Promotion | Business Studies for GCSE/IGCSE - Year 11 PDF Download

The Aims of Promotion

• Promotion is vital for creating customer awareness, sparking interest, and cultivating desire for a product. 
  • It serves as a medium to convey a business's value proposition to potential customers, aiding in setting the product or business apart from competitors.

Aims of Promotion 

• Above-the-line promotion involves advertising through traditional mass media channels like television, radio, newspapers, magazines, and billboards. It aims to reach a wide audience effectively.
• Below-the-line promotion consists of marketing strategies that are directly controlled by a business and do not rely on mass media. This includes direct marketing, sales promotions, personal selling, and public relations (PR).

Types of Promotion

• Businesses have a variety of promotional tools and techniques at their disposal.  They need to choose the most suitable methods based on their product, target audience, and budget.

Evaluating the Different Promotional Methods

Spending the Marketing Budget Effectively

• A marketing budget outlines planned marketing expenditures for a specific timeframe. It assists businesses in determining the allocated amounts for advertising, sales promotions, and other promotional activities. This budget is crucial for evaluating the effectiveness of the marketing department.
• The size of a marketing budget can be determined through various methods, such as:
  • Utilizing market and competitor averages, for instance, by using a percentage of sales revenues.
  • Aligning with the business's marketing objectives, like determining the necessary spending to increase market share by a specified percentage.
  • Referencing figures from the previous year, adjusted for any changes in marketing strategies for the current year. For example, budget increments may occur due to new product development.
• Constraints of a small budget limit a business's advertising media options and promotional techniques. Smaller enterprises often face challenges using promotions to compete with larger counterparts.
• Online promotional activities can be a cost-effective means to reach broad or targeted audiences. Businesses must weigh the costs of promotional activities against the resulting sales increase.
• Over time, companies identify the most effective marketing methods tailored to their specific circumstances.