How effective is Sales Promotion

tool for a successful Integrated

Marketing Communication?
A PRESENTATION BY SARAH SIDDIQUI & KIRAN NASEEM
INTEGRATED MARKETING
COMMUNICATION
Integrated marketing communications is the
INTRODUCTI process of conveying a unified message across
ON a variety of channels to drive higher customer
engagement for a company’s products and
solutions.
HISTORY
The term Integrated Marketing Communications was first coined
in 1989. Since that era, marketing communications has shifted
from a dominance of advertising. The American Association of
Advertising Associations (4 A’s) defined IMC as “an approach to
achieving the objectives of a marketing campaign through a

HISTORY well-coordinated use of different promotional methods that are

intended to reinforce each other.”

&
Evolution Evolution of IMC
 During the 1980s, many companies came to see the need
for more of a strategic integration of their promotional
tools
 To coordinate the use of a variety of promotional tools
rather than relying primarily on media advertising
 IMC offers one-stop shopping for all their clients’
promotional needs.
 People don’t buy products, they
buy brand
The Role of  Brand Equity & Brand Identity
IMC in  Edge to the companies in the Cut
Branding throat Competition
 Direct connect with the end
customer
Promotional tools are tactics or activities you plan
and execute to persuade consumers to buy your
products or services. As a consumer, you likely
partake of these activities yourself without
WHAT ARE realizing it; as a businessperson on the selling
PROMOTION side, finding effective tools is challenging. Try a
combination and make note of what works. If
AL TOOLS what you’re selling is fairly generic, your
promotional tools will typically be price-oriented,
such as discounts. If you are a specialized seller,
find tools other than price to persuade consumers
to buy.
Steps that need to occur:
 Exposure: Seeing/hearing communication

Information  Attention: Noticing communication

Processing  Comprehend: understanding the intended

message
Model of  Yielding and intentions: strong ad associations
Communications to turn comprehension into behavious
 Behaviour: action, needs to be motivated in
order to consider purchase
The six major Integrated Marketing Communication
tools are as follows:-

Advertising
Advertising refers to any paid form of non-personal promotion of
products or services by an identified sponsor. The various media used
are print (newspapers and magazines), broadcast (radio and television),
network (satellite, wireless and telephone), electronic (web page, audio

Integrated
and videotape) and display (billboards, signs and posters).The primary
advantage of advertising is that it reaches geographically dispersed

Marketing
consumers. Consumers generally tend to believe that a heavily
advertised brand must offer some ‘good value’ but at the same time,

Communication
advertising proves to be an expensive form of promotion.

Sales Promotion
Tools It is a variety of short-term incentives to encourage trial or purchase of
a product or service. It may include consumer promotions – focused
towards the consumer – such as a distribution of free samples, coupons,
offers on purchase of higher quantity, discounts and premiums or trade
promotions – focused on retailers – such as display and merchandising
allowances, volume discounts, pay for performance incentives and
incentives to salespeople.Sales promotion helps to draw the attention of
the consumers and offers an invitation to engage in a transaction by
giving various types of incentives.
Personal Selling
Face-To-Face interaction with one or more buyers for the
purpose of making presentations, answering questions and
taking orders. This proves to be the most effective tool in the
later stages of the buying process.The advantage is that the
message can be customized to the needs of the buyer and is
focused on building a long-term relationship with the buyer.

Integrated Public Relations

Marketing A variety of programs directed toward improving the

Communication relationship between the organisation and the public.

Advertising is a one-way communication whereas public
Tools relations is a two-way communication which can monitor
feedback and adjust its message for providing maximum
benefit. A common tool used here is publicity which capitalizes
on the news value of the product or service so that the
information can be disseminated to the news media.Articles in
the media prove to be more objective than advertisements and
enjoy high credibility. Also, it has the ability to reach the hard-
to-find consumers who avoid targeted communications.
Direct Marketing
Direct Marketing involves the use of mail, telephone, fax, e-mail, or
internet to communicate directly with or solicit response or dialogue
from specific customers or prospects. Shoppers have started relying
on credit cards and online purchasing more than ever which makes
it essential for marketers to approach the consumers directly thus

Integrated helping them in the purchase process.Companies have a database of

contact details of consumers through which they send catalogues

Marketing and other marketing material making it easier for the consumer to
purchase online. The relevance of direct marketing has increased in
Communication recent years.

Tools Events And Experiences

These are company sponsored activities and programs designed to
create brand-related interactions with customers. Sponsorships
improve the visibility of the company. Companies provide customers
with an experience of using the product which ends up leading to a
higher brand recall than competitors. These events prove to be
engaging with the audience.
IMC process consists of six steps outlined below:
1. Contextual or Situational Analysis :The first stage of the IMC planning process is to
conduct a situational/ contextual analysis. This can involve a SWOT analysis, and an
external and internal environmental analysis

2. .2. Target Markets :You need to decide who your target markets are, map them on
a demographic and psychographic level. Then you need to decide what the benefits
are to the consumer and why they would use the product.

