Ans 1. Sales promotion is one part of the promotional mix that is becoming an important tool in Integrated Marketing Communication. This marketing strategy help boost sales.<br />Sales promotion is an important tool in Integrated Marketing Communication. It provides several distinct benefits in the achievement of company objectives that may account for it becoming one of the fastest growing IMC tools. It is one of the four aspects of promotional mix. Advertising, personal selling, and publicity/public relations are the other three.<br />Uses of Sales Promotions<br />First, they effectively increase the level of company’s profits because they allow price discrimination. This way, sellers can sell their products at a lower price without incurring a loss.<br />Second, sales promotions can influence trade and customer behavior. There are different purposes for doing sales promotions. It could be to increase the number of customers, boost sales, attract new customers, to compete effectively or reward loyal customers.<br />Ans 2. Public Relations<br />Public relations is the management of relationships between your company and all the quot;
publicsquot;
with which it must do business. Those publics may consist of your customers, vendors, employees, the media, politicians, or any other group that you can define with which your business has some interaction.<br />How you manage those relationships and how you treat those people, will determine how the public perceives you. Ignoring one or more groups can create problems that will cause a negative impact on your business.<br />IMC Advertising & Design will help you manage those relationships. Through research and planning we will help you solve PR problems, take advantage of opportunities, and manage the issues that may affect your business in the future.<br />PR and IMC: The Benefits of Integration<br />Public relations....integration....marketing.....advertising.....How do these relate? The debate goes on, as it has for the last five years or so more, with arguments about silos, prisoners of professionalism, and marketing imperialism. The discussion has focused on what marketing has learned (or borrowed) from PR as well as who should lead and who follows and whether PR is being subsumed under marketing. These discussions are not only becoming boring, they are counter productive.<br />What has been missing in this discussion is a view of what integrated marketing communication (or integrated communication, total communication, etc.) can bring to public relations and how public relations practitioners can use IMC to develop more effective and efficient programming.<br />As IMC has evolved during the 1990s, it has developed its own approach to holistic communication. It is not just marketing communication revised with warmed over PR concepts like relationships and stakeholders. Something new and different is growing from the amalgamation of public relations, marketing, advertising, and promotion and this new tree is becoming identifiable as a separate species with its own theories and practices.<br />The University of Colorado, for example, has one of the first two IMC graduate programs in the U.S. A number of models are being developed there by Tom Duncan, the director of the program, and his faculty that help to explain IMC and move forward both theory development and practical application. Of particular interest to public relations practitioners are Duncan's IMC Message Typology, the IMC Synergy Model, his approach to zero-based planning, and the IMC Audit. These theories and practices should be of interest to most public relations practitioners and they should be of particular concern to corporate communication managers.<br />Ans 3. Event Management<br />Ans 4. Publicity is the deliberate attempt to manage the public's perception of a subject. The subjects of publicity include people (for example, politicians and performing artists), goods and services, organizations of all kinds, and works of art or entertainment.<br />From a marketing perspective, publicity is one component of promotion which is one component of marketing. The other elements of the promotional mix areadvertising, sales promotion, and personal selling. Promotion But the publicist cannot wait around for the news to present opportunities. They must also try to create their own news. Examples of this include:<br />Art exhibitions<br />Event sponsorship<br />Arrange a speech or talk<br />Make an analysis or prediction<br />Conduct a poll or survey<br />Issue a report<br />Take a stand on a controversial subject<br />Arrange for a testimonial<br />Announce an appointment<br />Invent then present an award<br />Stage a debate<br />Organize a tour of your business or projects<br />Issue a commendation<br />The advantages of publicity are low cost, and credibility (particularly if the publicity is aired in between news stories like on evening TV news casts). New technologies such as weblogs, web cameras, web affiliates, and convergence (phone-camera posting of pictures and videos to websites) are changing the cost-structure. The disadvantages are lack of control over how your releases will be used, and frustration over the low percentage of releases that are taken up by the media.<br />Publicity draws on several key themes including birth, love, and death. These are of particular interest because they are themes in human lives which feature heavily throughout life. In television serials several couples have emerged during crucial ratings and important publicity times, as a way to make constant headlines. Also known as a publicity stunt, the pairings may or may not be according to the fact.