Page 473 - Foundations of Marketing

440 Part 6 | Promotion Decisions

Public relations should not be viewed as a set of tools
to be used only during crises. To get the most from public
relations, an organization should have someone responsible
for public relations either internally or externally and should
have an ongoing public relations program.

Sales Promotion

Sales promotion is an activity or material that acts as a direct
inducement, offering added value or incentive for the prod-
uct to resellers, salespeople, or consumers. Examples include
free samples, games, rebates, sweepstakes, contests, premi-
ums, and coupons. Sales promotion should not be confused
with promotion; sales promotion is just one part of the com-
prehensive area of promotion. Marketers spend more on sales
promotion than on advertising, and sales promotion appears
to be a faster-growing area than advertising. Coupons are
especially important, particularly in retail establishments
such as CVS. CVS encourages consumers to come into its
®
stores by releasing advertising and coupons for M&M’S .
Courtesy of CVS Caremark Corporation the CVS website and promote its ExtraCare card.
Supplying the coupon with the advertisement also enables
CVS to encourage consumers to check out weekly deals on
®
Generally, when companies employ advertising or per-
sonal selling, they depend on these activities continuously
or cyclically. However, a marketer’s use of sales promotion
tends to be irregular. Many products are seasonal. Toys may
be discounted in January after the holiday selling season to
move excess inventory. Marketers frequently rely on sales
Coupons as Sales Promotion promotion to improve the effectiveness of other promotion
CVS provides coupons for its M&M’s products to encourage mix elements, especially advertising and personal selling.
consumers to come to its stores.
Approximately 41 percent of shoppers use coupons on
shopping trips, with the use of online coupons significantly
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increasing. Mobile devices are a personal technology, so they pose an unusual opportunity
to reach consumers wherever they go. It is estimated that mobile Internet usage will soon
surpass desktop usage. Mobile apps can be used as tools to engage the consumer through
20
sales promotion items such as coupons.
An effective promotion mix requires the right combination of components. To see how
such a mix is created, we now examine the factors and conditions affecting the selection of
promotional methods that an organization uses for a particular product.

LO 5 . Examine the selection of SELECTING PROMOTION MIX ELEMENTS
promotion mix elements.
Marketers vary the composition of promotion mixes for many reasons. Although a promotion
mix can include all four elements, frequently, a marketer selects fewer than four. Many firms
that market multiple product lines use several promotion mixes simultaneously.

Promotional Resources, Objectives, and Policies

The size of an organization’s promotional budget affects the number and relative intensity
of promotional methods included in a promotion mix. If a company’s promotional budget is
extremely limited, the firm is likely to rely on personal selling because it is easier to measure
a salesperson’s contribution to sales than to measure the sales effectiveness of advertising.

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