Promotional Techniques in Business

This assignment delves into the realm of promotional techniques employed by businesses. It examines diverse approaches such as social marketing, advertising, and the application of data mining for customer relationship management. The analysis encompasses case studies illustrating the impact of promotional strategies in different industries like tourism, healthcare, and education.

APPLYING
PROMOTIONAL
TECHNIQUES

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
TASK 1............................................................................................................................................1
1.1 Aims of promotion in business.........................................................................................1
1.2 Measuring success of promotional campaigns.................................................................2
1.3 Regulation of promotional activities................................................................................2
1.4 Promotional methods used by companies........................................................................3
1.5 Current trends in promotional methods............................................................................4
1.6 Importance of branding in promotion...............................................................................4
TASK 2 (A)......................................................................................................................................5
2.1 Review of objectives of campaign...................................................................................5
2.2 Promotional mix of premier weekend..............................................................................5
2.3 Target market....................................................................................................................6
2.4 Choice of media................................................................................................................6
2.5 Marketing mix..................................................................................................................7
TASK 2 (B)......................................................................................................................................8
2.1 Aims and objectives of campaign.....................................................................................8
2.2 Choice of target market....................................................................................................8
2.3 Suitable promotional activities.........................................................................................8
2.4 Implementation plan.........................................................................................................9
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................9
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10
Journals and Books .......................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Promotion is a strategy that is used by business organisations to encourage customers for
buying products and services. Promotion techniques are wide and every company use to apply
different techniques for promoting their goods and services (Kimball and Caserta, 2011). In
present report, discussion will be done on promotion, its importance for business and different
methods that are used. Further, this report will focus on “Premier inn” which is a hotel chain in
UK and its promotional activities.
TASK 1
1.1 Aims of promotion in business
Promotions of goods and services are mainly intended to promote goods and services
through messages and different ways of communication. Some of the main aims are discussed
below: Brand recognition: The primary objective of promotion is to create brand value and its
identification in front of customers (Torresi, 2014). With this, companies use to present
their purposes, and present products in which they use to deal. Motivation to purchase: Once the brand is presented successfully in minds of customers,
next step is taken to motivate buyers so that they can make purchase of products. They
use attractive offers, advertisements etc. so that consumers get motivated to buy.
 Sales growth: With creating motivation for buying, organisations intend to make their
sales more. Besides this, it helps in generating more revenue in business (Wu, Tang and
Shyu, 2010). The major aim of promotion is to communicate the consumers about a new
product so that they can take interest in new goods and services. Thus, promotion is a
helpful tool in inducing sales of a company.
 To make new customers: Through promotions, a business organisation intends towards
making new potential customers by attracting them with promotional features. The
retention of consumers is also done through promotions by communicating them about
new features and offers available on product (Stuttard and Pinto, 2011).
Hence, all the promotional activity focus to give explanation of the potential benefits of using the
product, it also help to make differentiation a product from the competition. the main aim of the
promotional activity is to develop and sustain a brand so that customers have complete loyalty in
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the products. It also focus to make increses in business as well as in sales. By using effective
promotion activities it also help to introduce new products in a competitive market.
1.2 Measuring success of promotional campaigns
To measure success of promotional techniques applied by organisation, several method can be
used which are as follows (Meier, 2012). Analysis of websites: If online marketing is used as promotional tool, then a company can
track number of visitors of their website. This traffic will help to know their success in
respective method of promotion. Tracking calls: In this method, organisations can track all phone call that are made as a
result of their marketing. In other words, the organisation can track each call generated
through their marketing efforts to know the effectiveness of promotion plan. Subscriptions and sign ups: Firms use to avail their products to customers by making an
account and logging in from there to make most of the use of its services. This number
can be tracked that how many customers have linked up with business by making
accounts (De Graaf, 2013). Cost per lead: By this method, manager has to keep track of all individual campaigns and
leads generated by this should be calculated. This will provide more detailed information
about performance of each campaign.
 KPI tracking: The said method use to make a fixed standard for each activity according
to which a data driven process is generated. By monitoring these KPIs, it will help in
getting a detailed vision of marketing performance. Besides this, decision to make
improvements can also be taken under this approach.
