Promotional Mix & IMC Overview

Promotional Mix & IMC

• Promotional mix: A combination of tools to inform, persuade, and remind buyers about a product.
• Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC): Coordinating all promotional activities to create a consistent message.
• Direct marketing: Direct communication with consumers to generate a specific response.
• Advertising: Paid, non-personal communication from an identified sponsor.
• Personal selling: Two-way communication between buyer and seller to influence purchase decisions.
• Public relations: Influencing public opinions about a company and its offerings.
• Sales promotion: Short-term incentives to encourage buying.
• Push strategy: Directs promotion towards channel members.
• Pull strategy: Directs promotion towards consumers to generate demand.
• Hierarchy of effects: Stages from awareness to purchase (e.g., awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, adoption).
• Direct orders: Contain all necessary information to initiate a purchase.
• Lead generation: Generating interest and requests for further information.
• Traffic generation: Attracting customers to a physical or online location.

Communication Process

• Effective Communication: Involves encoding, transmission, decoding messages, minimizing noise, and recognizing the sender and receiver's backgrounds (field of experience).

Promotional Elements

• Advertising: Reaches many consumers but is costly with limited direct feedback.
• Personal selling: Allows immediate feedback but is expensive per contact.
• Public relations: Builds credibility, but offers limited control over the message.
• Sales promotion: Encourages short-term behavior changes, potentially leading to "promotion wars."
• Direct Marketing: Customizable, provides immediate feedback, but can be expensive and raises privacy concerns.

Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC)

• IMC: Ensures a cohesive promotional strategy, aligning all communication methods to create a unified brand experience and reach marketing objectives.

Developing the Promotional Mix

• Tailoring the mix: Adapt to target audience, product life cycle stage (introduction, growth, maturity, decline), and channel strategies. Integrate advertising, personal selling, public relations, sales promotion, and direct marketing.

Product Life Cycle Stages

• Introduction: Focus on awareness building.
• Growth: Persuade and gain market share.
• Maturity: Maintaining market share with reminder campaigns.
• Decline: Phase out the product.

Consumer Journey Stages

• Prepurchase: Utilize advertising, promotions, and public relations.
• Purchase: Personal selling is more effective; advertising less so.
• Postpurchase: Reduce anxiety, encourage repeat purchases via advertising and personal selling.

Channel Strategies

• Push strategy: Promotes products through distribution channels (e.g., wholesalers, retailers).
• Pull strategy: Promotes the product directly to the customer to create a demand.

Direct Marketing

• Direct marketing: Customized communication via direct orders, lead generation, and traffic generation. Consider ethical use and consumer privacy. Note technological, global, and ethical implications.

Promotion Decision Process

• Target audience identification: Understanding demographics and behaviors.
• Promotion objectives: Defining objectives based on the hierarchy of effects (awareness, interest, evaluation, trial, adoption).
• Promotion budget setting: Utilizing methods like percentage of sales or objective and task.
• Promotional tool selection: Integrating various methods (advertising, personal selling, PR, sales promotion, direct marketing).
• Promotion design: Creating compelling messages and visuals.
• Promotion scheduling: Defining timing and frequency.

Evaluating the Promotion Program

• Pretesting and IMC audits: Essential for continuous improvement and ensuring promotional activities meet their goals.