Almost every marketing campaign can benefit from using one or more of the major promotional tools: advertising, sales promotion, personal selling and public relations. Qualifying the elements that are most effective depends on factors like the nature of the product, the consumer's level of involvement, the marketer's communications goal and available resources.
Advertising
Advertising is designed to be transmitted via mass media like television, radio, magazines and websites. It is clearly identified with the paying sponsor, who controls precisely what it says and how it looks. While expensive, most ads are cost-efficient because they reach large numbers of consumers at once. Any type of product or service can be advertised, but this promotional tool is generally most effective when the marketer's goals are to build a brand's image over time and persuade people to choose it over competitors' brands.
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion offers an incentive to prospective customers to change their behavior. For example, discount coupons may convince shoppers to try a new brand of cereal. A buy-one-get-one-free offer could persuade them to buy extra boxes. Because of this emphasis on price cuts or other short-term inducements, sales promotion works best with price-sensitive products. In different forms, it can also be targeted to trade buyers, like wholesalers and retailers, to convince them to give shelf space to new or low-profile brands.
Personal Selling
One-on-one interaction with potential buyers is costly to marketers, but it is a critical promotional element for certain items that are expensive and complex, like real estate, computers or cars. It is also effective with consumers who are highly involved, or engaged, with the product. Examples of high-involvement purchases could include a wedding gown or college education. Personal selling is especially common in business-to-business marketing, when decision makers expect not only a quality product but also considerable expertise from representatives of the seller.
Public Relations
Public relations uses tools like press releases, annual reports, special events, newsletters and legislative lobbying to get the attention of journalists and other opinion leaders. It aims to reach a broader array of target audiences than other types of promotion, including stockholders, employees, vendors and the community at large. Public relations is especially suited to boosting a company's image, responding to bad press, or facilitating an ongoing online discussion, but a serious drawback is that marketers cannot control its outcome.
Tags: most effective, Public relations, sales promotion