Chapter 12: Advertising, Public Relations, Personal Selling & Sales
Promotion
Subjects Covered
1. The changing landscape of the communication mix
2. Integrated marketing communications
3. Advertising strategies
4. The concept of public relations
5. Discuss the role of a company’s salespeople in engaging customers, creating customer
value, and building customer relationships
6. Identify and explain the six major sales force management steps
7. Discuss the personal selling process, distinguishing between transaction-oriented
marketing and relationship marketing
8. Explain how sales promotion campaigns are developed and implemented
The Promotion Mixes
The specific blend of promotion tools that the company uses to persuasively communicate
customer value and build customer relationships.
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Elements in the Communication Process
Noise: Everything that can diminish effects of the advertisement – you watch TV, and your
children talk, or in traffic you see a billboard
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Content Marketing
As the lines are rapidly blurring between traditional advertising and new digital content,
many marketers now view themselves more broadly as content marketing managers who
create, inspire, share, and curate marketing content—both their own and that created by
consumers and others.
Integrated Marketing Communications
•
IMC Involves carefully integrating and coordinating the company’s many
communications channels to deliver a clear, consistent, and compelling message
about the organization and its products
•
Takes into account all communications between the consumer and the company or
its brands
Q: Examples of integrated marketing communications?
Integrated Marketing Communications
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Personal Selling

The most effective method at certain stages of the buying process particularly in
building buyers’ preferences, convictions, actions, and developing customer
relationships

Allows to establish all kinds of customer relationships

Encourages the buyer to listen and react to what is said to him/her

Expensive promotional tool (long term commitment)
Public Relations

Very believable form of promotion

Allows you to reach many customers

Present a product or company in an attractive way

Can be very effective when used with other elements of the communication mix
Direct And Digital Marketing

It’s usually directed to a specific customer or customer community

Messages are immediate and personalized

It allows a dialogue between the marketing team and the consumer, and messages
can be altered depending on the consumer’s response

Direct and digital marketing includes:
o Direct mail
o Catalogs
o Online and social media
o Mobile marketing
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Sales Promotion

Attracts the attention of the consumer

Strong incentive to buy

Allows you to promote a product or boost its sales

Provides a quick response

Usually has short-term effect
Steps in Developing Effective Marketing Communication

Identify the target audience

Determine the communication objectives

Design the message

Choose the communication channels and media

Collect feedback
Identify the target audience
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Determine the communication objectives
Design the message
• Message content is “what to say.”
• Message structure and format is “how to say it.”
Choose the communication channels and media
Collect feedback.
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Communication Mix Strategies
Push strategy
• A promotion strategy that calls for using the sales force and trade promotion to push the
product through channels. The producer promotes the product to channel members who in
turn promote it to final consumers
Pull strategy
• A promotion strategy that calls for spending a lot on consumer advertising and promotion
to induce final consumers to buy the product, creating a demand vacuum that “pulls” the
product through the channel
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Major Advertising Decisions
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Objectives Setting
• Advertising objective: a specific communication task to be accomplished with a specific
target audience during a specific period of time
• Classified according to their purpose:
• Informative advertising is used when introducing a new product category to build primary
demand.
• Persuasive advertising is important with increased competition to build selective demand.
• Reminder advertising is important with mature products to help maintain customer
relationships and keep customers thinking about the product.
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Persuasive advertising
Reminder Advertising
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Setting the Advertising Budget
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Competitive Parity
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Developing Advertising Strategy
• Advertising strategy consists of two major elements: creating advertising messages and
selecting advertising media
• Selecting advertising media
• The decision about which media to use for an ad campaign—television, newspapers,
magazines, video, a website, social media, mobile devices, or email—is now sometimes
more critical than the creative elements of the campaign
Creating the Advertising Message

Message and content strategy: The first step in creating effective advertising
content is to plan a message strategy—the general message that will be
communicated to consumers.
o Identifies consumer benefits
o Follows from company’s broader positioning and customer value creation
strategies

The creative concept is the compelling “big idea” that will bring an advertising
message strategy to life in a distinctive and memorable way.
o It will guide the choice of specific appeals to be used in an advertising campaign
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
Advertising appeals should have three characteristics:
o Meaningful: pointing out benefits that make the product more desirable or
interesting to consumers
o Believable: consumers must believe that the product or service will deliver the
promised benefits
o Distinctive: they should tell how the product is better than competing brands

