Sullivan University Marketing Discussion

1. Respond to this discussion

Discuss the promotional mix that you think would be effective for the promotion of your client’s product. Each channel of communication is appropriate for different objectives, with its own strengths and weaknesses. What are the different components and their objectives that would work for your product, your target market, your objectives, etc? What is the unique contribution of each component, and why would you select them? As always, your rationale is important and should be based on material from the chapter and not merely your opinion.

2. Relpy to Ben (with a detailed response)

For my client’s product (an enhanced security mouse that saves passwords for the user) I would recommend using a promotional mix of sales promotion and personal selling. The main reason for using these two types of promotions has to do with the target market which is the military. Once the product is adopted by the military there is no advertising that must be done to increase sales because the product would become a standard-issue and most likely have a military contract. So, until we try to sell to consumers all we need is the initial sales pitch that comes with personal selling and then the free samples and demo models that are used in sales promotion. These two strategies combined are enough for the target market to get a feel for the product and drive the future sales that are tied to a military contract

3. Reply to Danny (with a detailed response)

The promotional mix I feel would be the most effective for our Coca Cola and Captain Morgan ready to drink cocktail would be advertising, sales promotion, and content marketing and social media.

Advertising

Advertising is defined as any form impersonal paid communication in which the sponsor or company is identified. On of the primary benefits of advertising is its ability to communicate to a large number of people at one time. This makes cost per contact typically very low. Advertising would be one way to get the ready to drink cocktail seen by the masses. The forms of advertising that would be the most successful would social media advertising, websites, and blogs. With millennials being the target audience for the RTD those are three sources that would be the most effective. The reason I would focus on these 3 outlets would be that millennials spend 211 minutes accessing apps or internet via smartphone per day according to Statista. Therefore, you could reach more potential consumers than you could if you used the traditional advertising outlets such as television, radio, newspaper, and magazines.

Sales Promotion

Sales promotion is all marketing activities other than personal selling, advertising, and public relations that stimulate consumer buying and dealer effectiveness. Advertising and sales promotions are normally used together by marketers to improve their effectiveness. Sales promotion is a short-term tool aimed at the end consumer which may include free samples, contests, premiums, trade shows, and coupons. Millennials are a very cost focused group which will make a sales promotion help to promote the new ready to drink cocktail to them. They are also a group that enjoys experiences which would be a great mix if the new cocktail could join up with events and sponsor or even set up to give out free samples. This would allow the product to get Infront of more people in a setting were others are enjoying it also.

Social Media

Social media is a tool that facilitates conversations and create engagement and other interactions among people online. Marketers use this these tools facilitate consumer empowerment. Marketers are also using social media as integral components of their campaigns and as a way to extend the benefits of their use of traditional media. With the target audience of the new cocktail being millennials and since millennials spend an enormous amount of time online this is a great way to reach them and keep the product in their minds. Social media is also a way to promote a product where that a promotion event can be concentrated on a certain age group and location. This could also work well if there is an event coming up that would be targeting millennials that could allow the cocktail to help promote the event to the millennials.