise an effective promotion blend->fitting in the
various departments and personalities and coordinating their efforts
1.a.
Send a consistent and complete message with integrated marketing
communications
1.a.i.
Integrated marketing communications: the intentional coordination of
every communication from a firm to a target customer to convey a consistent and
complete message
Which Methods to Use Depends on Promotion Objectives
1.a.
Overall objective is to affect behavior
1.b.
Informing, persuading, and reminding are basic promotion objectives
1.a.i.
All try to affect buyer behavior by providing more information
1.a.ii.
More specific promotion objectives state exactly who you want to
inform, persuade, or remind and why
1.a.
Informing is educating
1.a.i.
Can show that it meets consumer needs better than other products
1.a.
Persuading usually becomes necessary
1.a.i.
Means the firm will try to develop a favorable set of attitudes so
customers will buy, and keep buying, its product
1.a.ii.
Often tries to demonstrate how one brand is better than others
1.a.
Reminding may be enough, sometimes
1.a.i.
Might be suitable if target customers already have positive attitudes
about a firm's marketing mix/good relationship with the firm
1.a.
Promotion objectives relate to adoption process
1.a.i.
Informing and persuading may be needed to affect the potential
customer's knowledge and attitudes about a product and then bring about its adoption
1.a.i.
Later promotion can simply remind the customer about that favorable
experience and confirm the adoption decision
1.a.
The AIDA model is a practical approach
1.a.i.
AIDA model:
1.a.i.1.
To get Attention
1.a.i.1.a.
Necessary to make consumers aware of the company's
offering
1.a.i.1.
To hold Interest
1.a.i.1.a.
Gives the communication a chance to build the
consumer's interest in the product
1.a.i.1.
To arouse Desire
1.a.i.1.a.
Affects the evaluation process, perhaps building
preference
1.a.i.1.
To obtain Action
1.a.i.1.a.
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Includes gaining trial, which may lead to a purchase
decision
Promotion Requires Effective Communication
1.a.
Communication can break down
1.a.i.
Communication process: means a source trying to reach a receiver with a
message
1.a.i.1.
Source: the sender of a message
1.a.i.1.
Receiver: potential customer
1.a.i.
Customers evaluate both the message and the source of the message in
terms of trustworthiness and credibility
1.a.i.
Noise: any distraction that reduces the effectiveness of the
communication process
1.a.
Encoding and decoding depend on a common frame of reference
1.a.i.
Encoding: the source deciding what it wants to say and translating it into
words or symbols that will have the same meaning to the receiver
1.a.ii.
Decoding: the receiver translating the message
1.a.iii.
The meaning of various words or symbols may differ depending on the
attitudes and experiences of the two groups
1.a.
The same message may be interpreted differently
1.a.
Message channel is important too
1.a.i.
Message channel: the carrier of the message
1.a.i.
Can enhance or detract from the message
1.a.
Ethical issues in marketing communications
1.a.i.
Promotion is one of the most often criticized areas of marketing>whether communications are honest and fair
Integrated Direct-Response Promotion is Very Targeted
1.a.
Direct marketing: direct communication between a seller and an individual using
a promotion method other than face-to-face personal selling
1.a.i.
Most are designed to prompt immediate feedback
1.a.ii.
Also called direct-response promotion
1.a.
Now it's more than direct-mail advertising
1.b.
Target customer directly a with CRM database
1.a.i.
CRM database: includes customers' names and their home and email
addresses (as well as past purchases and other segmenting characteristics)
1.a.
Direct-response methods raise ethical concerns
The Customer may Initiate the Communication Process
1.a.
New electronic media enable interactive communication
1.b.
Consumer initiates communication with a search process
1.a.i.
"searchable" message channels usually feature an archive of existing
messages on a number of topics
1.a.ii.
Next step, consumer selects one specific topic on which to receive a
message
1.a.
Consumer decides how much information to get
1.a.i.
May include a simple way to get more detailed information, select
another related topic, return to the original selection process, or quit the search
1.a.i.1.
Interactive approach makes it easy for the consumer to get as
much information as desired
1.a.
Some messages are outside the firm's control
1.b.
1.a.i.
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Custom communications will be more personalized
Interactive approach allows the marketer to customize communication to
the needs and responses of the consumer
How Typical Promotion Plans are Blended and Integrated
1.a.
There is no one right promotion blend for all situations
1.b.
Get a push in the channel with promotion to intermediaries
1.a.i.
Pushing (a product through a channel): means using normal promotion
effort (personal selling, advertising, and sales promotion) to help sell the whole
marketing mix to possible channel members
1.a.