<br />Ans 5. Corporate Advertising<br /> Corporate advertising is a promotional strategy that is designed to not only interest consumers in products and services offered by the company, but also to cultivate a positive reputation among consumers and others within the business world. The focus of corporate advertising is on the company itself, with the attention to the products produced by the corporation being a byproduct of the advertising effort. This type of corporate marketing is often employed along with advertising campaigns that are directly focused on the goods and services produced by the company.<br />The main function of corporate advertising is to generate and enhance a sense of confidence and appeal among vendors and consumers. Depending on the exact nature of the corporatemarketing approach, the advertising may also be developed with an eye of enhancing the reputation of the company among its peers in a community or within a given sector of the marketplace. In any application, the idea is to build the most agreeable public image for the corporation as possible.<br />Ans 6. Direct Marketing<br />Direct marketing is a channel-agnostic form of advertising that allows businesses and nonprofits to communicate straight to the customer, with advertising techniques such as mobile messaging, email, interactive consumer websites, online display ads, fliers, catalog distribution, promotional letters, and outdoor advertising.<br />Direct marketing messages emphasize a focus on the customer, data, and accountability. Characteristics that distinguish direct marketing are:<br />Marketing messages are addressed directly to customers. With the evolution into digital marketing channels, this addressability comes in a variety of forms including email addresses, mobile phone numbers, and Web browser cookies.<br />Direct marketing seeks to drive a specific quot;
call to action.quot;
For example, an advertisement may ask the prospect to call a free phone number or click on a link to a website.<br />Direct marketing emphasizes trackable, measurable responses from customers — regardless of medium.<br />Direct marketing is practiced by businesses of all sizes — from the smallest start-up to the leaders on the Fortune 500. A well-executed direct advertising campaign can prove a positive return on investment by showing how many potential customers responded to a clear call-to-action. General advertising eschews calls-for-action in favor of messages that try to build prospects’ emotional awareness or engagement with a brand. Even well-designed general advertisements rarely can prove their impact on the organization’s bottom line.<br />The Growth of Direct MarketingDirect marketing growth (in terms of spending, revenue generated, and employment) has outpaced total economic growth.Continued growth will come fromNumber of consumers with Internet accessNumber of businesses with websitesElectronic commerce offerings .B. The Value of Direct MarketingConsumerbenefitsdon’t have to go to a storeshop 24 hourssave timeavoid hassles with salespeoplesave moneyfun and entertainingPrivacyCustomer service suchToll-free numbersRepresentatives with access to information about purchase preferencesOvernight delivery servicesUnconditional guarantees.SellerBenefitsDirect orders: From offers with all the information necessary for a prospect to make a decision and complete the transaction.Lead generation: From offers designed to generate interest in a product or service and a request for additional information.Traffic generation: From offers designed to motivate people to visit a business.C. Technological Issues in Direct MarketingDatabasesdemographic, media, and consumption profiles of customersAllow direct marketing to specific customers.Data must beunbiased,timely,pertinent,accessible, andorganized to lead managers to decisionsSome data must be collected in consumers’ homesOther data are available from businesses.Technology such as optical scanners helps collect data with as little intrusion on the customer as possible.D. Global Issues in Direct MarketingGlobal growth of direct marketing may depend on technology.Reliable physical delivery is necessaryPayment is an issue.Fewer consumers have credit cards,Alternatives (C.O.D., bank deposits) are needed..E. Ethical Issues in Direct MarketingTelephone calls during the dinner hour.SPAM - the proliferation of e-mail advertising.Legislatures are also taking an interestinput from consumersinput from governmentsinput from direct marketing associations.<br /> <br />Ans 7. promotion - personal selling<br />Introduction<br />Personal selling can be defined as follows:<br />Personal selling is oral communication with potential buyers of a product with the intention of making a sale. The personal selling may focus initially on developing a relationship with the potential buyer, but will always ultimately end with an attempt to quot;
close the salequot;
<br />Personal selling is one of the oldest forms of promotion. It involves the use of a sales force to support a push strategy (encouraging intermediaries to buy the product) or a pull strategy (where the role of the sales force may be limited to supporting retailers and providing after-sales service).<br />What are the main roles of the sales force?<br />Kotler describes six main activities of a sales force:(1) Prospecting - trying to find new customers<br />(2) Communicating - with existing and potential customers about the product range<br />(3) Selling - contact with the customer, answering questions and trying to close the sale<br />(4) Servicing - providing support and service to the customer in the period up to delivery and also post-sale<br />(5) Information gathering - obtaining information about the market to feedback into the marketing planning process<br />(6) Allocating - in times of product shortage, the sales force may have the power to decide how available stocks are allocatedWhat are the advantages of using personal selling as a means of promotion?