Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Though the text does a good job of defining "Promotion", I would like to elaborate on
a couple of aspects about it. First of all, according to the text book, promotion is the
communication of information between the seller (which is the marketer) and current and/or
potential buyers or others in the channel to influence attitudes and behavior." But
why do marketers promote to current customers? Because not all communication is designed
to bring in new customers, much of promotion is intended to stay in touch with current
customers periodically in order to keep the relationship. Customers do not like to be
forgotten, simply because they have started buying from us. Plus, such communication helps
prevent competitors from gaining their attention. We may also want to increase current customers'
frequency of purchase. Remember earlier in the course where we discussed how it is the
job of marketers to pursue revenue enhancement opportunities. Getting current customers to
purchase more often is one of the easier ways to generate more sales. In addition, such
efforts are often made to upsell or cross sell to them. These efforts will be discuss
later in the course. Finally, post-sale communication helps prevent something else we will discuss
later in the course: post-purchase dissonance. There is one other aspect of this definition
that should be clarified; the phrase "others in the channel". This part of the definition
emphasizes that much of our promotional activities are with intermediaries such as wholesalers
and retailers. This is promotion that consumers typically do not see. As we will see in the
discussion related to push and pull promotional activities, manufacturers often advertise
in trade magazines that are not read by consumers, but ARE read by business buyers. In addition,
such manufacturers often have sales representatives who visit intermediaries often to conduct
sales training, setup merchandise displays or conduct in-store demonstrations.