Personal Selling Personal Selling: People Power Personal selling uses in-person interaction to sell products and services. This type of communication is carried out by sales representatives, who are the personal connection between a buyer and a company or a company’s products or services. Salespeople not only inform potential customers about a company’s product or services, they also use their power of persuasion and remind customers of product characteristics, service agreements, prices, deals, and much… Read More »Personal Selling

Advantages and Disadvantages of Sales Promotions In addition to their primary purpose of boosting sales in the near term, companies can use consumer sales promotions to help them understand price sensitivity. Coupons and rebates provide useful information about how pricing influences consumers’ buying behavior. Sales promotions can also be a valuable–and sometimes sneaky–way to acquire contact information for current and prospective customers. Many of these offers require consumers to provide their names and… Read More »Advantages and Disadvantages of Sales Promotions

Consumer Sales Promotion Techniques Free samples of Starbucks Mocha Toffee Latte Most consumers are familiar with common sales promotion techniques including samples, coupons, point-of-purchase displays, premiums, contents, loyalty programs and rebates. Do you like free samples? Most people do. A sample is a sales promotion in which a small amount of a product that is for sale is given to consumers to try. Samples encourage trial and an increased awareness of the product. You… Read More »Consumer Sales Promotion Techniques

Sales Promotions Getting Action Now Sales promotions are a marketing communication tool for stimulating revenue or providing incentives or extra value to distributers, sales staff, or customers over a short time period. Sales promotion activities include special offers, displays, demonstrations, and other nonrecurring selling efforts that aren’t part of the ordinary routine. As an additional incentive to buy, these tools can be directed at consumers, retailers and other distribution partners, or… Read More »Sales Promotions

Advantages of Public Relations The opportunity to amplify key messages and milestones. When PR activities are well-aligned with other marketing activities, organizations can use PR to amplify the things they are trying to communicate via other channels. A press release about a new product, for example, can be timed to support a marketing launch of the product and conference where the product is unveiled for the first time. Believable. Because publicity is… Read More »Advantages of Public Relations

Public Relations Public Relations: Getting Attention to Polish Your Image Public relations (PR) is the process of maintaining a favorable image and building beneficial relationships between an organization and the public communities, groups, and people it serves. Unlike advertising, which tries to create favorable impressions through paid messages, public relations does not pay for attention and publicity. Instead, PR strives to earn a favorable image by drawing attention to newsworthy and attention-worthy activities of… Read More »Public Relations

Developing Effective Ads: The Creative Strategy Effective advertising starts with the same foundational components as any other IMC campaign: identifying the target audience and the objectives for the campaign. When advertising is part of a broader IMC effort, it is important to consider the strategic role advertising will play relative to other marketing communication tools. With clarity around the target audience, campaign strategy, and budget, the next step is to develop the creative… Read More »Developing Effective Ads: The Creative Advertising Strategy

Advertising Pay to Play A 1900 advertisement for Pears soap. Advertising is any paid form of communication from an identified sponsor or source that draws attention to ideas, goods, services or the sponsor itself. Most advertising is directed toward groups rather than individuals, and advertising is usually delivered through media such as television, radio, newspapers and, increasingly, the Internet. Ads are often measured in impressions (the number of times a consumer is… Read More »Advertising

Marketing Campaigns and IMC The Marketing Campaign Determining which marketing communication methods and tools to use and how best to combine them is a challenge for any marketer planning a promotional strategy. To aid the planning process, marketing managers often use a campaign approach.  A campaign is a planned, coordinated series of marketing communication efforts built around a single theme or idea and designed to reach a particular goal. For years, the term “campaign” has been used in… Read More »Marketing Campaigns and IMC Campaigns

The basic objectives of all marketing communication methods are (1) to communicate, (2) to compete, and (3) to convince. In order to be effective, organizations should ensure that whatever information they communicate is clear, accurate, truthful, and useful to the stakeholders involved. In fact, being truthful and accurate in marketing communications is more than a matter of integrity; it’s also a matter of legality, since fraudulent marketing communications can end… Read More »The Objectives of Marketing Communication