THE PROMOTIONAL MIX All activities and efforts to be made in order to increase sale quantity as whole is called promotion

mix. It is a combination of promotional tools such as personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, publicity and public relations. In other word, the task of operating different activities to persuade consumer as whole is called promotional mix. It provides information about price, quality, feature etc of the products to the target customers. According to the W.J. Stanton, An organizational combination of personal selling, advertising, advertisement, sales promotion, public relation and publicity to help in achieving its objective is its promotional Mix. FACTORS AFFECTING DETERMINATION OF PROMOTION MIX Promotional mix consists of five elements. Promotion mix very complicated strategic task. Proper promotion mix should be prepared to conduct marketing successfully. Following factors affecting determination of promotion mix; 1. Promotional objective: The promotional objective affects the determination of promotional mix. If the customers are to be given clear information and make them aware about the goods intended to sell, special emphasis should be given on advertisement. Similarly, if the promotion objective is to make potential customers believe and gice assurance to them personal selling and advertisement becomes important. If the promotional objective is to get order/ demand personal selling, sales promoting is very useful. If the promotion objective is to remind the consumers, advertisement is becomes more important. 2. Promotion budget: Sufficient budget should be arranged for promotional functions. In the lack of sufficient budget, promotional works cannot be conducted. Advertisement requires heavy expenses as it has to be launched for a longer time period. Personal selling campaign is suitable for maintaining large sales force. Firms with small promotional budget prefer to use a combination of dealer promotion, on the spot displays, pamphlets etc. 3. Nature of the market: The determination of a particular type of promotion is done on the basis of the nature of market. Personal selling or face-to face selling may be effective or adequate in a small local market. But for a mass or dispersed market, mass communication like advertising becomes necessary. If the target market is consumer market advertisement and sales promotion is useful where as it is industrial market personal selling becomes more appropriate. 4. Nature of product: Several product attributes affect the determination of an appropriate promotion. Promotion of expensive products usually required personal selling. Because such products are relatively complex and involve high risk. For less expensive products, advertising or mass communication is effective and appropriate. Product which required high degree of fitting to the individual consumers need such as shoe, ready made garments etc required high degree of personal selling while standardized products can be

effectively communicated by advertisement. And product which required per-sale and post sales service generally need to be promoted through personal selling. 5. Stage of the product life cycle: Determination of the promotional strategies is also affected by the life-cycle of that product holds in given time period. When a new product is introduced in the market, potential consumers must be informed about its use and benefits at the same time middlemen must be convinced to carry them. Thus in introductory period both advertising and personal selling should be used. And publicity also is used side by side. After the product enters growth stage, only advertisement becomes sufficient. Similarly, careful attention should be paid to the product at the mature stage. At the decline stage personal selling and sales promotion are needed. Whatever tools can save product, the same should be used for promotion. 6. Promotional Strategy : There may be several strategies of promotional activities. They also affect promotional mix. They are mentioned in short as follows: a) Push Strategy: The producers can push their products using their forces. In this strategy, Products are pushed to the final consumers through distribution channel personal selling and trade promotion becomes important. b) Pull strategy: In this strategy the customers demand goods from retailers. Retailers demand from wholesalers and wholesalers demand from producers. For such strategy, advertisement becomes very important. ELEMENTS OF MARKETING COMMUNICATION Generally, marketing communication makes flow of information relating to goods, price, place and promotion. So good, price, and place are chief elements of marketing. How ever the importance element relating to communication are : a) Advertising d) Publicity b) Personal selling e) public relation c) Sales promotion 1. Advertising: Advertising is any paid form of non-personal communication, usually delivered through mass media or tool by an identified sponsor. It is the task of providing all the necessary information to the consumers about the quality, features, price, utility and importance of goods or services through different means such as radio, TV, Video, cinema, newspapers, magazines, brochures, booklets, posters, leaflets etc. Goods are advertised through suitable media according to their nature, condition, cost, time, availability etc. Different expert and writers have defined advertising as: Prof. Philip Kotler has defined as Advertising is paid form of non-personal presentation and promotion of idea, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. Manson and Rath have defined as Advertising is a salesmanship without a personal salesman.