Answer – Promotion

Promotion mix diagram showing advertising, sales promotion, PR, personal selling and direct marketing

The Promotion Mix

Kotler and Armstrong (2018) group promotion into five tools: advertising (paid, non-personal communication through mass media), sales promotion (short-term incentives to encourage a purchase), public relations (building goodwill through non-paid media coverage and events), personal selling (direct, personal contact with the customer), and direct and digital marketing (direct communication with individually targeted customers, and building a one-to-one relationship). Which tools a company uses, and how much of each, depends on the product, the target market, and the budget available.

A Promotion Mix for Colorado Ricardo’s E-Mountain-Bike Launch

Worked example

Direct and digital marketing: email the existing owner database and post to the brand’s social following first – the lowest-cost, highest-trust route to people who already believe in the brand.

Public relations: pitch Denver and regional press an authentic story (“a 100% Colorado-built bike brand goes electric”) rather than paying for advertising space that a small budget cannot sustain.

Sales promotion: a free test-ride weekend at the factory showroom, with a trade-up discount for existing owners, turning loyal customers into word-of-mouth advocates for the new model.

Key point

Kotler and Armstrong (2018) stress that the right promotion mix depends on the product, the target market and the budget available – not on using every tool at once. For a company with strong existing customer trust and a modest budget, tools that lean on that trust, such as direct communication and public relations, usually deliver more for the money than mass advertising.

Promotion choices should reinforce the channel and pricing decisions made elsewhere in the launch plan – see the Place, Distribution, Channel, or Intermediary and Segmentation exercises.