Let’s take a moment to look more closely at “Promotion,” one of the nine elements or components:

• Promotion:
  • Eight (8) major, strategic components: The communication elements include personal and non-personal communication activities.
  • The activities that communicate the merits of the overall product, which include:
    • Personal Selling/ Sales Force: Sales persons:
      • A special 2 Guyz on marketing tip: “Listen more than you talk. People who listen more, learn more, plus helps you position your service/product/solution or offering.”
    • Advertising: There’s an expression “It is only creative if it sells.” I wanted to add “It is only good media spending if it sells.”
    • Sales Promotion
    • Collateral Materials
    • Direct Marketing (also referred to as Action or Direct Response Advertising)
    • Interactive/Internet/Web, Digital Media, Social Media:
    • Events and Experiences
    • Public Relations/PR

Promotion is the “stuff” that lay people think about when we talk about marketing. There’s lots of creativity, ideas, and brainstorming. But The 2 Guyz teach it’s that and a lot more, too. Promotion is a critical strategic part of any company or brand’s marketing mix.

From The 2 Guyz on Marketing, here are some strategic questions to ask, as a business owner, brand manager or advertising professional, and all fall under Promotion:

• • • Have you noticed that you may watch what you want to watch in TV programing, when you want to watch it and anywhere, any screen? TV is still the largest single advertising media when you measure how many people are touched by a single message at a single time. All of these factors affect media planning.
    • Look at and evaluate the eight different elements under Promotion and your brand’s practices and ask is there a better way? Which of these eight ways works best, or which ones work well together?
    • What are your costs in dollars and manpower or person power, and be sure to ask, “Is there a different or better way or ways to budget to build awareness?”
    • Look at different strategic partners? How might their costs affect yours?
    • To whom should you target and promote? Under People/Targeting, target audience within media falls here.
    • What should you promote? What are strategic copy points.
    • Discounting? Special sales? What economic and discount levels should you offer? Look at revenue versus costs.
    • What form or combination of promotion should you offer? Features?

How frequent? Add media planning here. Great promotion placed in the wrong place is wasted effort. Lousy promotion in the best place is equally flawed. Good marketing and advertising is the blend of creating promotion and media planning that work together strategically. Brian of the 2 Guyz on Marketing preaches to his class that it’s both science and art together in a delicate balance to be successful.

We will do additional posts on media planning and we have a couple of videos out on media planning. Check out our YouTube channel for that.

For more Marketing insights, ideas, concepts and Marketing solutions: Go to Londremarketing.com and look under “Articles and Resources” and the 9P’s/Nine P’s ©2007. Specifically you will find them detailed at 9P’s/Nine P’s or Nine P’s/9P’s of Marketing.

*Created by Larry Steven Londre. Copyright 2007.