Hence, to measuring the success of promotional campaign, the first step is to plan the campaign
and decide that how owner want to track it. After that, in the second step it define the channel
like direct, referral, organic. E-mail, paid etc. that the organisation want to track it. After that
marketing metrics like web content, lead conversion, individual and new visitors can be tracked
and after tacking all these aspects campaings can be measure effectively.
1.3 Regulation of promotional activities
Promotions and techniques used for it is regulated by different systems of governing
bodies to keep control on them. In UK there is a self regulatory system that use to govern all
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promotion related activities of goods and services. The two governing bodies for this purpose
work together which are Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) and Advertising Standards
Committee (ASA) (Stuttard and Pinto, 2011). It use to administer over the matters related to
promotions and address any complaints as well. Other legally regulated bodies that do same
work and restrict any unfair trade practices are-
1. Contract law: The contract law states various essential elements of an agreement
according to which the companies make an offer to the general public for making a
purchase. Thus, it make provisions to defend various activities that are related with
promotions and fair arrangement of contracts.
2. Consumer protection legislation: This legal act helps consumers in protecting their
interests. The companies may use unfair means to make profits on the cost of consumer
safety. Therefore, this law has been framed for protecting the consumers getting cheated.
3. Copyright passing off: The said act helps in enforcing the laws related to unregistered
trademarks. As per this, the passing off helps in defending companies their goodwill
which can be misrepresented by any third party.
4. Lotteries and Amusements act 1976: As per this act, the companies are responsible to
raise funds for charitable purposes only and not for any kind of private gains.
5. Sales of good act: Sales of goods act induce the agreement between the two parties in
which one party is agree to given the possession of the goods to another party in the form
of some payment.
All bodies use to follow a systematic procedure and abide every company with their rules
and regulations that must be followed.
1.4 Promotional methods used by companies
Different companies use different ways of promotion as per their budget and target
customers. Some of the methods that are used at a major level are (Loeliger and McCullough,
2012).
 Advertisement: This method includes various mediums to present about companies
brand and its goods and services before intended customers. This includes important
messages which firm use to convey through advertisement by using mediums like
television, newspapers, magazines etc. Thus, advertisement helps in covering a mass
population for advertising about a new product.
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 Personal selling: The personal selling is one of the most effective method to induce
customers for buying. In this method, buyer and seller comes in face to face contact due
to which vendor can convince customer in more effective way by telling detailed features
of products. The major positive point in this way of selling is personal contact of buyer
with seller because of which, it becomes easier to induce the buyer for purchasing.
 Digital marketing: In modern period, the use of internet to market products and services
is getting high (Shani and et.al., 2010). But this method is mostly suitable for large
business organisations that have a sufficient budget. Though it is an effective method of
reaching large number of customers. Presently, the increasing use of various social
networking sites is very helpful in doing the marketing on these channels which cover
large number of customers at one time.
 Public relation: Today, business is customer centric which required to develop good
relation in the longer run. In the context of Premier Inn, marketing department is required
to set a new department customer relationship which focused client related feedback and
promote build their trust which is very crucial in modern era.
 Sales promotion: This is another approach where Premier Inn can provide discounts and
other attractive schemes for their customer which can increase its customer base.
1.5 Current trends in promotional methods
 Green marketing concept is getting more popular from recent years. ' Go green' term is
being used by many companies to advertise products and services because of increasing
environmental issues. The manufacturing of products is also being done with this
concept. It shows concern and responsibility of firm towards environment. The increasing
awareness of customers towards environment shows that companies must apply the green
marketing concept so that clients may prefer their products for saving environment.
 Nowadays more emphasis is given on offering products that can show simple appearance
with great value and utility for customers (Wei and et.al., 2013). This will engage more
customers instead of using techniques of schemes and gifts. Also a sense of fun is also
added so that it can attract customer's more frequent attention of viewers.
 Social networking sites: In modern trends of promotion, social networking is an effective
method to contact with more number of customers. Various sites can be used to address a
large number of users. Thus, it is an effective tool for turning a potential buyer into actual
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customer. Moreover, database of customers can be kept to make contact with them using
social sites in an effective way.
 Consistency: Currently, it is a trend in market to show a level of consistency in
promotional activities so that company can present themselves as more trustworthy
(Nathonson, 2011). Continuing with same logo and colours etc. are some methods used
so that customers can identify them easily. For instance Parle-G is one of the most old
company selling biscuits and it sells the product with same logo and style used very
earlier.
