THE PROMOTIONAL MIX #EMBA27

As a lead in the marketing department, we have goals, objectives, strategies, plans, budget, programmes, policy, rules, project to help us in our role. What exactly is marketing and what does the marketing department do in an organisation.

I will talk a major aspect of marketing, which is the promotional mix of the marketing element  in an organisation. According to Kotler, we need to make decisions on the following

1. Who is the target audience
2. What response should be sought
3. What message should be developed
4. What media should be used
5. What source attributes should accompany the message
6. What feedback should be collected

In answering what response should be sought?

We should realize that the ultimate response of course is purchase behaviour, but according to Kotler, purchase behaviour does not occur in vacuo. Customers go through a series of stages before deciding to purchase a product.

The marketer may be seeking a cognitive behaviour, affective behaviour or conative behaviour from the target audience. For example, the purpose may be to put something into the consumer’s mind, to change the consumer’s attitude to get the consumer to undertake a specific action.

Below is a brief explanation of the response variable a marketer may seek from the target audience:

1. Exposure: As marketers, we need to expose the message to the target audience. It means the message physically or virtually appears in the target audience’s immediate environment. To achieve exposure, the marketer must study the media habits of the target audience. Most media vehicles publish data, with varying degrees of accuracy, on the size and composition of their audience.

• Reception: Here we need to understand if the message actually enters the receiver’s consciousness? This can break down into two according to Philip Kotler, Is there a message attentIon and is there a message comprehension by the receiver. Any receiver who is exposed to a particular media vehicle has an attention probability somewhere between zero and one.

• Cognitive response: The communicator is really aiming to get the message accepted and assimilated into the receiver’s long term memory. Long term memory is the repository for all information that has ever been processed. Here the message has a chance to modify the receiver’s beliefs and attitudes.

• Attitude: Here you seek to alter the receiver’s attitude towards the object or product, this will directly result in the changed belief of what the product could do to benefit them. Here an effective message will predispose the consumer to view the object more favourably.

• Intention: People who have a positive attitude toward an object will not necessarily buy it. A person must form the intention to buy or perform the desired action. The person has to feel like the kind of person who buys this product and must-see others whom he respects as approving of the purchase. The marketer can develop messages that weaken objections, such as that the product costs too much, or that the product does not fit the buyer’s personality,, the marketer can also try to create a sense of urgency to buy the product now, an example is when a marketer offers a discount or premium if the order is placed now.

• Behaviour: We know that buyers do not always carry out their intentions. Their stated intentions are not the same as commitments, they are simply their own predictions as to what they might do. The main factors causing intentions not to be carried out are inertia or the occurrence of unpredictable events. We should also note that other forms of behaviour desired from customers might be how the customers talk about the product to others.

Above forms a brief explanation of one aspect of the promotional mix by Philip Kotler.