Pros and Cons: Sales Promotion

Point of purchase displays, raffles, and rewards are considered as sales promotion. Most of the companies are doing this kind of strategy in order to create consumers’ demand. This kind of technique can be directed to consumers or retailers of the product. Apparently, this strategy may get the attention of the consumers because of the rewards that they may get upon purchasing the product. Since “Doggie and Read Do” is neophyte in the market, it needs strong brand awareness in order to reach the growth stage.

However, this technique may only cause limited time of brand recall because the product that the company is selling would be used by the consumer for a long period of time. In other words, this communication channel needs a strong and creative concept if the company that manufactures the product will use it.

Pros and cons: Public Relations

A pubic relation is building a rapport with the consumers and the retailers as well. This technique requires the company to have a relation with media and investors. Apparently, “Doggie Read and Do” will easily have brand awareness from the consumers because of the publicity that will be done by the company. In other words, this technique will immediately disseminate the news about the existence of the product. It may be an effective channel but the company will need to establish a strong connection with media and investors first to have a connection with its target market.

Pros and cons: Personal Selling

In personal selling, the company needs to have many people to work for an immediate brand awareness of “Doggie Read and Do”. This strategy is effective because the sales person is able to meet the customer and personally discuss the features and attributes of the product. Aside from that, the sales person may also be able to sow the customer to demonstrate the product and convince them to buy. It may also build a long term relationship between the company and the consumers. On the other hand, this channel may force the company to allot large budget to pay for the people that will do the personal selling. Sales person can be very expensive because the company needs to provide incentives like reward, bonus, and rewards to the person that will be able to close a sale.

The company will also need to provide materials for the sales people like car and mobile phone. Moreover, personal selling will not reach many people at a time unlike other channels because one sales person can only talk to one customer at time. Rationale for Choosing Channels In this product, direct marketing will be used to reach the target segment. Direct marketing is reaching the target market through telemarketing, email, and direct marketing. This will be the most effective integrated marketing channel for the “Doggie Read and Do” because of the nature of the product and availability of the resources.

Although, all the mentioned communication channels are effective, the direct marketing will be the most appropriate channel for this product. Even though media campaign has been proven as the most effective because of exposure of people to media, there is a possibility that the target segment will not easily bite the proposal because of the short exposure of the product on television. “Doogie Read and Do” needs a long demonstration and strong and persuasive appeal to the audience, advertising would definitely require a large budget in order to effective.

On the other hand, sales promotion may not be applicable upon the products introduction because “Doggie Read and Do” is a kind of product that will be purchased by a person for only one time. Although, promotional mix provides an effective outcome from the consumers because they are able to experience the use of a certain product prior to the actual purchase this technique will not be applicable if the company wants to gain a large market share (Sneath, Finney, ; Close, 2006). The company needs to have a connection with different people in public relations and personal selling.