Promotion is the publicizing of a product, organization, or venture so as to increase sales or public awareness. Companies/firms promote their business and product in order to introduce a new product onto the market or increase sales of an existing product, improve the business’s image and to compete with other companies/firms. There are two types of promotions; informative and persuasive. Informative promotion is the type which attempts to give information about the product or service in an impressive sounding way. Usually when a product or service is launched, it is promoted through informative promotions. Persuasive promotion attempts to target the audience by establishing a needs of the product/service.
Promotion is done by sales promotion, advertising media or public relations. Sales promotion is when a company/firm launches different schemes over the product/firm. A few common sales promotion methods are discounts, gifts, vouchers, after sale services and credit. Advertising media is the most commonly used method of promotion. Businesses use different types of advertising media depending on their promotion budget. For example, a company with a high budget would use all print, broadcast and visual media. A company with relatively lesser budget would rather use broadcast media, but one with a low budget might only afford print media. Public relations is a department often in large companies that makes sure that any new stories about the company and its products is in good light. For example, companies sometimes carry out news events about their own company, which can either be positive or negative which may result in only promotion of the company and its products. In public relations, a company uses product placements. It is when company pays television and film companies to use their product in their films and TV shows.
