Question

1. Compare and contrast the strengths and weakness of advertising, direct mail, personal selling, sales promotions, events, and public relations and publicity. (list the strengths and weaknesses of each).

Answer 1

Advertising

Strengths:

· Enables effective introduction of new product to the market and reaches a large volume of target audience through business magazines, TV etc.

· It is a cost effective method of educating the customer about new and existing products

· It enhances sales, fight against competition etc.

Weakness:

· It can confuse the target audience as they are exposed to many advertisements.

· Misrepresentation of the information conveyed through the advertisement can be challenging to the customers as well as the advertisers.

· The advertisement approaches like deceptive advertising can lead to the decline in the moral values.

Direct mail

Strengths

· It is considered to be the highly targeted and highly personalized approach of marketing in order to persuade the customers.

· This can be considered to be the cost effective method and can reach the target audience effectively

Weakness

· It is a time consuming process as personalized mails has to be sent to the target customer.

· The address data is required for this marketing activities and fetching this information critical and challenging.

Personal selling

Strengths

· The personal selling is a result oriented approach and has proven track records.

· Direct handling of the customer enhances customer understanding level, reduces confusion and hence, can gain higher customer satisfaction.

Weakness

· The effectiveness depends on the effectiveness of the marketing individual.

· Reaching the whole target audience personally is not time consuming and challenging task.

Sales promotions

Strengths

· Leads to the development of the close and sustainable relationship between the buyer and the seller.

· It attracts the customers, enhances the customer demands etc that can lead to effective profit generation.

Weakness

· Sales promotions can lead to the repetition that can reduce the value for the product or the service promoted.

· Increased price sensitivity, short term orientation etc are some other disadvantages.

Events

Strengths

· This is an interactive approach of marketing that makes the customers persuaded towards the product or service.

· Long term relationship shall be established with the customers.

Weakness

· The cost involved in this approach would be very high.

· All events and campaigns may not be result oriented.

Public relations and publicity

Strengths

· This can generate strong brand image and reputation for the product and services.

· Profit generation will be high through this approach as it leads to competitive advantage.

Weakness

· This method is a cost incurring method.