Effective Promotions

Effectively promoting your product or good marketing requires much more than just developing a product that is good, attractively pricing it and then placing it so that it is readily and easily available. Good marketing requires you to effectively communicate with all of your targeted customers both potential and current. This communication brings about and encourages consumption or the purchase of the products and services. Effective promotions require good marketing and vice versa.

Crucial to the success of the marketing plan is that good promotion and effective marketing of your services and products must happen during every stage of the buying or consumption process. This includes the pre-selling, selling, consumption and post-consumption stages of this buying process. This can happen during any one or a combination of the following processes of communication:

Advertising – this is any compensated form of presentation (non-personal) and promotion of your products

Sales promotion – this comprises various short-term incentives that encourage trial or the actual purchase of a product or service

Public relations and publicity – various programs that are designed to promote a business’s product or service and/or to protect its image

Personal selling – this includes face to face interaction with one or more potential buyers for the purpose of presenting, answering questions and/or taking orders

Direct (and interactive) marketing – this is using mail, flyers, telephones, faxes, e-mail services, SMS texting or the Internet to communicate with or to encourage a response or begin a dialogue with specific or potential customers



The marketer or his company must also communicate with customers in other ways including but not limited to the non-verbal mannerisms, the way the staff dresses and conducts itself, the impression and décor of the office, the external facilities of the building, etc. All of these things comprise the total package of the company or business and are things that potential customers can and do take into consideration.

To achieve optimum results for your marketing plan, your promotional mix should always be integrated with as many forms of communication as possible plus the other three P’s in the marketing mix (price, product and place).

Learning how to effectively promote your product or service can take both time and practice. Many businesses opt to hire professionals to assist them with this endeavor while other businesses do it themselves. It is always best to leave these things up to professionals if you are doubtful that you can handle the task yourself.