Page 116 - DMGT507_SALES AND PROMOTIONS MANAGEMENT

Sales and Promotions Management

Notes 6.2 Structure of Promotion World

The major elements of promotion mix include advertising, sales promotion, personal selling,
public relations and publicity, and direct marketing. Each element of promotion mix has its own
unique attributes and associated costs. All these make up the structure of promotion.

Advertising

Advertising is any paid form of non-personal mass communication through various media to
present and promote products, services, and ideas, etc. by an identified sponsor.
Advertising can be extremely cost effective because it can reach a large population at a low cost
per person and the message can be repeated several times. TV commercials combine movement,
visuals, sound, and colour. A company can attempt to enhance its own image and that of its
brand by including celebrity endorsers in its ads appearing in various media.
TV advertising is expensive in terms of actual target audience reached. TV commercials are
usually very brief to furnish meaningful information to audience. Advertising can rarely provide
rapid feedback, measuring its effect on sales is difficult. Advertising clutter in almost all media
is making advertising less capable of attracting consumer attention.

Sales Promotion

More recently, the Council of Sales Promotion Agencies has offered a more comprehensive
definition, "Sales promotion is a marketing discipline that utilises a variety of incentive techniques
to structure sales-related programmes targeted to customers, trade, and/or sales levels that
generate a specific, measurable action or response for a product or service."
Examples of sales promotions include free samples, discounts, rebates, coupons, contests and
sweepstakes, premiums, scratch cards, exchange offers, early bird prizes, various trade deals,
etc. All such offers generally include specified limits, such as offer expiry date or a limited
quantity of merchandise. Sales promotions are aimed at either increasing immediate sales, to
increase support among marketer's sales force, or gain the support of resellers of company
product.

Example: Recent scheme launched by ITC for its Aashirwad brand of wheat flour, wherein
they are offering a small pack of Vivel shampoo free with 10 kg pack of Aashirwad aata is a sales
promotion technique.

Personal Selling

Personal selling is a face-to-face paid personal communication and aims to inform and persuade
prospects and customers to purchase products, services, or accept ideas of issues. It involves
more specific communication aimed at one or several persons.
Personal selling is most effective but also more expensive than other promotion mix elements.
It provides immediate feedback, allowing sellers to adjust their sales messages to improve the
impact on customers. Personal selling helps sales people to determine and respond to customers'
information needs and also interpret body language.

Public Relations and Publicity

Public relations is a broad set of communication activities employed to create and maintain
favourable relationships with employees, shareholders, suppliers, media, educators, potential

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