Advertising and Promotions

Course Structure and Content

There are ten lessons in this course, each requiring about 10 hours work by the student. This course is designed as a program to first help you understand the marketing world, then to assist you in making decisions and developing skills in marketing. Emphasis is placed on profitability and efficiency!

The content the ten lessons is as outlined below:

1. Analysing the Market
2. Target Marketing
3. Display and Display Techniques
4. Advertising and Promotions Strategy
5. New Product Development
6. Sales Techniques - General
7. Writing Advertisement
8. Electronic Marketing -Telephone & Email
9. Direct Mailing
10. Exhibitions & Shows

COURSE AIMS

• Analyse a market and understand what prompts people to choose one product or service over another.
• Determine the promotional effort on an identified target market.
• Explain how to organise and/or conduct displays.
• Plan an advertising program.
• Review a promotions campaign.
• Explain how to choose and develop marketing of new products and services.
• Explain how to organise and/or conduct promotions.
• Develop a sales approach for a product or service which has a difficult sales history.
• Plan a sales staff training program
• Develop different advertisements and different promotional leaflets or brochures
• Describe promotional and advertising techniques using electronic media, in particular the phone and the internet.
• Determine an appropriate direct mailing campaign.
• Design a show/exhibition stand
• Explain how to organise or conduct shows

EXAMPLES OF TASKS YOU MIGHT BE ASKED TO UNDERTAKE

• Go shopping (your routine weekly shopping if you like). Take notice of how different sales staff communicate with you. Note the techniques they use (verbal & non verbal), and how effective they are. Note the type of impression they seem to be creating. When you come home, write down notes on your observations.
• Look through newspapers or magazines at advertisements or articles which discuss products offered for sale and find what you consider to be good examples of each of the following types of communication:
  
  1. Verbal communication
  2. Non verbal communication
     
  3. Combination of verbal & non verbal communication together
  Explain why you think these are good examples?
• Select a product or service which you would like to improve the marketing of. This might be something you are dealing with in your own business or a business you work for; or it might be something you think has potential -an idea you would like to develop into a business OR something another business is dealing with, but not handling as well as what you think they should be.
  Develop an advertising campaign for this product or service.
  
• You will need to select a method for determining an advertising budget, and then set that budget.
• You will then need to find out the costs of advertising in different places.
• You will then need to write advertisements for these various places. The campaign should be well targeted. NB: We do not expect you to present a highly detailed and involved campaign. This could take longer than the whole course! Put about 10 hours of work into this project, at the most, and then you will present what you have been able to achieve in that time. (You need to not only develop the ability to put a campaign together... but you need to be able to put it together within a reasonable time frame).

 Extract from Course Notes

CREATING AN ADVERTISEMENT

For an advertisement to work, it should take the potential customer through the following 6 stages:

1. Developing Product Awareness

The advert must first catch the attention of the potential customer and in doing so, make them aware that the product exists.

2. Provide Information

Next, the advert must raise the potential customer’s knowledge of the product. In writing an advert, you need to carefully consider - what are the most important “facts” to be included in the advert. An advertisement of any kind will have limitations to the quantity of information it can contain.

You need to be selective, and use the most pertinent information, that will provide the best reason for a person to buy. At the end of this stage, the customer should like the product.

3. Develop a Desire for the Product

A liking for the product is converted to a wish to possess it. This conversion may occur for any of many reasons; for example: an attractive appearance, nice taste, novelty or uniqueness factor, a perceived use by the customer, etc.

At the end of this stage the customer should desire to possess the product

4. Develop Conviction

Desire is not enough to ensure a sale; given that customers have limited budgets, and must choose between different purchases (They may desire many things but can only purchase some).

Conviction comes through the customer making comparisons, and from those comparisons: choices.

An advertisement can facilitate conviction through such things as testimonials, money back guarantees, test reports, or sometimes through the corporate image or goodwill that has been created over a long period.

5. Distinguish Brand or Model Preference

For many products and services, there can be variations offered for sale, within the product.

Examples:

•  A person may have developed a conviction to buy a car, but they still haven’t decided whether to buy a 4 cylinder or 6 cylinder version.
•  A person may have decided to purchase a box of chocolates, but they are still not firmly set on whether to buy the Cadbury’s brand, or the Nestles brand.

In this stage, the advertisement needs to focus the customers attention on a particular brand or model.

6. Make Firm Decision.

The advert needs a prompt; that is, component that promotes a decision, in order to move the potential customer toward the closure of a sale.

Examples might be:

•  A coupon
•  A discount offer
•  A reason to go to the shop (eg. free entertainment on a particular day)
•  Bonus gift if you buy before a particular date
•  A point of contact and a message urging contact (eg. Phone Today for a free handbook)

Using words like “Free”, “Bonus” or “Discount” are widely accepted as tried and proven strategies in this stage.

Learn how to write and use effective advertising copy, and to plan and manage an appropriate promotional campaign for any product or service, in any industry.

This course will firstly help you to understand the marketing world, then develop your marketing decision making skills, as well as your general marketing skills.