Is promotion marketing?

Have you ever wondered, “Is promotion . . . . . marketing ?”

Likewise with advertising, promotion through its extensive use of the advertising vehicle has landed its role as perplexed as the misplaced advertising. In all its intent & purpose, promotion activities carried out by many companies has become marketing per say; as promotion is used to generate purchase, induce consumer purchase, induce pantry stocking and its all placed under the expense of marketing. Why is this so - one may ask?

To get a glimpse of this scenario all one needs to do is to look at the number “price – off”, “special offers”, “consumer premium gifts”, etc.; that are funded by manufacturers and advantaged by the retail trade. To us, the sole purpose & role of promotion is lost and promotion is done solely for volume gains and to wedge competition, so to speak.

Now a big Question comes to mind, how long can one wedge competition by throwing special promotions; weekly, monthly, year round? In the Malaysian retail trade, it has gotten so bad now that most retail stores have sale after sale throughout the year just to encourage consumer spending. This has thought consumers to be very smart, if its not on sale; don't buy it! What kind of impact do you think a year long promotion will have on your brand?

So trying to wedge competition by throwing countless promotions is not feasible due to the number of products & SKU’s available in the marketplace, moreover the cost to do so is in itself prohibitive, even if you have a multi-million dollar budget.

Yet again, here we see a marketing tool which is obviously misconceived and misplaced. The age old rule & role of promotion primarily is to build consumer trust and acceptance of the “Brand” through product trials & usage thereby generating brand royalty, perhaps, even loyalty.

So lets keep those “price – off”, “special offers” & “consumer premium gifts” to a minimum and ensure that their usage is done so sparingly and in the correct context.

Choosing the right background...

I recently received a postcard as pictured above. First and foremost, I must say it is a great endeavour by the company that did this. It is an excellent way to build brand awareness via marketing tools such as postcards and flyer's to new or existing clients.

However, as we all know, the end result of any marketing material given out is that your potential reader might do 1 of 2 things when they get it. Number one being that they might just throw the darn thing into the trash can or second they will give themselves all of their precious 5 seconds to skim through your postcard and then throw it into the trash.

So in essence, designers and marketers have a big role to play when coming out with promotional material. Back to our story, to my surprise it was actually a LEGAL FIRM and not a INTERIOR DESIGN firm that sent me this postcard.

The point is this, whenever you design marketing materials always PUT YOUR CLIENTS BUSINESS in pictures. Pictures together with the right words can make a very effective promotional tool. I didn't know that it was a legal firm and that they were informing me that they were moving to a new location. I thought they were a design firm who were trying to introduce me to their service. Perhaps what the designer of this card should have done was to choose a background which suited the business of the client (i.e. legal services) and just put these words on "WE HAVE MOVED!"

Point I'm getting at is this, always choose a design which fits your business. Example; If you're in the design business, use pictures or design elements that say your in the design business. Perhaps in this case a more suitable picture to have used would have been a picture of a pen & paper or a picture of a legal document as a background. In this case, the background for this postcard should not have been a pen with some technical drawings & sketches in the background. YOU LOOK LIKE A DESIGN FIRM buddy, not a LEGAL FIRM.

A good example of what I'm talking about would be this postcard below. Simple, straight to the point. You know their in the beauty business.

picture courtesy of www.visatacreative.com

So keep on designing and be careful to choose the right pictures and design backgrounds that suit your business or you might end up promoting yourself in the wrong light.