 Online platform: Premium Inn required to develop their website which customer directly
book their room in advance. Further, there are various online sites such as Trivego which
can provide platform to sale hotel room. This will help to increase customer reach and
market share in other emerging countries.
 Social media: There are various social media tools such as Facebook, Instagram, You
Tube and so on. It helps to communicate directly with their customers in an advanced in
an effective manner.
1.6 Importance of branding in promotion
 Benefit to business: Branding reminds customers that a particular commodity or service
is related to a specific company and it is a product that is serving them with best quality
and features. Thus, the organisations can gain the goodwill in market in easier way by
presenting their differentiated brand.
 Benefits to customers: It help customers to identify a particular product they want to
purchase (Wu and Gao, 2011). Besides this, it is a proof of originality as well so that
consumers can trust upon it. Further, the customer can easily address their intended
product without having any doubt regarding the originality of goods.
 Benefits to society: As the demand of branded products are more, production of goods
and services done at mass level. This helps in getting economies of scale for business and
employment generation in society. In addition to this, the employees of company can
have the advantage of working in a recognised brand for their career growth.
Hence, there various kinds of brands and it gives various advantages like it help buyer to identify
the products, reduce the time and risk also. Positioning can be achieved by including the name of
brand, image, service standards, guarantee related to the products, packaging etc. An effective
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brand name is easy to pronounce, remember, legally protected and short, unique. There are
various kinds of brands like manufacturing brand and own label brand. All these two types of
brands helps to earn higher profits, developing customer loyalty, attract new customers etc. For
example: Coca-Cola, IBM, Microsoft etc.
TASK 2 (A)
2.1 Review of objectives of campaign
Premier inn is a UK's largest hotel group that owns more than 500 hotels in different
parts of world. The owner of this brand is Whitbread PLC and it provides best leisure services in
its hotels (Pantrigo, Sánchez and Montemayor, 2011). The cited company launched an
advertisement campaign casting famous comedian Lenny Henry in its campaign. The campaign
gained biggest success and it boosted the bookings of hotel after this promotional movement.
The main objective behind this campaign was
 To present the hotel as a biggest chain of budget hotels and that are really affordable for
customers.
 To make the hotel group as number one choice for every traveller.
 To increase the number of brand loyal customers of cited company.
 To provide best of leisure services to every holiday traveller at best cost (Hebden and et.
al., 2011).
 To make the brand recognisable among customers.
 To communicate the highlighting features about the hotel and various benefits that will
be provided to customers.
2.2 Promotional mix of premier weekend
Promotional mix is designed to attract large number of customers with different
techniques. This mix is intended for both existing customer and potential customer as well. The
Premier weekend campaign was made to draw attention of British people so that they can use
their weekends at mentioned hotel to take a refreshing break. The campaign showed that
customers can book their rooms at a very cheaper cost of £29 for four persons.
Moreover, for advertisement famous comedian Lenny Henry was featured which really
worked as a magic for company. The advertisement showed him enjoying at hotel on his
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weekends (Hebden and et. al., 2011). This campaign was designed by an agency and directed by
Paul Weiland. The campaign's broadcast is done through television, newspapers, magazines,
Internet etc. It also helped in getting instant response from customer's side and presenting the
innovative side of mentioned hotel in terms of advertisement and promotion of services. All the
promotional activities helps to make link to price, product development so that it will increase
the sell.
2.3 Target market
Selection of target market is essential as it helps in identifying consumers that will be the
most potential customers for company. By focussing on this particular target, the organisation
can expect greater benefits and orderly process of positioning the product or service among
customers. This target market selection is done through market research which helps in selecting
the best segment of market that can be a potential customer of business. For identifying a target
customer, the said organisation launched an app for mobiles which facilitate customers to do
bookings through app (Robinson and Robertson, 2010). Most of the business partners of cited
organisation used to book their rooms through this app and it gave 5% hike in bookings. So, one
target market was ready for mentioned hotel. Thus, one major target market for said venture
were business class people who are active on internet at wider level.
Another target was middle class families who use to prefer affordable hotels for their
leisure. These segment were mainly comprised of families who like to spend their weekends with
their relatives. Besides this, it also targeted foreign tourists coming for their holiday trips and
adventure purposes. They were attracted by giving them quality services at a lower rate.