Promotion to intermediaries emphasizes personal selling
1.a.i.
Sales promotions targeted at intermediaries usually focus on short-term
arrangements that will improve the intermediary's profits
1.a.
Push within a firm-with promotion to employees
1.a.i.
Type of internal marketing effort (variation of the push approach)
1.a.
Pulling policy-customer demand pulls the product through the channel
1.a.i.
Pulling: means getting customers to ask intermediaries for the product
1.a.ii.
Pulling and pushing are usually used in combination
1.a.
Promotion to final consumers
1.a.i.
The large number of consumers almost forces producers of consumer
products and retailers to emphasize advertising and sales promotion
1.a.ii.
Aggressive personal selling to final consumers is usually found in
channel systems for expensive products
1.a.
Promotion to business customers
1.a.i.
Producers and wholesalers that target business customers often
emphasize personal selling
1.a.i.1.
Practical because there are fewer of these customers and their
purchases are larger
1.a.i.
Mass selling is necessary too
1.a.
Each market segment may need a unique blend
Adoption Processes can Guide Promotion Planning
1.a.
Promotion must vary for different adopter groups
1.a.i.
Adoption curve: shows when different groups accept ideas
1.a.i.1.
Emphasizes the relations among groups and shows that
individuals in some groups act as leaders in accepting a new idea
1.a.
Innovators don't mind taking risks
1.a.i.
Innovators: first to adopt; eager to try a new idea and willing to take
risks; tend to be young and well-educated
1.a.ii.
Business firms in the innovator group are often specialized and willing to
take the risk of doing something new
1.a.iii.
Tend to rely on impersonal and scientific information sources rather than
salespeople
1.a.
Early adopters are often opinion leaders
1.a.i.
Early adopters: are well respected by their peers and often are opinion
leaders; tend to be younger, more mobile, and more creative than later adopters; have
fewer contacts outside their own social group or community
1.a.ii.
Business firms in this category tend to be specialized
1.a.iii.
This group tends to have the greatest contact with salespeople
1.a.iv.
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Can help promotion effort by spreading word-of-mouth information and
advice among other consumers->acceptance is crucial
1.a.
Early majority group is deliberate
1.a.i.
Early majority: avoid risk and wait to consider a new idea after many
early adopters have tried and liked it
1.a.ii.
Average sized business firms that are less specialized often fit in this
category
1.a.iii.
Have a great deal of contact with mass media, salespeople, and early
adopter opinion leaders
1.a.
Late majority is cautious
1.a.i.
Late majority: cautious about new ideas; often they are older and more
set in their ways
1.a.ii.
Business firms in this group tend to be conservative, smaller-sized firms
with little specialization
1.a.iii.
Make little use of marketing sources of information-mass media and
salespeople
1.a.
Laggards or nonadopters hang on to tradition
1.a.i.
Laggards/nonadopters: prefer to do things the way they've been done in
the past and are very suspicious of new ideas; tend to be older and less well educated
1.a.ii.
Smallest businesses with the least specialization often fit this category
1.a.iii.
Main source of information for laggards is other laggards
Promotion Blends Vary Over the Life Cycle
1.a.
Stage of product in its life cycle
1.a.i.
Promotion blends usually have the change to achieve different promotion
objectives at different life-cycle stages
1.a.
Market introduction stage-"this new idea is good"
1.a.i.
Primary demand: demand for the general product idea, not just for the
company's own brand
1.a.
Market growth stage-"our brand is best"
1.a.i.
More competitors enter the market and promotion emphasis shifts from
building primary demand to stimulating selective demand
1.a.i.1.
Selective demand: demand for a company's own brand
1.a.i.
Mass selling becomes more economical
1.a.
Market maturity stage-"our brand is better, really"
1.a.i.
Mass selling and sales promotion may dominate the promotion blends of
consumer products forms
1.a.ii.
Business products may require more aggressive personal selling (perhaps
supplemented by more advertising)
1.a.iii.
As market drifts towards pure competition, some companies resort to
price cutting
1.a.
Sales decline stage-"let's tell those who still want our product"
1.a.i.
The total amount spent on promotion usually decreases as firms try to cut
costs to remain profitable
Setting the Promotion Budget
1.a.
Size of budget affects promotion efficiency and blend
1.b.
Find the task, budget for it
1.a.i.
Most common method of budgeting for promotion expenditures is to
compute a percentage of either past sales or sales expected in the future
1.a.ii.
Task method: basing the budget on the job to be done; helps set priorities
so that the money spent produces specific results