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Chapter 14
Communications and the
Promotional Mix
How Do We Get There?
CHAPTER OBJECTIVES REVIEW
1. Define the term promotional mix.
The promotional mix is the combination of
advertising, personal selling, sales promotion,
merchandising, and public relations and publicity approaches used for a specific period of
time.
2. List the five elements of the promotional
mix.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
Advertising
Personal selling
Sales promotion
Merchandising
Public relations and publicity
3. List and explain the nine elements of the
communications process.
a.
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
g.
h.
i.
Source: The person or organization that
transmits the information to customers.
Encoding: Arranging a message into words,
pictures, colors, sounds, movements, or
even body language.
Message: What the source wants to communicate and hopes that the receivers
understand.
Medium: The communications channel that
the source selects to pass the message to
receivers.
Decoding: How the receiver interprets a
message received from the source.
Noise: Factors that distract the receiver’s
attention from the message being communicated by the source.
Receiver: The person who notices or hears
the source’s message.
Response: The action that the receiver takes
after noticing or hearing the source’s message.
Feedback: The response message that the
receiver transmits back to the source.
4. Explain the difference between explicit and
implicit communications.
Explicit communications are definite messages
that are given to customers through the use of
language, either oral (e.g., television, radio,
telephone, or personal sales) or written (e.g.,
direct mail, the Internet, ad copy, sales proposals).
Implicit communications are cues or messages
through body language and other nonverbal
means (e.g., prices, rates, or fares).
5. List the three principal goals of promotion.
a. Inform
b. Persuade
c. Remind
6. Explain the relationship of the promotional
mix and the marketing mix.
The promotional mix is one of eight elements
of the marketing mix. It represents one of the
8 Ps—promotion.
7. Define the terms advertising, personal selling,
sales promotion, merchandising, public relations, and publicity.
a.
Advertising: Paid, nonpersonal communication through various media by business
firms, nonprofit organizations, and individuals who are in some way identified in
the advertising message and who hope to
inform and/or persuade members of a
particular audience.
b. Personal selling: Oral conversations, either
by telephone or face-to-face, between
salespersons and prospective customers.
c. Sales promotion: Approaches other than
advertising, personal selling, and public
relations and publicity where customers
are given a short-term inducement to purchase.
d. Merchandising: Materials used in-house to
stimulate sales.
© 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible Website, in whole or in part.
e.
f.
Public relations: All the activities that an
organization engages in to maintain or
improve its relationships with other
organizations or individuals.
Publicity: A public relations technique that
involves nonpaid communication of information about an organization’s services.
8. List the advantages and disadvantages of
each of the five promotional mix elements.
Advantages
Advertising
a. Low cost per contact
b. Ability to reach customers where salespersons cannot
c. Great scope for creative versatility and
dramatization
d. Ability to create images that salespersons
cannot
e. Nonthreatening nature of nonpersonal
presentation
f. Potential to repeat message several times
g. Prestige and impressiveness of massmedia advertising
Personal selling
a. Ability to close sales
b. Ability to hold the customer’s attention
c. Immediate feedback and two-way communications
d. Presentations tailored to individual needs
e. Ability to target customers precisely
f. Ability to cultivate relationships
g. Ability to get immediate action
Sales promotion
a. Ability to provide quick feedback
b. Ability to add excitement to a service or
product
c. Additional ways to communicate with
customers
d. Flexible timing
e. Efficiency
Merchandising
a. Ability to provide quick feedback
b. Ability to add excitement to a service or
product
c. Additional ways to communicate with
customers
d. Flexible timing
e. Stimulation of impulse purchases and
higher per capita spending
b. Effective because they are not seen as commercial messages
c. Credibility and implied endorsements
d. Prestige and impressiveness of massmedia coverage
e. Added excitement and dramatization
f. Maintenance of a public presence
Disadvantages
Advertising
a. Inability to close sales
b. Advertising clutter
c. Customer’s ability to ignore advertising
messages
d. Difficulty getting immediate response or
action
e. Inability to get quick feedback and to
adjust message
f. Difficulty measuring advertising effectiveness
g. Relatively high waste factor
Personal selling
a. High cost per contact
b. Inability to reach some customers as effectively
Sales promotion
a. Short-term benefits
b. Ineffective in building long-term loyalty
for company or brand
c. Inability to be used on its own in the long
term without other promotional mix elements
d. Often misused
Merchandising
a. Does not necessarily give the customer a
financial incentive
b. Ineffective in building long-term loyalty
for company or brand
c. Contributes to visual clutter
Public relations and publicity
a. Difficult to arrange consistently
b. Lack of control
9. Identify four factors that affect the promotional mix.
a.
b.
c.
d.
Target markets
Marketing objectives
Competition and promotional practices
Promotional budget available
Public relations and publicity
a. Low cost
© 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be scanned, copied or duplicated, or posted to a publicly accessible Website, in whole or in part.