2.4 Choice of media
The company selected various mediums to attract its target customers. This medium was
as follows (Adnan and et.al., 2011)
 Television: Television is considered a best medium for advertisement as it can
communicate with large number of customers at a time. Besides this, famous advertise
campaign featuring Lenny Henry gave most of the advantage to company. The use of this
media was done in an ideal way by addressing all those consumers who do not use
internet at wider level.
 Internet: The mentioned organisation offers easy method to book hotel rooms through
online website. 70% of bookings are done through their websites using internet.
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Moreover, suggestions given by search engines like google for Premier inn has increased
in bookings of hotel.
 Social media: The company use to track their customers needs and choice and according
to that, company use to advertise about their different products and services (Spais,
2011). Besides this, through the app launched by aforesaid company also helped in
boosting sales.
 Newspapers: Newspapers ad are most effective to a large number of local customers at
one time. Through this medium, those customers can also be addressed who are not much
active on social networking sites and do not have access of internet.
2.5 Marketing mix
It is essential for Premier inn to develop an effective marketing mix of its product and services in
order to gain competitive advantage. This is one of the complex and challenging task for an
enterprise to develop such approach. These are:
Marketing mix Description
Product This is one of the key element of marketing mix which is related
withy the product and services offered by the cited firm. In the
context of Premier Inn, they having a wide range of products
which can be highly unique as compare to other hotel services.
The cited hotel use to provide a range of services to customers that
provide most comfortable stay in hotel. It offers rooms with
special facilities like comfortable beds, spacious rooms, desk area,
hair dryer, iron desks etc. all at a cheaper rate and with discounts.
Price Due to its price strategy, company is able to gain a large market
size of UK. It gives best facilities at comparatively lower rates
than other hotels (Duchessi and Lauría, 2013). Thus, by adopting
an effective pricing strategy, the said hotel has used its ability to
gain more number of customers. Price of products is set as per the
market conditions, competitor pricing strategies and also seeing
the substitutes. Thus, price of a products makes an important role
and it also help to enhance the productivity of an organisation.
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There are various pricing strategies which can be used by Primer
Inn to gain competitive advantage. For instance, they can be used
Customized pricing approach for their niche customer at a higher
price.
Place The company has targeted its market in most of the UK countries
as it is the best place for their business. Right selection of place for
business is essential to gain more market share. The services of
organisation are quite accessible as well which is an added
advantage for gaining better response of customers. To provide
goods at an appropriate place also a part of marketing mix. In this,
manufacture focus on such areas where the demand is high for a
particular product, in this way, right place also makes great impact
in marketing strategies. The cited organization also required to set
their hotel location such as near airports or tourism place which
can competitive edge.
Promotion Mentioned organisation uses all media to advertise their product
among target customers. The famous ad campaign of Lenny henry
is best example for this mix. In addition to this, it has done the
marketing through print media, internet etc. which helped in
addressing a large number of customers. It include all the
promotional activity like personal selling, advertisement, online
marketing etc. so that it can attract large number of customers and
which make positive impact on company's growth.
TASK 2 (B)
2.1 Aims and objectives of campaign
Premier inn has planned to open a new hotel in UK at new location. For this planning a
new promotional campaign can be designed so that it can communicate to its target customers
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about new hotel (Falessi and et.al., 2010). The hotel will be opened in Bulgaria to increase its
customer base. The baioms and objectives for new business plan will be:
 To communicate with large number of intended customers to make them aware of new
hotel.
 To place the position of company as best brand hotel providing quality services at most
affordable rates.
 To earn more profits by making more customers.
 To serve customers their most comfortable visit in hotel.
2.2 Choice of target market
The company has targeted the customers of Bulgaria as this place has lots of natural
beauties located here (Wei and et.al., 2012). The said hotel has chosen business class people and
middle level earning families as target market as they are the major segments who use to travel
and have stays in reasonable hotels. So, it has more number of tourists which gives opportunity
to serve more number of customers. Besides this, here number of hotels with cheaper rates
providing quality services are very less. So cited company can make large profits by gaining
large market share. For attracting large number of customers it can offer different schemes,
packages for stay, vouchers etc. For increasing the sale and attracting the customers, company
can follow different promotional activities like online marketing so that they can attract the
customers in a large level. By choosing the online marketing strategies it helps to evaluate the
demand of the customer and after analysis the demand, by making improvement in the selling
techniques helps to increase the sale of the products.
