Promotion can be a touchy subject. We can sometimes worry about coming on too strong. We may, in fact, target the wrong consumer for our message or misunderstand how to appeal to them. In doing so we may lose sales and market share in the process. In this post, you will discover some tips and tricks to avoid that and ensure that your promotional efforts are not in vain. To find out more just keep reading.
Your consumer and promotional goals
Loyal consumers These are the consumers that will always choose your brand and your products. You want to keep buying, buy more and not always buy at the same times of the year. Use: loyalty cards, bonus packs, and exclusive member-only sales
Competitors Customers These are the consumers who will always choose your competitors brand and their products> You want them to switch allegiance and buy your products instead. Use: trials, contests, and freebies
Brand Switchers These are the consumers who buy from several an assortment of brands and your products might be among their selection. You want them to choose you more often and keep making that choice. Use: discounts, bonus offers and exclusive offers only available through a specific point of sale
Price Buyers These consumers are your bargain hunters. They aren’t swayed by gimmicks and will see the price first at all times. Use: discounts, money back guarantees, coupons
Types of advertising
The most common types of advertising you might use are institutional, product, pioneering or comparative advertising. You will often see banks and credit unions using institutional advertising to advertise themselves. Cereals brands or vitamin companies may be the most relevant examples of product advertising. Unusual or innovative technologies like electric cars will use pioneering advertising to stand out. The most prominent example of comparative advertising would be supermarkets, for example, Aldi vs Coles or Woolworths. Irrespective of the type of advertising used all advertising is intended to appeal to nine unique needs.
Advertising appeals These nine needs are as follows: 1) Profit or more specifically to save money 2) Health or more specifically to stay healthy and fit 3) Love or romance or more specifically to gain or keep it 4) Fear or more specifically a fear of losing something 5) Admiration or more specifically our desire to emulate someone else 6) Convenience or more specifically our lack of patience 7) Fun and pleasure 8) Vanity and egotism or more specifically our desire to show off 9) Environmental consciousness or more specifically our eco and community-mindedness (Lamb et al, 2016, p. 219)
Delivery style These needs will be met by crafting and delivering an ad that answers those needs. This is achieved through one of ten methods and sometimes even more than one at a time. These ten methods are: 1) Slice-of-life e.g. someone using a dishwasher capsule convenience 2) Lifestyle e.g. hands-free voice-controlled home devices convenience 3) Spokesperson/testimonial e.g. Optus and Usain Bolt admiration 4) Fantasy e.g. Old Spice and their ‘The Man Your Man Should Smell Like’ ad fantasy & humour 5) Humorous see above 6) Real/animated product symbols e.g. Bundaberg Rum bear 7) Mood or image e.g. designer perfume ads love or romance 8) Demonstration e.g. stain removers or laundry detergents convenience 9) Musical e.g. Apple iPod “Are You Going To Be My Girl?” 10) Scientific e.g. toothpaste ads
Media Types
So, we covered the type of consumer you might be looking to promote your product too. We’ve also covered the types of advertising that exist, the different way to appeal to your target audience and how you might go about delivering your advert to appeal to those consumer needs. Now we must apply all this information using different types of media. This process occurs in three stages: 1) Feasibility where all media types are considered; 2) Efficiency: where all feasible media types are considered; 3) Effectiveness: where all feasible and sustainable media types are considered; and finally we end up with all the feasible, sustainable and effective media types (De Simone D’Avino, Schiraldi & Iannucci, 2015, p. 12). The media types fit into three different categories that we will discuss below:
Traditional These include: - Outdoor advertising like billboards - Newspaper - Magazines - Radio - TV - Mobile (SMS)
Web 1.0 These include: - Sponsorship - Display Ads for example banner ads that appear on websites or social media - Rich Media for example ads with video or audio elements - Direct Mail for e-mail advertising - SEO & SEM (search engine optimisation and marketing) using pay-per-click ads
Web 2.0 These include: - Blogging - Social Media - Digital Video - Mobile App
We may discover (see: the table below) than that some media types are not expensive and yet have high impact and others might be extremely expensive and have very little impact. This is why we must choose our media types wisely.
Table One: Impact/cost evaluation matrix (De Simone et al., 2016, p.11)
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References:
De Simone, V. D’Avino, M. Schiraldi, M.M. and Iannucci, M. 2015, ‘Guidelines for e-Startup Promotion Strategy’, Journal of Technology Management & Innovation, vol. 10, iss. 1, pp. 1-16, viewed 29 March 2019, https://www.jotmi.org/index.php/GT/article/view/1613/944
Lamb, C.W. Hair, J.F. McDaniel, C. Summers, J. and Gardiner, M. 2016, MKTG3 3rd Asia Pacific Edition, Cengage Learning Australia Pty Ltd, South Melbourne >
In this article, we have discussed types of consumers, how to appeal to them, and what media we should consider to best reach them. We’ve seen that depending on the type of consumer our ads may fall flat because we are not appealing to the right need and or aren’t executing it correctly. We’ve also seen that although there are a plethora of media types to choose from they are not all created equal and we must consider the relationship between cost and impact to truly evaluate the effectiveness of our promotional strategy.
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