<br />• Personal selling is a face-to-face activity; customers therefore obtain a relatively high degree of personal attention<br />• The sales message can be customised to meet the needs of the customer<br />• The two-way nature of the sales process allows the sales team to respond directly and promptly to customer questions and concerns<br />• Personal selling is a good way of getting across large amounts of technical or other complex product information<br />• The face-to-face sales meeting gives the sales force chance to demonstrate the product<br />• Frequent meetings between sales force and customer provide an opportunity to build good long-term relationships<br />Given that there are many advantages to personal selling, why do more businesses not maintain a direct sales force?<br />Main disadvantages of using personal selling<br />The main disadvantage of personal selling is the cost of employing a sales force. Sales people are expensive. In addition to the basic pay package, a business needs to provide incentives to achieve sales (typically this is based on commission and/or bonus arrangements) and the equipment to make sales calls (car, travel and subsistence costs, mobile phone etc).<br />In addition, a sales person can only call on one customer at a time. This is not a cost-effective way of reaching a large audience.<br />Ans 8. . Push & Pull Strategies<br />A push–pull system in business describes the movement of a product or information between two subjects. On markets the consumers usually quot;
pullsquot;
the goods or information they demand for their needs, while the offerers or suppliers quot;
pushesquot;
them toward the consumers. In logistic chains or supply chains the stages are operating normally both in push- and pull-manner.[5]Push production is based on forecast demand and pull production is based on actual or consumed demand. The interface between these stages is called the push–pull boundary or decoupling point<br />promotion- push and pull strategies<br />quot;
Push or Pullquot;
?<br />Marketing theory distinguishes between two main kinds of promotional strategy - quot;
pushquot;
and quot;
pullquot;
.<br />Push<br />A “push” promotional strategy makes use of a company's sales force and trade promotion activities to create consumer demand for a product.<br />The producer promotes the product to wholesalers, the wholesalers promote it to retailers, and the retailers promote it to consumers.<br />A good example of quot;
pushquot;
selling is mobile phones, where the major handset manufacturers such as Nokia promote their products via retailers such as Carphone Warehouse. Personal selling and trade promotions are often the most effective promotional tools for companies such as Nokia - for example offering subsidies on the handsets to encourage retailers to sell higher volumes.<br />A quot;
pushquot;
strategy tries to sell directly to the consumer, bypassing other distribution channels (e.g. selling insurance or holidays directly). With this type of strategy, consumer promotions and advertising are the most likely promotional tools.<br />Pull<br />A “pull” selling strategy is one that requires high spending on advertising and consumer promotion to build up consumer demand for a product.<br />If the strategy is successful, consumers will ask their retailers for the product, the retailers will ask the wholesalers, and the wholesalers will ask the producers.<br />A good example of a pull is the heavy advertising and promotion of children's’ toys – mainly on television. Consider the recent BBC promotional campaign for its new pre-school programme – the Fimbles. Aimed at two to four-year-olds, 130 episodes of Fimbles have been made and are featured everyday on digital children's channel CBeebies and BBC2.<br />As part of the promotional campaign, the BBC has agreed a deal with toy maker Fisher-Price to market products based on the show, which it hopes will emulate the popularity of the Tweenies. Under the terms of the deal, Fisher-Price will develop, manufacture and distribute a range of Fimbles products including soft, plastic and electronic learning toys for the UK and Ireland.<br />Ans 9 Internet marketing, also known as digital marketing, web marketing, online marketing, search marketing or e-marketing, is referred to as the marketing(generally promotion) of products or services over the Internet. iMarketing is used as an abbreviated form for Internet Marketing [1]<br />Internet marketing is considered to be broad in scope[1] because it not only refers to marketing on the Internet, but also includes marketing done via e-mail and wireless media.[2] Digital customer data and electronic customer relationship management (ECRM) systems are also often grouped together under internet marketing.[3]<br />Internet marketing ties together the creative and technical aspects of the Internet, including design, development, advertising, and sales.[4] Internet marketing also refers to the placement of media along many different stages of the customer engagement cycle through search engine marketing (SEM), and Web 2.0 strat<br />Ans 10. <br />New media marketing is a relatively new concept used by businesses in developing an online community, which allows satisfied customers to congregate and extol the virtues of a particular brand. In most cases, the online community includes mechanisms such as blogs, podcasts, message boards, product reviews and Wikipedia, all of which contribute to a transparent forum to post praises, criticisms, questions, and suggestions.<br />One of the primary arguments to promote new media marketing is the premise that traditional advertising is losing its influence on consumers. Backed by statistical evidence demonstrating a growing trend of consumers making purchasing decisions off Internet research and referrals. These advocates strongly adhere to the notion that consumers are more inclined to believe feedback from like-minded peers than corporate marketing verbiage dispersed through traditional television, radio, direct mail, or newspaper advertising.<br />