Objective

Understand and incorporate the various elements that constitute Promotion within your marketing plan.

Overview

Marketing Planning Document 8 explores Promotion - the final "P" of marketing. As an aside, promotion is what most people think of when they think of marketing. 

Part One: Introduction

Introduce Marketing Planning Document 8 by explaining what promotion is and the role it plays within the 4Ps of marketing.

Part Two: Resources

Review what you learned in Lessons 12-15 about the various forms of promotion, including content from your textbook and online course material. Note: Be sure to incorporate insights you gained from the Practice Marketing demo - Promotion. You are also encouraged to conduct independent research to enrich your own learning. Please remember to cite your work properly.

Part Three: Prompts and Guiding Questions

Please answer the following prompts and guiding questions relating to promotion:

As you begin thinking about promotion of your product, you must first understand and agree upon what the goal(s) of the promotion you are trying to create?

• Are you trying to inform, persuade, remind or connect?

Once you have decided on the goal(s) of your promotion, you are ready to dive into developing your promotional mix in order to reach your target market. Your promotional mix should include advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, direct marketing, and social media.

According to Lamb, Hair, and McDaniel, âthe ultimate goal of any promotion is to get someone to buy a good or serviceâ (p. 258). As such, use the Hierarchy of Effects Model to develop a strategy for reaching your promotional goal(s).

• While you are developing your promotional mix, make sure the message reaching the consumer is the same regardless of the promotional medium. In other words, employ an integrated marketing communication (IMC) strategy while working through the Hierarchy of Effects Model.
• You should also address any factors that might affect your promotional mix (i.e., Nature of the Product, Stages in the Product Life Cycle, Target Market Characteristics, Types of Buying Decisions, Available Funds, and/or Push and Pull Strategies).

Donât forget about your salesforce.

• If your ultimate goal is to sell something and your company utilizes a salesforce, how will your promotional mix generate leads for your salesforce?

Social media is changing the marketing landscape.

• Be sure to discuss how you are using social media to connect with your customers and how social media fits within your overall marketing plan.

When developing the promotional mix section of your marketing plan, please be as specific as possible. Donât just say that you are developing an advertisement. Instead (using the Hierarchy of Effects Model) explain what type of advertisement you plan to use:

• Highlight key concepts within your advertising campaign (i.e., message and USP).
• What media types will you use (and why are you using them), etc.

If you are feeling super creative and ambitious, provide me an example (i.e., create an actual ad or press release for your campaign). You never know, bonus points may be rewarded for such ambition! Be creative and have fun!

Part Four: Final Artifact and Reflection

Summarize the considerations your team made when developing your promotional strategy (i.e., summarize the work you did in Part Three into a cohesive paragraph describing how you plan to promote the product you are marketing). Conclude your planning document by providing insights you gained from this assignment that you had not initially gleaned from the course material or textbook reading.