Promotions

Promotion is one of the four activities traditionally included in the marketing mix (the other three being product, price, and place). Promotion aims to increase the customer s familiarity with the product by using a vast array of techniques and tools. Activities included in the promotion mix consist of personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, direct mail, trade fairs, advertising, and sponsorships. Each of these methods has an impact on the customers awareness of the product, comprehension, and conviction to purchase the item and the probability that all these actions will translate into a purchasing action by the client. During the course of the promotion activity, the company manages both the promotion budget size and how that [Page 1320]budget is allocated. Maximizing this budget through low-cost methods is one of the keys of a successful promotional campaign (through word-of-mouth or viral marketing, for example).

Wholesale food companies from Malawi using personal selling and product displays at a 2008 trade fair in Dubai.

Promotion is separated into two categories: above-the-line promotion describes activities that directly target customer sensibility (such as advertising and personal selling), while below-the-line promotion is usually much more subtle (such as product placement and public relations).

Above-the-Line and Below-the-Line Promotion

Above-the-line promotion refers to activities the firm performs to promote its product by directly targeting the potential customer. Advertising is one of the main methods companies use to engage in above-the-line promotion. The main advantage of advertising is that the firm is able to reach multiple buyers simultaneously, resulting in a low total cost per user, but there is the likelihood of reaching many consumers who will not convert into buyers. For example, some companies purchase ads in generalist newspapers; although the ad is read by thousands of people (generating a low cost per consumer), only a small percentage could actually be considered to be potential customers. Hence, companies increasingly target consumers through specialized media (like specialized magazines) to increase the chance of being read by a potential customer.

The other major technique used for above-the-line promotion is personal selling; this occurs when the firms employs dedicated staff to sell its product. Targeted selling, while highly efficient, is often offset by the high cost per contact, as the firms need to retain and train an adequate sales force.

Below-the-line promotion encompasses all activities the firm engages in to promote its product in a much more subtle manner. Examples of such activities include product placement (wherein the firm pays for its product to be featured prominently in a media setting), public relations (wherein the firm deploys various public-related efforts to garner public attention), or sponsorship (wherein the firm sponsors an event in exchange for visibility).

In all cases, companies that use below-the-line promotions must be careful to keep the balance between having too much or too little visibility. A careful balance is necessary to assure that below-the-line promotions do not become too prominent, which will generate criticism. For example, some recent movies and television series have been criticized for having movie story lines influenced by product placement to the point of affecting the content of the show and annoying consumers.

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