Promoting a New Product

Knowledge about products, services, and ideas does not spontaneously reach those for whom it is intended. No matter how good the product, how valuable the service, or how sensible the idea, its creation or existence will remain unknown without deliberate effort to make the information available. It is the job of promotion to persuade the world.

Promotion not only persuades but also provides information. However, its emphasis must be on persuasion, which is the ultimate objective of promotion whether we are dealing with products, services, or ideas. But to say the purpose of promotion is to persuade does not mean using unethical practices. Not only are such practices morally wrong, they are not a good strategy!

Promotion is a legitimate tool of business in every sense of the word. It is a necessary function of any organization that wishes to survive. If the promotion is unsuccessful, that organization does not survive.

Promotion is rooted in the marketing function. The basic idea behind the ‘marketing concept’ – that you make what you can sell rather than sell what you make – does not mean that your product will sell all by itself. Even a good, attractively priced product that clearly satisfies a need has to be made known to its target customers. During the introduction and growth stages of the standard product life cycle, the producer (or importer, and so on) has to develop product or brand awareness, i.e. inform potential customers (and distributors, dealers and retailers) about the product’s existence, its features, its advantages, and so on.

There is a conception of marketing mix. The marketing mix was suggested by professor E. Jerome McCarthy in the 1960s. The conception consists of four basic elements called the four Ps. Product is the first P representing the actual product. Price represents the process of determining the value of a product. Place represents the variables of getting the product to the consumer. The last P stands for Promotion which is the process of reaching the target market and convincing them to go out and buy the product. According to this conception, developing product or brand awareness is clearly a matter of promotion.

Promotion is a system whose components consist of advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, and public relations. These are the tools of the promotion manager.

Advertising is any non-personal paid form of communication using any kind of mass media to persuade people to take some action with respect to products, ideas or services.

Public relations (often abbreviated to PR) means relating to the public in a way that wins its appreciation. It involves goodwill and community awareness. The most important element of PR is publicity.

Sales promotion is short-term incentives to stimulate either earlier or stronger sales of a product or service.

Personal selling is a promotional activity of persuading a potential buyer - an individual or a group - by a selling agent (selling a product or service one to one).

All promotional efforts aim to increase sales. While advertising and sales promotion do this directly, publicity and public relations influence sales indirectly, by encouraging the buyer to think highly of a company or its products. Most people would rather buy from a person or company they ‘like’ even if they don’t know them personally.

Used in combination, these components are referred to as the promotion mix. Like the marketing mix, the promotion mix must reflect a proper ratio of the components. There is no best component; nor is there any generally accepted best combination of components. Rarely is one tool used without the others. Effective promotional strategy generally requires the use of all the components.