Implementation and control plans for individual promotion should be established. Implementation planning must cover lead time and sell – off time. Lead time is the time necessary to prepare prior to launching it.

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Evaluating the sales promotion Result

Evaluation is a crucial requirement and yet, according to researches, evaluation of promotional programs receives little attention. Even where an attempt is made to evaluate a promotion, it is likely to be a superficial evaluation and in terms of profitability is even less effective.
Manufacturers can use four methods to measure sales promotion effectiveness. The most common method is to compare sales before, during and after a promotion.

Suppose a company has a 6% market share in the pre-promotion period, which jumps to 10% during the promotion, falls to 5% immediately after the promotion, and raised to 7% after some time, consumer panel data would reveal the kind of people who responded to the promotion and what they did after the promotion. If more information is needed, consumer survey can be conducted to learn how many recall the promotion, what they thought of it, how many took advantage of it.

Publicity

It is used to promote brands, products, persons, places, idea, activities, organizations, and even nations. Trade associations have used publicity to rebuild interest in declining commodities such as eggs, milk, and potatoes. Organizations have used publicity to attract attention or to counter a poor image. Many nations are engaged in publicity practices to attract attention from more tourists, foreign investments, and international support. Publicity campaigns are conducted by a lot of organizations today to promote the brand name of their products and services. It’s one way to gain the attention of the customers. However mere publicity practices cannot bring you the expected revenues. The quality of the product must necessarily match the expectations of the consumers.

Major Decision in Publicity

In considering when and how to go about product publicity campaigns, management should establish the publicity objects, choose the publicity messages and vehicles that will implement the publicity plan, and evaluate the publicity result. Managements must be really very careful in choosing their publicity messages. The messages should be delivered according to the target audience. The message should also promote the benefits of the product.

Establishing the publicity objectives

It can contribute in a number of ways to the overall promotion program. Publicity potential contribution can be especially strong in the following circumstances.

· News worthiness : Product with interesting features are the best candidates for publicity
· Stimulate for sales force and dealers: Publicity can help boost sales force and dealer enthusiasm. Public awareness about a new product before it is launched, will help the sales force sell it to retailers.
· Need for credibility: Publicity adds credibility by communicating the message in as editorial context that will appeal to the customers.
· Small budget: publicity costs less than direct mail and media advertisements. The smaller the company‘s promotion budget, the case for using publicity to gain share of mind.

Choosing the publicity messages and vehicles

The publicist next identifies interesting features and benefits to tell about the product. Suppose a relatively unknown college wants more public recognition, the publicist will search for possible stories. Do any faculty members have unusual course being taught? Are any interesting events taking place on campus? Usually this search will uncover hundreds of stories that can be fed to the press. The stories chosen should reflect the image this college wants.

Implementing the publicity plan

Implementing publicity requires care. Take the matter of placing stories in the media. A great story is easy to place. But most stories are less than great and may not get past busy editors. One of the chief assets of publicities is their personal relationship with media editors. It requires extra care when it involves staging special events such as testimonial dinners, news conference and national contest. Publicities need a good head for detail and for coming up with quick solutions when things go wrong.

It’s a proven fact that sales promotions yield a faster and an efficient response in sales than advertising does, however the promotions should be designed in a very effective and an attractive way. However the organization should keep in mind that these promotions will not result in finding new and long-term consumers as they are targeting deal prone consumers who keep switching brands whenever they are available.

It does not attract brand loyal consumers. Brand loyal consumers do not change their preferences so easily and sales promotion campaigns cannot have that as a target. They do not switch brands so easily as a result of competitive promotions among their own competitors.

While indulging in sales promotion discussions, the management must concentrate on overall marketing objectives and promotional objectives. It should encourage the consumers to purchase in bulk; it should encourage first time users to try their products and try to attract switchers from competitive products, however attracting switchers should not be their prime goal.

The sales promotion programs should also concentrate on the allocation of the amount of incentives they would offer, the distribution of vehicles, the timing of the promotions and the budgets for sales promotions. After a sales promotion campaign is conducted, the organizers should analyze the results of the campaign. It may not always be successful, however the organization must find out what went wrong and where and should work on it as sales promotions definitely yields a better result than advertising.

Publicity which is the securing of free editorial space or times is the least utilized of the major promotion tools, although it has great potential for building awareness and preference in the market place.

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