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PUBLIC RELATIONS AND MARKETING
Marketing is the wide range of activities involved in making sure that you’re continuing to meet the needs of your customers and getting value in return. Marketing is usually focused on one product or service. Thus, a marketing plan for one product might be very different than that for another product. Marketing activities include “inbound marketing,” such as market research to find out, for example, what groups of potential customers exist, what their needs are, which of those needs you can meet, how you should meet them, etc. Inbound marketing also includes analyzing the competition, positioning your new product or service (finding your market niche), and pricing your products and services. “Outbound marketing” includes promoting a product through continued advertising, promotions, public relations and sales.
A public relations has the goal of attaining and maintaining accord with the social groups on whom the organization depends in order to achieve its mission. Marketing has the goal of attracting and satisfying customers on a sustained basis in order to achieve an organization’s economic objectives. Every organization therefore needs both a marketing and a public relations functions. They are equally important to organizational survival and success.
PRIME FACETS OF MARKETING
Before discussing the role of public relations and marketing it is necessary to understand the prime facets of marketing. Public relations is more than just pitching stories to the media or mailing out press releases. The PR umbrella covers a number of related activities, all of which are concerned with communicating specific messages to specific target audiences. If you’re the PR person at your company, you’re responsible for managing communications between your company and your public.
The label public relations typically encompasses the following facets:
Research
You have to thoroughly understand not only your company but also your customers and potential customers. What do you offer that is unique or special? What are customers looking for? And how well do you fill those needs? Market research and an internal company audit are the starting points of successful PR campaigns.
Merchandising
Merchandising is the methods, practices, and operations used to promote and sustain certain categories of commercial activity. The simplest way to define merchandising is to say that it is the way a product is sold. From the time a product is created, there will be people developing part of that product’s merchandising plan. The type of packaging, colors, and slogans are all part of this process. Later on, it will be which stores will carry it, where the product is placed in the store aisles, and how the retail store will promote the product that become important factors in the process. Products need to be visible if the store expects people to buy them.
A product will be merchandised to a target audience, or the people most likely to purchase the goods and services being offered. Merchandising assures that the right product is available in the right place to the right people, and at the right time. It wouldn’t make sense to have a huge stock of turkeys, stuffing, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pies in July, but it makes a lot of sense in November, when customers are looking to buy those things.
Merchandising is more complicated than just figuring out where to put products on store shelves. It involves a lot of careful planning. Order too much of an item, and it might spoil or go out of style before it is sold out, wasting money. Order too little of an item, and people will buy it elsewhere once you have sold out, costing you sales. A merchandiser has to be knowledgeable about statistics, good at math, and have a keen eye for details to be successful in the field.
Advertising
The paid, public, non-personal announcement of a persuasive message by an identified sponsor; the non-personal presentation or promotion by a firm of its products to its existing and potential customers. From a sales point of view a good advertisement whether it is on radio, television, or in print, should always seek to:
Attract attention of the people
Arouse curiosity about the product in people’s mind
Convey a message about the features of the product
Implant in the target’s mind a wish to own or use the product
Persuade the target’s buying responses by convincing him or her that the commodity is good worth for the money he or she is spending on it.
Marketing
The systematic planning, implementation and control of a mix of business activities intended to bring together buyers and sellers for the mutually advantageous exchange or transfer of products.
Advertising is a single component of the marketing process. It’s the part that involves getting the word out concerning your business, product, or the services you are offering. It involves the process of developing strategies such as ad placement, frequency, etc. Advertising includes the placement of an ad in such mediums as newspapers, direct mail, billboards, television, radio, and of course the Internet. Advertising is the largest expense of most marketing plans, with public relations following in a close second and market research not falling far behind.
The best way to distinguish between advertising and marketing is to think of marketing as a pie, inside that pie you have slices of advertising, market research, media planning, public relations, product pricing, distribution, customer support, sales strategy, and community involvement. Advertising only equals one piece of the pie in the strategy. All of these elements must not only work independently but they also must work together towards the bigger goal. Marketing is a process that takes time and can involve hours of research for a marketing plan to be effective. Think of marketing as everything that an organization does to facilitate an exchange between company and consumer.
Sales Promotion
The term Sales Promotion generally refers to all those promotional activities which are undertaken to stimulate interest, trial or purchase of a product by the end user or other intermediaries in between. Besides advertising and personal selling, all other activities undertaken to promote a product can be classified under sales promotion. Sales promotion includes several communications activities that attempt to provide added value or incentives to consumers, wholesalers, retailers, or other organizational customers to stimulate immediate sales. These efforts can attempt to stimulate product interest, trial, or purchase. Examples of devices used in sales promotion include coupons, samples, premiums, point-of-purchase (POP) displays, contests, rebates, and sweepstakes.
Sales Promotion Strategies
There are three types of sales promotion strategies: Push, Pull, or a combination of the two.
Push Strategy: A push strategy involves convincing trade intermediary channel members to “push” the product through the distribution channels to the ultimate consumer via promotions and personal selling efforts. The company promotes the product through a reseller who in turn promotes it to yet another reseller or the final consumer. Trade-promotion objectives are to persuade retailers or wholesalers to carry a brand, give a brand shelf space, promote a brand in advertising, and/or push a brand to final consumers. Typical tactics employed in push strategy are: allowances, buy-back guarantees, free trials, contests, specialty advertising items, discounts, displays, and premiums.
Pull Strategy: A pull strategy attempts to get consumers to “pull” the product from the manufacturer through the marketing channel. The company focuses its marketing communications efforts on consumers in the hope that it stimulates interest and demand for the product at the end-user level. This strategy is often employed if distributors are reluctant to carry a product because it gets as many consumers as possible to go to retail outlets and request the product, thus pulling it through the channel. Consumer-promotion objectives are to entice consumers to try a new product, lure customers away from competitors’ products, get consumers to “load up” on a mature product, hold & reward loyal customers, and build consumer relationships. Typical tactics employed in pull strategy are: samples, coupons, cash refunds and rebates, premiums, advertising specialties, loyalty programs/patronage rewards, contests, sweepstakes, games, and point-of-purchase (POP) displays.
Selling
Selling is last step in the chain of commerce where a buyer exchanges cash for a seller’s good or service. In business, “nothing happens until someone sells something.” Selling is trying to make sales by persuading someone to buy one’s product or service. From a management viewpoint it is thought of as a part of marketing, although the skills required are different. Sales often forms a separate grouping in a corporate structure, employing separate specialist operatives known as salesmen (singular: salesman). Selling is considered by many to be a sort of persuading “art”. Contrary to popular belief, the methodological approach of selling refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, by which a salesman relates his or her offering of a product or service in return enabling the buyer to achieve their goal in an economic way. While the sales process refers to a systematic process of repetitive and measurable milestones, the definition of the selling is somewhat ambiguous due to the close nature of advertising, promotion,