Promotional mix in Marketing

Promotional mix: Elements of promotional mix are also called as tools, means, or components. Basically, there are five elements involved in promotional mix.

Advertisement: Advertising is any paid form of media communication. This includes print ads in magazines, trade journals and newspapers, radio and TV announcements, Web-based visibility-building, and billboards. Advertising is a non-personal promotional activity because the seller has no direct contact with the potential customer during the communication process.

Personal selling: Face-to-face communication between buyer and seller.

Public relation (PR): The public relations are comprehensive term that includes maintaining constructive relations not only with customers, suppliers, and middlemen, but also with a large set of interested publics. Note that public relations include publicity, i.e., publicity is the part of public relations.

Sales promotion: Sales promotion mainly involves short-term and non-routine incentives, offered to dealers as well consumers. In-store demonstrations, displays, contests and price incentives (50% off, buy-one-get-one-free) are sales promotion techniques.

Direct marketing: A form of advertising aimed directly at target customers (usually in their homes or offices) that ask the receiver to take action, such as ordering a product, clipping a coupon, phoning a toll-free number or visiting a store. Catalogs, coupon mailers and letters are common forms of direct marketing.