3. 3. Communication Objectives : The third step of the IMC planning process is to

decide what the communication objectives are. These are objectives that your

Process of IMC company wants to communicate to the public and their target audience. Some
examples of these are;Develop brand awarenessChange customer beliefsEnhance

Programs 4.
brand imageIncrease salesReinforce purchase decisions

4. Budget : The types of budget that companies have can vary. These can be, a
percentage of sales, competitive partially, percentage of profit, a budget depending
on objectives and tasks and how much the company can afford.

5. 5. Marketing Mix Strategy : The marketing mix is selected in line with the
communication objectives and within lesion with the budget selected.

6. 6. Evaluating the Programme : The final step of the IMC planning process is
evaluating the programme. This can be done by certain social media metrics, by
analyzing online traffic with the use of Google analytics, by sales and social media
tools that allow you to track engagement with certain items.
 Coverage: What proportion of the target audience is reached
by each communication option employed? How much overlap
exists among options?
 Cost: What is the expense?Contribution: The collective effect
on brand equity in terms of– enhancing depth and breadth of
awareness– improving strength, favorability, and uniqueness
Evaluating IMC ofbrand associations

Programs  Commonality: The extent to which information conveyed by

different communication options share meaning
 Complementarity: The extent to which different associations
and linkages are emphasized across communication options•
 Versatility: The extent to which information contained in a
communication option works with different types of consumers
1. Different communications history 2. Different market
segments
DEFINITION
It is the process of persuading a potential customer to
buy the product. Sales promotion is designed to be used
as a short-term tactic to boost sales – it is rarely suitable
as a method of building long-term customer
loyalty.Some sales promotions are aimed at consumers.
Others are targeted at intermediaries and at the firm's
sales force.

Sales Promotion IMPORTANCE

Sales promotion is a handy technique to fulfil the short
term sales goals by persuading potential customers to
buy the product. It is an important promotional strategy
to –Spread information about the brand to new
customers or new marketStabilize sales volume and
fulfil short-term sales goalsStimulate demand for a short
term by making the product look like a great deal.
 To Create Market For New Products
It is sometimes hard to establish demand for a new product in a market of
similar products. In such cases, the company opt for increasing some sales
by using sales promotion strategies like penetration pricing, offers,
discounts, and scarcity principle.
 To Remain Competitive
Companies use temporary sales promotion techniques to compete with
competitor’s short term marketing strategies.

Objectives Of
 To Gain Dealers Trust
Sales promotion techniques increase the sales of the products. This

Sales increases dealers’ income and results in them preferring the brand more.

Promotion
 To Take Products To New Markets
New markets are often hard to enter. Sales promotion increases traction
and makes more customers try the new product.
 Increase Brand Awareness
It includes attractive incentives which help increase brand awareness,
which eventually leads to more sales.
 Woo Existing Customers
Sales promotion is also used to tackle the poaching strategies of
competitors and keep existing customers with the brand.
 Pull Strategy
The pull strategy attempts to get the customers to
‘pull’ the products from the company. It involves
making use of marketing communication and
initiatives like seasonal discounts, financial
schemes, etc.

Sales  Push Strategy

Promotion The push strategy attempts to push the product

away from the company to the customers. It
Strategies involves convincing the intermediary channels to
push the product from the distribution channels to
the final consumers using promotional and
personal selling efforts. This strategy involves
making use of tactics developed especially for
resellers, merchants, dealers, distributors, and
agents.
 Hybrid Strategy
A hybrid sales promotion strategy makes
use of both the pull and push strategy to
Sales sell the product with the least resistance
Promotion possible. It involves attracting the
Strategies customers using special coupons and also
providing incentives to the merchants to
sell the brand’s products.
 Free Samples
Distributing free samples increases brand awareness and triggers
the psychology of ownership where the person chooses the
promoted product if he liked the sample.Free Gifts – Offering free
gifts attract customers as they get more while paying for less.

Sales Promotion  Discounts/Discount Coupons

Techniques Discount coupons are a great method of increasing sales for the

Targeted To short term. People go for discount coupons as they let them buy the
products they couldn’t afford otherwise.
Consumers  Exchange Schemes
Exchange schemes attract many customers as they get some value
even for their old product.Finance Schemes – Finance schemes like
no-cost EMI, low-interest EMI, etc. makes it easier for customers to
purchase expensive products.
Shipping Schemes
Sometimes huge shipping costs discourage the
customers from buying products. Such short term
shipping schemes remove friction.

Sales Promotion Bundle Discounts

Techniques These deals are a great way to reduce unsold

inventory. It includes selling bundled products at a price
Targeted To lesser than when those number of products are bought

Consumers separately.

Bulk Purchase Deals

This is a great sales promotion tactic to reduce unsold
inventory. It includes providing discount to customers
who buy in bulk.
Black Friday Sale
Black Friday sale is a seasonal sale which occurs only
once a year. It involves huge discounts and special offers
which are limited to a day. As a result, it increases the
sales manifold.

Sales Buy One Get One

Buy One Get One (BOGO) is a popular type of sales promotion
Promotion where two products are offered at a price of one. This works

Examples great to promote a new product or clear the inventory at the

end of the season.

Referral Bonuses
Referral marketing is a great sales promotion strategy where the
company pushes its own customers to bring in new customers. This is
done by providing them with special discounts, offers, cashback, or
actual monetary benefits.