In marketing, the term promotion can be broadly defined as any and all activities that create awareness, trial or usage of a product or brand. Many people use the terms marketing, promotion, and advertising interchangeably, although distinct, overlapping actions occur within those functions.
Marketing
Marketing exists to achieve the sales goal of a business or product. Marketing has four main components: product, price, distribution (or place), and promotion. Strategy development in marketing touches on each of these four areas and aligns with the objectives and goals for the planning season.
Promotion
As one of the major prongs of marketing, promotion includes the disciplines of advertising, public relations, and sales promotion. All of these activities are designed to generate sales for the product and are usually used in conjunction with a comprehensive promotion plan.
Advertising
Advertising is distinguished from the other disciplines of promotion because it is a paid form of mass communication. Advertising can take the form of television, radio, print (magazines and newspapers), outdoor billboards, and Internet placements. Advertising costs include those associated with development of concepts, testing of advertising, production of finished materials, and the planning and buying of media space.
The Internet has become a significant destination for advertising, and a lot of money has moved from traditional advertising channels such as newspapers and magazines onto the Internet. Both the print and radio industries have been hard-hit by the growth of the Internet, with many traditional media folding as advertisers follow consumers whose media habits have changed to include more and more online time.
Public Relations
Public Relations or PR is a nonpaid form of mass communication. Businesses work with PR specialists to develop feature articles and product announcements with the hope of those articles interesting a media outlet enough to get picked up and placed in the outlet. Media outlets need news and information so there is a reciprocal relationship between public relations and the media.
Sales Promotion
Sales promotion activities are characterized as aggressive techniques used to spur sales for a product. Sales promotion might include coupons, price-offs, and point-of-sale collateral (or checkout area promotional materials). The key defining difference in a sales promotion activity is that it is limited in terms of its exposure and availability.
Sales promotion activities have defined starts and endings. Action verbs such as "Hurry," "For a Limited Time Only," and "One-Day Sale" are all sales promotion catchphrases designed to get immediate sales to demonstrate a spike in unit or dollar volume over normal expected levels.
Tags: form mass, form mass communication, marketing promotion, mass communication, promotion activities