Question

As the promotional manager for a new line of cosmetics targeted to preteen girls, you have been assigned the task of deciding which promotional mix elements—advertising, public relations, sales promotion, personal selling, and social media—should be used in promoting it. Your budget for promoting the preteen cosmetics line on average with industry-standard (not rock bottom or sky-high).

Write a promotional plan explaining your choice of two promotional mix elements and how you implement them (4pts), which factors affect your choice of these elements (4 pts), target market characteristics (1 pt.) and which type of buying decision this is for the target market (1pt).

Answer 1

The key elements of promotional mix are discussed below:

1. Advertising: It is a form of promotion which is one way and is impersonal. It is an indirect form of communication in which the communicator has very little control. The feedback received from these type of communication is also very little. The key benefit of this type of communication is that the message is communicated to a larger audience at a single point of time.

Such type of promotion is usually done through television, newspaper, internet, radio, magazines etc. This kind of promotion usually requires large amount of capital and is generally used when a product is launched in the market.

2. Public Relations: This is an indirect one way impersonal communication by the company to build a positive image about themselves among the public in the target market. It involves communicating with its target consumers and suppliers about their perceptions regarding the product and ultimately gains their acceptance.

It also includes communicating with the stakeholders of the company, officials of the government and the community at large. This type of promotion helps in launching a new product in the market while explaining the company’s objectives. It is generally used in combination with other forms of promotion to build a positive image about the product.

3. Personal selling: This is a direct and personal communication in which the sellers try to influence directly the target consumer. The communicator has greater degree of control over the situation in this form of promotion. The feedback from the receiver is received immediately in this form of communication.

This form of communication is aimed at reaching the target consumers and hence the message is not spread to a larger audience. However, this form of communication requires lower amount of funds and is generally used one the product is established in the market.

4. Sales Promotion: This is an indirect and impersonal form of communication which is generally used in short term to increase the demand of the product immediately. This is used in conjunction with other tools of promotion and induces faster promotion of the company’s products.

It communicates similar message to a large number of target consumers. This is usually done by distributing free samples and coupons, organizing trade shows and seminars etc.

Marketers use varying degrees of all the promotional elements in their marketing effort. The usage of the promotional elements depends on the following factors:

1. Product nature: The product can be either a business good or a consumer good. Marketers uses personal selling for business goods as they are tailor made for different types of industries. They use advertisement for consumer goods as it is not tailor made and is generally sold by its brand image.

2. Product Risks: The marketers uses personal selling for expensive products such as jewellery and other specialty items whereas the same effort is not required for selling relatively cheaper products like bread, matchsticks etc.

3. Product life cycle stage: When the product is in its introductory phase, generally advertisement and public relations is used to create product awareness in the target market. When the product is in its growth stage, sales promotion is reduced as the consumers are now aware and have become habituated to the product.

In the maturity stage of the product, sales promotion again becomes very important as new competitors have entered the target market. In the decline stage, it is generally advisable to spend little funds on the promotional effort by the company.

4. Features of the target market: When the potential customers are geographically scattered, it is better to use advertisement and sale promotion techniques. However, if the potential consumers are at one place, then personal selling can be used.

5. Buying decision: Consumer goods like soaps and soft drinks generally do not require much information by the potential buyers and hence can be easily promoted through sales promotion and advertising techniques. But goods like car or house requires lot of information by the consumers to make a decision and hence personal selling becomes important for such type of goods.

6. Availability of funds: The Company usually determines the cost of promotion per target in deciding which factor should be used. While advertisement has a low cost per target, sales promotion, personal selling and public relations has a higher cost per target.

Thus, on the basis of above discussion, for promoting a new line of cosmetics targeted to preteen girls, advertising and public relations should be used as the line of cosmetics is in its introductory stage and the target audience is scattered. Also, the availability of funds is limited, thus the cost of advertisement per target would be lower.

ALTERNATIVELY

In order for pre - teen girls to better endorse a new line of cosmetics, the promotional manager must determine which preteen girls are interested in. When this is known, it'll be easier to target preteen girls. Since teenage girls should concentrate on promoting social media platforms for these new cosmetics it would be easy. Posting advertising on sites like Instagram would encourage preteen girls to see the product frequently and want to purchase it. Once the product has reached the product life cycle growing phase it would be optimal to continue targeting consumers.