Promotional Mix

A promotional mix is an amalgamation of marketing techniques to promote a product or service. It is used to reach a wider audience. The aim is to increase brand awareness, regulate product revenue, and meet sales targets.

It is an integrated method that uses different tools to grow and achieve marketing targets. There are five promotion mix elements—direct marketing, sales, personal selling, public relations, and advertising. Every business would benefit from the increased promotion, but marketing budgets and the availability of resources are the limiting factors.

• A promotional mix combines marketing tools and techniques to attain brand awareness, sales, product promotion, or any other marketing objective.
• A particular product meets consumer needs. But, unless the consumer is aware of the manufacturer or product, there would be no sales. Therefore, a promotional mix is an indispensable component of the business.
• Based on brand perception, the promotional strategy is tweaked. Customer perception is the deciding factor behind a brand's being liked, talked about, or consumed.

The promotional mix is an aggregation of marketing strategies. The aim is to increase brand awareness, regulate revenue, and meet sales targets. In a competitive market, promotion is tricky. The end game in marketing is customer decision. But, if a customer has too many similar alternatives, creating an impact through marketing becomes an uphill task.

In a way, every company attempts a combination of promotional strategies. But, marketing budgets and availability of resources are the limiting factors. Some business owners opt for increased marketing expenditure, while others try to cut marketing costs.

To understand promotion, we must first examine its purpose. Consumers have needs. Now, let us assume that a particular product meets those needs. But, unless the consumer is aware of the manufacturer or product, there would be no sales. Therefore, brand awareness and promotion are indispensable components in business. This is especially the case for startups.

Brand Awareness is a measure of brand recall and brand recognition. Brand awareness is the much-needed feedback for existing marketing campaigns and advertising.

Further, based on the brand perception, the promotional strategy is tweaked. Brand awareness dictates customer loyalty, popularity, and sales. Customer perception is the deciding factor behind a particular brand being liked, talked about, and consumed more than its substitute in the market.

Promotional mix elements are as follows.

#1 Advertising

It uses mass communication—radio, newspaper, television ads, magazines, and billboards. Advertising is an element of promotion that transfers open, non-personal messages to sell a product or service to a wide audience. It can increase profits and market share.

But conventional advertising can be an expensive affair. Every business allocates a predetermined marketing budget—only a percentage is reserved for advertising. Therefore, businesses combine it with other means of communication, like personal selling, influencer marketing, and social media campaigns.

#2 Sales

Sales strategies grab customers’ attention via discounts, offers, free services, flash mobs, gifts, and trade shows. Customers receive short-term incentives from the distribution channels (suppliers, dealers, retailers, etc.)

#3 Public Relations

A firm’s PR department facilitates long-term relationships with the public, customers, intermediaries, suppliers, distributors, and retailers. Publicity comes under the purview of PR. This promotional mix element builds trust and goodwill in the target market.

#4 Personal Selling

The term ‘personal selling’ refers to a face-to-face selling process; a firm’s salesperson interacts with a potential customer in person. This strategy is effective but also expensive.

#5 Direct marketing

When customers get a chance to interact with the business directly, they trust those brands more. Data plays a huge role in the promotional mix in the internet era. Firms compile important customer data—email addresses, phone numbers, fax, or social media platforms.

In direct marketing, the company uses compiled data to contact customers. This strategy eliminates unnecessary intermediaries—the firm gains control over sales processes.

Let us look at some promotional mix examples to understand the practical application of this strategy.

Example #1

Frank lives in a small town; he owns a shoe company. These shoes are designed for sports and the gym. Despite manufacturing quality goods, Frank struggles with sales.

Frank attempts to improve promotion. After elaborate research and brainstorming, Frank decides to contact local gyms. Gym owners start displaying Frank’s products on the main counter.

In addition, the firm opts for influencer marketing. They contact the town’s popular fitness trainer. The influencer agrees to the proposition. After signing the deal, the influencer starts wearing Frank's gear in training and videos.

Word spread among the gym members and the influencer's followers. There was a steep rise in demand for Frank’s shoes.

Example #2

Narcissa started a soft drink company in her town. She is financially sound and wants to promote her soft drink brand aggressively.

Narcissa opts for a promotional mix—newspaper ads, social media campaigns, billboards, influencer marketing, and audio ads. Narcissa tries to create brand recall among prospective customers.

This approach is very expensive and is the most likely strategy to create rapid growth. Narcissa’s objective is that everyone in the town must try her brand at least once.

The over-the-top approach works. Along with publicity, her new brand registers exponential sales growth. In addition, Narcissa monitors individual strategies; she cuts underperforming elements of the promotional mix. In addition, she doubles up on strategies that work.

The advantages and disadvantages of the promotional mix are as follows:

• It creates awareness among potential customers for the product or service.  
• The promotional mix enhances goodwill, trust, and brand recognition.
• The product or service reaches a wide target audience—potentially creating a customer base.  
• It enhances sales figures—creates demand for the product.
• It facilitates long-term relationships.
• Promotion helps established firms increase their market share.

Now the disadvantages:

• When a firm attempts the promotional mix, marketing budgets skyrocket; not everyone can afford that.
• Promotion is not a unique feature. If a firm’s competitors also spend on promotion, the message becomes repetitive for the customers. They are unable to differentiate between two alternatives.
• An increase in promotion does not directly result in increased sales. Firms need to monitor each strategy individually and make changes.
• Aggressive promotion can backfire. Consumers can get annoyed if they are exposed to the same message repetitively. More importantly, a business may not always recover the heavy expenditure on promotion.

• The promotional mix enhances sales and demand, and the marketing mix helps in product promotion and customer satisfaction.
• The former comprises five different elements. In contrast, the latter comprises seven elements: price, product, place, promotion, process, people, and physical evidence.
• The former focuses on marketing objectives; the latter caters to multiple goals—the overall marketing of a product.
• The former is streamlined, and the latter is generalized. The promotional mix is a part of the marketing mix.

This article has been a guide to what is Promotional Mix. Here, we explain its elements, examples, advantages, disadvantages, and comparison with the marketing mix. You can learn more about it from the following articles -

• Electronic Commerce
• Internal Marketing
• Social Marketing