BMATWT 352 - Building Materials and Forest Products Marketing

Promotion

Today's Objectives

1. Marketing Mix

2. Promotional Mix

3. Push vs. Pull

4. Advertising Critique

 

Promotion must be considered along with the other P's.

• Product
• Price
• Place
• Promotion

• Advertising
• Personal Selling
• Sales Promotion
• Publicity

2.1 Advertising

What is Advertising?

1) A highly public mode of communication.

• Lends legitimacy to the product.
• Makes public the reasons for buying it.

2) Pervasive and repetitive medium.

• Allows comparison vs. Competitors.
• Again, pervasiveness lends legitimacy to product/company.

 

3) Allows AMPLIFIED Expressiveness.

 

4) Impersonal - one-way communication, a monologue.

 

Source: Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood, NJ

What is advertising effectiveness? Reaching your target audience in the most cost effective manner that will bring them to a purchase decision.

Where can we advertise for Building Materials and Forest Products?

Advertising media

• Billboards (at National Hardware Show, Sinclair example)
• Newspaper (Local, if we are a retailer)
• TV (National, if we're national, Cable, if we're local)
• Magazine (trade or otherwise)
• Radio (International Paper, and Rugg Lumber examples)

2.2 Personal Selling

Probably THE MOST WIDELY USED tool in our industry's promotional mix.

1) Personal confrontation.

• Face to face is the most effective means of communication.

 

2) Cultivation

• Business, and personal relationships developed. Long-term relationships.

 

3) Response

• Buyer "owes" the salesperson some response.

Source: Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood, NJ

2.3 Sales Promotion

• Coupons
• Contests
• Premiums
• Trade Shows

1) Communication

• Attention getters lead customers to the product.

 

2) Incentive

• Have some concession, inducement or contribution that gives value to the consumer.

 

3) Invitation

• Provides an incentive to get the customer to buy now. (For a limited time only.)

Source: Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood, NJ

Trends - combo packs, joint selling with other (complementary) manufacturers…

2.4 Publicity

What is it? - PR - Public Relations or Press Releases.

This is non-paid-for advertising. Putting, new product information out in the form of a press release. Could be picked up locally, in trade journals, radio, TV….

1) High credibility

• News stories seem more authentic than ads.

 

2) Off guard:

• Many prospects avoid sales people and advertisements, this method might get to them.

 

3) Dramatization.

• If the PR is well written and the announcement is truly newsworthy, then it will be of interest to your customer. It will put the company and product in a favorable light.

Source: Kotler, Philip, Marketing Management, 5th ed., Prentice-Hall, Englewood, NJ

Pull Strategies focus on the customer. Get them to pull the product from the shelf.

(Focused further downstream.) End-user advertising based.

 

Push Strategies - Heavy on personal selling to push the product through the wholesaler and retailer levels. (Works further up-stream)

 

Last time we talked about Advertising and that it was:

• A public mode of communication which builds legitimacy
• Pervasive and repetitive medium
• Allowed AMPLIFIED EXPRESSIVENESS
• Impersonal - One Way Communication

 

Rate each of the following with those thoughts in mind.

1) Who is the customer?

2) What medium (newspaper, magazine) was this ad placed in?

3) How EXPRESSIVE is the ad?

4) Are they building legitimacy?

5) Overall rating?

Produced and maintained by David T. Damery
Building Materials and Wood Technology
Department of Natural Resources Conservation
College of Natural Resources and the Environment
University of Massachusetts, Amherst.