Message execution: the creative team must find the best approach, style, tone,
words, and format for executing the message
Participatory advertising:
• The company can collect new ideas and information about what the brand represents
in terms of consumer experience
• This can raise the level of consumer involvement and transform them into brand
ambassadors
• However, there is a need to frame the process so that the freedom given to consumers
does not backfire on the company.
Q: Who is talking about our product?
• Advertising media are the vehicles through which advertising messages are delivered
to their intended audiences:
o
o
o
o
Determining reach, frequency, impact, and engagement
Choosing among major media types
Selecting specific media vehicles
Choosing media timing
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Medium
Advantages
Limitations
Good mass-marketing coverage; low cost High absolute costs; high
Television
per exposure; combines sight, sound, and clutter; fleeting exposure; less
motion; appealing to the senses
audience selectivity
Potentially low impact; high
Digital, mobile, High selectivity; low cost; immediacy;
audience control of content
and social media engagement capabilities
and exposure
Short life; poor reproduction
Flexibility; timeliness; good local market
Newspapers
quality; small pass-along
coverage; high believability
audience
High audience selectivity; flexibility; no ad
Relatively high cost per
Direct mail
competition within the same medium;
exposure; “junk mail” image
allows personalization
High geographic and demographic
Long ad purchase lead time;
selectivity; credibility and prestige; highMagazines
high cost; no guarantee of
quality reproduction; long life and good
position
pass-along readership
Audio only; fleeting exposure;
Good local acceptance; high geographic low attention (“the half heard”
Radio
and demographic selectivity; low cost
medium); fragmented
audiences
Flexibility; high repeat exposure; low cost; Little audience selectivity;
Outdoor
good positional selectivity
creative limitations
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(Selecting advertising media)
An advertiser must also decide how to schedule the advertising over time
Evaluating advertising effectiveness

Return on Advertising Investment: The net return on advertising investment divided
by the costs of the advertising investment

Communication effects indicate whether the ad and media are communicating the
ad message well. Individuals can be tested before or/and after the ad runs.

Sales and profit effects compare past sales and profits with past expenditures or
through experiments.
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Other advertising considerations

An advertising agency is a marketing services firm that assists companies in
planning, preparing, implementing, and evaluating all or portions of their advertising
programs.

Standardization of international advertising

Benefits of standardization
o Advertising costs are reduced
o Better overall advertising coordination
o Consistency of the brand image

Disadvantages of standardization:

It ignores the cultural, demographic, and economic differences between
different local markets.
Public relations
Involves building good relations with the company’s various publics by obtaining
favorable publicity, building up a good corporate image, and handling or heading off
unfavorable rumors, stories, and events.
o Press relations or press agency involves the creation and placing of newsworthy
information to attract attention to a person, product, or service.
o Product publicity involves publicizing specific products.
o Public affairs involve building and maintaining national or local community relations.
o Lobbying involves building and maintaining relations with legislators and
government officials to influence legislation and regulation.
o Investor relations involves maintaining relationships with shareholders and others in
the financial community.
o Development involves public relations with donors or members of nonprofit
organizations to gain financial or volunteer support.
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Role and impact of PR

Lower cost than advertising

Stronger impact on public awareness than advertising

Has power to engage consumers and make them part of the brand story
Major PR tools






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News
Speeches (from leaders)
Special events
Written materials (annual reports, booklets, brochures)
Corporate identity materials
Public service activities
Social networking
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Jeff Swartz’ recommendations

“When angry activists come at you, don’t stand there with your arms folded and
your mind closed”

“On the other hand, don’t greet them naively with open arms”

“Don’t respond too fast. Take a “less is more” approach and give complete feedback
once you have full knowledge”
---- PICTURES -try to put them again ---Assess the Incident
“The likelihood of a full-blown public scandal, in need of an equally public response, goes up
when the incident is surprising, vivid, emotional, or pertinent to a central attribute of the
company or brand”- Tybout and Roehm (p.84)
What is selling?
 Personal selling is the interpersonal part of the promotion mix and can include:
o Face-to-face communication
o Telephone communication
o Video or web conferencing

Salespeople are an effective link between the company and its customers to produce
customer value and company profit by:
o Representing the company to customers
o Representing customers to the company
o Working closely with marketing
Reciprocity
Authority
Liking
Scarcity
Consistency
Consensus or social proof
Friendship/liking
Role of the sales force
• The role of personal selling varies from company to company, but it generally includes:
• Linking the company with its customers
• Coordinating marketing and sales
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Sales force management
Analyzing, planning, implementing, and controlling sales force activities. It includes
designing sales force strategy and structure, as well as recruiting, selecting, training,
compensating, supervising, and evaluating the firm’s salespeople.
Sales force structure
Territorial sales force structure
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Product sales force structure
Customer (or market) sales force structure
Mixed (complex) sales force structure
Sales force size

Sales forces may range in size from only a few salespeople to tens of thousands

Salespeople are one of the company’s most productive and expensive assets.

