Marketing Essentials

Chapter 17: Promotional Concepts and Strategies

Chapter Summaries

Section 17.1

• Businesses use promotion to inform people about products and services, enhance their public image and reputation, and persuade people their products are valuable. Nonprofit organizations use promotion to educate the public or advocate for change.
• Promotion is any form of communication a business uses to inform, persuade, or remind people about its products and its image. The five basic categories of promotion are personal selling, advertising, direct marketing, sales promotion, and public relations.
• Public relations fosters a favorable image about a business, its products, or its policies. Publicity tries to place positive information about a business in the media. It is not advertising because it is free.
• The promotional mix is a combination of strategies and the allocation of resources to reach promotional goals.

Section 17.2

• A sales promotion is a short-term incentive given to encourage consumers to buy a product or service. Sales promotions can be classified either as trade promotions or consumer sales promotions.
• Promotional tie-ins are sales promotional arrangements between one or more retailers or manufacturers. Trade sales promotions are activities that are designed to get support for a product from manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers. Most of the promotion budget is directed at businesses, rather than consumers. Loyalty marketing programs reward customers for repeatedly patronizing a company.