Chapter 13
Promotion Strategies:
Personal Selling,
Publicity, and Sales
Promotion
Chapter Outline

Promotion and Communication

Promotion Mix
Chapter Outline

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Personal Selling
Personal Selling vs. Advertising
Varying Quality and Style of Personal Selling
Intercultural Negotiation
Motivation
Telemarketing
- Expatriate Personnel
Chapter Outline
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Publicity
The Nature of Publicity
The Management of Publicity
Negative Publicity
Sales Promotion
The Nature of Sales Promotion
Restrictions

Overseas Product Exhibitions
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
Purposes of Promotion
The purpose of promotion is both to
communicate with buyers and to influence them.
Effective promotion requires an understanding of
the process of persuasion and how this process
is affected by environmental factors. The
potential buyer must not only receive the desired
information but should also be able to
comprehend that information. Information must
be sufficiently powerfull to motivate this buyer to
react positively.
Purposes of Promotion

communicate (inform)

persuade (influence)
Process of Communication

Source
Encoding
Message (Information)
Decoding

Destination



Process of Communication
Promotion Mix

Advertising
Personal Selling
Publicity

Sales Promotion


Promotion Mix
The four promotional components are not
mutually exclusive, and it can be difficult at
times to determine which one of the four
activities a particular promotional tool may be.
Consider the common trade fair. Promotion for a
trade fair may be viewed as advertising because
a fair sponsor, as well as participating
companies, generally uses direct mail and
newspapers to advertise the event.
Personal Selling

Personal Selling vs. Advertising
Varying Quality and Style of Personal Selling
Intercultural Negotiation
Motivation

Telemarketing



Personal Selling
“oral presentation in a conversation with one or more
prospective purchasers for the purpose of making
sales.” Personal selling, also commonly known as
salesmanship, is used at every distribution level. The
cost of personal selling is high.
One extreme case is German software maker SAP, the world’s
leader in applications packages for client-server networks. In
the USA, SAP America has removed the $140,000 annual limit
on sales commissions, making it possible for a salesperson to
earn as much as $2 million a year – more than what the
company’s top German executives make
Personal selling vs Advertisement
Personal selling is similar to advertising in
the sense that both aim to create sales and that
both must be understandable, interesting,
believable, and persuasive. However, advertising
differs from personal selling in several aspects.
Advertising relies on a non-personal means of
contact and sales presentation. When compared
to advertising, personal selling commands a much
larger share of aggregate promotional dollars and
accounts for several times more in terms of the
number of personnel.
Telemarketing
Personal selling does not always require a faceto face conversation. For instance, personal selling
may be done over the telephone. Although telephone
selling has been in existence for a considerable period
of time, the growth of the direct marketing field has
pushed this method of selling to the forefront. This
marketing practice, now known as telemarketing, has
become very popular among sellers – but not
necessarily with consumers, who feel they are being
inundated with such calls.
Publicity
Publicity is the non-personal stimulation
of demand that is not paid for by a sponsor
which has released news to the media.
Advertising and publicity are quite similar in
the sense that both require media for a nonpersonal presentation of the promotional
message.
Publicity adv.
Publicity offers several advantages. In
addition to the low cost, the material presented is
not recognized as paid advertising per se because
it occurs in an editorial setting that makes it appear
to have been generated by approval of the editorial
staff. The material thus has more credibility, and
consumers tend to accept it as news information
rather than as advertising. This perception is
particularly useful in countries where it is difficult to
buy commercial time or advertising space.
Negative publicity
Some publicity received can be far from
favorable. To begin with, it is not wise to criticize the
media for reporting unfavorable news. The criticism
serves to alienate the media by inflaming the issue and
prolonging the attention being given to it. It is also not
wise to ignore adverse publicity. This behavior may
give the impression of arrogance, and it wastes crucial
time that could be used to solve the problem if it is
serious. A company should also avoid the “no
comment” response because it conveys the impression
of uncooperativeness and implies guilt.
SALES PROMOTION
Sales promotion consists of those promotional
activities other than advertising, personal selling, and
publicity. As such, any promotional activities that do not fall
under the other three activities of the promotion mix are
considered to be sales promotion.
Businesspeople may use the term “promotion” when
they actually mean “sales promotion.” The common ones
used are coupons, sweepstakes, games, contests, priceoffs, demonstrations, premiums, samples, money refund
offers, and gifts. A combination of these may be used and
is sometimes used in the same campaign.