A company might use some form of workload approach to set sales force size
o Workload approach to sales force size refers to grouping accounts into
different classes to determine the number of salespeople needed
Other sales force strategy and structure issues
• Outside sales force (or field sales force)
• Salespeople who travel to call on customers in the field
• Inside sales force
• Salespeople who conduct business from their offices via telephone, online and
social media interactions, or visits from prospective buyers
• Team selling
• Using teams of people from sales, marketing, engineering, finance, technical
support, and even upper management to service large, complex accounts
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Recruiting and selecting salespeople
• Careful selection and training increases sales performance
• Poor selection increases recruiting and training costs, leads to lost sales, and disrupts
customer relationships
• Four key talents:
• Intrinsic motivation
• Disciplined work style
• Ability to close a sale
• Ability to build relationships with customers
Training salespeople
• Goals of training:
• Customer knowledge
• Selling process
• Knowledge of products, company, competitors
• Sales training programs:
• Seminars
• Training between sellers
• E-learning (e.g. virtual instructor-led training or VILT)
Compensating Salespeople
• Includes several elements:
• Fixed amounts
• Variable amounts (e.g., commission, bonus)
• Expenses
• Fringe benefits
• Four fixed-variable combinations
• Fixed amount
• Commission
• A fixed amount plus bonus
• A fixed amount plus commission
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Supervising Salespeople
• Role of supervising and motivating
• To help salespeople “work smart” by doing the right things in the right ways
• To encourage salespeople to “work hard” and energetically toward sales
force goals
• Sales force automation systems are computerized, digitized sales force
operations that let salespeople work more effectively anytime, anywhere.
• Different modes of supervision
• Weekly, monthly, or annual call plan that shows which customers and
prospects to call on and which activities to carry out
• Time-and-duty analysis
Evaluating Salespeople

Several sources of information:
o Sales reports
o Call reports
o Expense reports

Monitoring of the expenses and income of the territory assigned to the
representative

Observation, client questionnaires, discussions with representatives

Formal evaluation:



Requires the development of specific and uniform standards for judging the
results obtained
Provides the salesperson with a constructive appreciation of his or her activities
The company needs to evaluate the return on investment of the sales force
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The Personal Selling Process
1. Prospecting and qualifying
• Prospecting: the sales step in which a salesperson or company identifies qualified
potential customers
• Qualifying: how to identify the good ones and screen out the poor ones
2. Preapproach
• The sales step in which a salesperson learns as much as possible about a
prospective customer (e.g., needs, who is involved) before making a sales call
3. Approach
• The sales step in which a salesperson meets the customer for the first time
4. Presentation
• The sales step in which a salesperson tells the “value story” to the buyer, showing
how the company’s offer solves the customer’s problems. Importance of listening.
5. Handling objections
• The sales step in which a salesperson seeks out, clarifies, and overcomes any
customer objections to buying
6. Closing
• The sales step in which a salesperson asks the customer for an order
7. Follow-up
• The sales step in which a salesperson follows up after the sale to ensure customer
satisfaction and repeat business
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Social Selling: Online, Mobile, and Social Media Tools

Social selling is the use of online, mobile, and social media to engage customers,
build stronger customer relationships, and augment sales performance.

Digital technologies can make salespeople more productive and effective.
Customer Relationship Management
• Personal selling is transaction-oriented to close a specific sale with a specific customer
• The long-term goal of personal selling is to develop a mutually profitable relationship.
• Value selling: Sales management’s challenge is to transform salespeople from customer
advocates for price cuts into company advocates for value.
Sales promotions
Rapid Growth of Sales Promotion
• Sales promotion refers to the short-term incentives to encourage purchases or sales of a
product or service
• Several factors:
• Product managers are under pressure to increase current sales
• Companies face more competition
• Competing brands offer less differentiation
• Advertising efficiency has declined due to rising costs, clutter, and legal constraints
• Consumers have become more deal-oriented
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Sales Promotion Objectives
Objectives:

Consumer promotion: Sales promotion tools used to boost short-term customer
buying and engagement or enhance long-term customer relationships

Trade promotion: Sales promotion tools used to persuade resellers to carry a
brand, give it shelf space, and promote it in advertising

Business promotion: Sales promotion tools used to generate business leads,
stimulate purchases, reward customers, and motivate salespeople.
Major Sales Promotion Tools

Samples offer a trial amount of a product

Coupons are certificates that give buyers a saving when they purchase specified
products

Rebates are similar to coupons except that the price reduction occurs after the
purchase

Price packs offer consumers savings off the regular price of a product

Premiums are goods offered either for free or at a low price

Advertising specialties are useful articles imprinted with the advertiser’s name, logo,
or message that are given as gifts to consumers

Point-of-purchase promotions include displays and demonstrations that take place
at the point of sale

Contests, sweepstakes, and games give consumers the chance to win something—
such as cash, trips, or goods—by luck or through extra effort.
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(Major Sales Promotion Tools)
• Use of the same techniques as with consumers (e.g., games, premiums)
• Specific tools:
• a straight discount off the list price on each case purchased during a stated period
of time (also called a price off, off-invoice, or off-list).
• allowances (usually so much off per case) in return for the retailer’s agreement to
feature the manufacturer’s products in some way. For example, an advertising
allowance compensates retailers for advertising the product, whereas a display
allowance compensates them for using special displays.
• free goods, which are extra cases of merchandise, to resellers who buy a certain
quantity or who feature a certain flavor or size.
• push money—cash or gifts to dealers or their sales forces to “push” the
manufacturer’s goods.
• specialty advertising items that carry the company’s name, such as pens,
calendars, memo pads, flashlights, and tote bags.
Major Sales Promotion Tools for Business Customers
Conventions and trade shows are effective to reach many customers not reached with the
regular sales force.
Sales contests are effective in motivating salespeople or dealers to increase performance
over a given period.
Developing the Sales Promotion Program

Size of the incentive

Conditions for participation

Promotion and distribution of the program

Length of the program

Evaluation of the program
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