2.3 Suitable promotional activities
The company is going to attract both local and international customers, hence best
mediums to attract both type of customers will be
 Television
 Newspapers
 Billboards
 Internet
 Social networking sites
 Advertisement
 Holdings
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 Personal selling
 Giving discounts
The above mentioned mediums are best suitable techniques for promoting the products as
they have the potential to address a large number of customers at a single time (Falessi and et.al.,
2010). Besides this, cited tools for promoting will address various segments who are good users
of internet and also those persons who are not active on internet. Hence, by use of social media,
mail order marketing, product giveaways, point-of-sale emotion marketing, cause and charity,
branded promotional gifts and after sale customer survey etc. are the part of promotional
methods which are used by the companies.
2.4 Implementation plan
The plan will be implemented with defining objectives clearly to its stakeholders (Kim,
2010). The various promotional activities and other related functions will be carried out
according to a budget set by company. It can have various retained earnings as well which can be
invested in new plan. The preparation related to all legal formalities have to be done with
consideration of full knowledge about Bulgaria. Besides this, different strategies can also be set
out to meet objectives of new company. Hence, by making a plan all the time factor such in
which time consumer want the goods and how much time the demand are higher are included in
it. It also include the money which are invested to make a promotional activity in the target
market etc. are considered before implementing the plan.
CONCLUSION
The present report is focussed on promotion and various techniques that are used for this.
The promotion is an important tool to develop business hence, the report has also suggested its
various implications in business (Wu,Tang and Shyu, 2010). The famous hotel chain Premier inn
is taken in context to show the success of company due to right application of promotional tool.
Moreover, it has also discussed a plan about new hotel in Bulgaria to expand its services.
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REFERENCES
Journals and Books
Adnan, M. and et.al., 2011. Promoting where, when and what? An analysis of web logs by
integrating data mining and social network techniques to guide ecommerce business
promotions. Social Network Analysis and Mining. 1(3). pp. 173-185.
De Graaf, R.A., 2013. In vivo NMR spectroscopy: principles and techniques. John Wiley &
Sons.
Duchessi, P. and Lauría, E.J., 2013. Decision tree models for profiling ski resorts’ promotional
and advertising strategies and the impact on sales.Expert Systems with Applications.
40(15). pp. 5822-5829.
Falessi, D. and et.al., 2010. Applying empirical software engineering to software architecture:
challenges and lessons learned. Empirical Software Engineering. 15(3). pp. 250-276.
Hebden, L. and et. al., 2011. A menagerie of promotional characters: promoting food to children
through food packaging. Journal of nutrition education and behavior. 43(5). pp. 349-355.
Kim, D.S., 2010. Eliciting success factors of applying Six Sigma in an academic library: A case
study. Performance Measurement and Metrics. 11(1). pp. 25-38.
Kimball, R. and Caserta, J., 2011. The Data WarehouseETL Toolkit: Practical Techniques for
Extracting, Cleaning, Conforming, and Delivering Data. John Wiley & Sons.
Loeliger, J. and McCullough, M., 2012. Version Control with Git: Powerful tools and techniques
for collaborative software development. " O'Reilly Media, Inc.".
Meier, R., 2012. Professional Android 4 application development. John Wiley & Sons.
Pantrigo, J.J., Sánchez, Á. and Montemayor, A.S., 2011. Heuristic particle filter: applying
abstraction techniques to the design of visual tracking algorithms. Expert Systems. 28(1).
pp. 49-69.
Robinson, M. and Robertson, S., 2010. The application of social marketing to promoting men's
health: a brief critique. International Journal of Men's Health. 9(1). p.50.
Shani, A. and et.al., 2010. Testing the impact of a promotional video on destination image
change: Application of China as a tourism destination. International Journal of Tourism
Research. 12(2). pp. 116-133.
Spais, G.S., 2011. An activity system as a behavioristic framework for the elaboration of
promotion techniques. Journal of Applied Business Research (JABR). 27(3). pp. 9-32.
Stuttard, D. and Pinto, M., 2011. The Web Application Hacker's Handbook: Finding and
Exploiting Security Flaws. John Wiley & Sons.
Torresi, I., 2014. Translating promotional and advertising texts. Routledge.
Wei, J.T. and et.al., 2012. A case study of applying LRFM model in market segmentation of a
children’s dental clinic.Expert Systems with Applications. 39(5). pp. 5529-5533.