College Paper on Marketing: Creating The Marketing Mix - Promotion

Marketing mix refers to factors that a company needs to combine to influence the consumers to buy its products. These factors include product, place, price, and promotion, commonly known as the 4Ps. Promotion is a key determinant in the movement of a good or service. There are two forms of promotion, namely digital tools which include the internet, social media platforms such as Face book and Instagram, and blogs, and traditional tools such as radio, the newspaper, billboards, and the television. In the 21st century, digital marketing has taken the lead and is considered more efficient than the traditional method, (Constantinides and Fountain, 2008). The advantages are discussed below.

Digital marketing allows a level playing field for all the players in the market. Any business from small retailers to international companies has the same space to compete. Traditionally, only big companies could afford to advertise their products in the newspapers or the television, leaving behind the small ventures lagging behind.

The cost of marketing has been significantly reduced. Placing an item on the social media platforms only requires one to have internet data bundles. This is as opposed to methods such as television advertisement or the use of newspaper which are way too expensive. Saving on the cost allows for the business to carry out other investment projects as well as expanding the enterprise.

Digital tools give products a wider exposure, unlike traditional tools. Technology has made the world a global village and anything placed on the web is visible from any part of the world. This means that products will be accessed by all the users of the internet, and therefore, sales can be made from any part of the world. This significantly increases product movement and increases sales to a great extent. It would be difficult to bring a product to international exposure through traditional tools, and the cost would be overwhelming.

Brand development is made possible with digital marketing. This can be achieved through a well-maintained website and providing quality content to the target audience. This includes information on the product, how to purchase and the information on delivery once bought. Satisfying your audience with quality content can lead to opportunities from one generation to another and providing significant value to the product brand.

It is easier to measure growth in a digital promotion. Development in real time can be seen on the site, and it is easy to adjust to more tactics that are working. For instance, one can measure traffic and other specific goals on the site by using Google Analytics. Packaged email marketing solutions provide information on the number of people who have opened and read your emails. From this insight, one can develop strategies to counter the challenges of the product site and improve growth.

Digital promotion creates an opportunity for a product to go viral. With the share buttons on social media channels, consumers and prospects can share your product with their friends quickly, (Weber, 2009). This means that a product accessed by one customer who has 50 friends can also be obtained by the 50 friends through sharing. This should be carefully monitored as bad information will travel as quickly and therefore, strategies should be laid on how to tackle negative publicity.

The above-discussed advantages and others, place digital promotion at the forefront and as such would be recommended over the traditional marketing.

References

Constantinides, E., & Fountain, S. J. (2008). Web 2.0: Conceptual foundations and marketing issues. Journal of direct, data and digital marketing practice, 9(3), 231-244.

Weber, L. (2009). Marketing to the social web: How digital customer communities build your business. John Wiley & Sons.