PROMOTION

The fourth marketing mix element for which decisions must be made is promotion. Promotion means providing information to consumers that will assist them in making a decision and persuade them to purchase a product of service. the major methods of peromotion are advertising and personal selling.

** Advertising **
Advertising is any form of paid promotion that delivers a message to many people at the same time. Becuase the message is designed to appeal to many people, it will be rather impoersonal. However, since the message will reach thousands of people, the ocst of communicating with each person is very low.

Companies need to consider carefully what they want to communicate to consumers and plan specific advertising to accomplish that communiction goal. The major purposes of advertising are:
 * 1) to inform and educate consumers
 * 2) to introduce a new product or business
 * 3) to announce an improvement or product change
 * 4) to reinforce important product features and benefits
 * 5) to increase the frequency of use of a product
 * 6) to increase the variety of uses of a product
 * 7) to convince people to enter a store
 * 8) to make a brand, trademark, or slogan familiar
 * 9) to improve the image of a company or product

In short, the purposes of advertising is to inform, persuade, and remind customers about a product or service.

There are many advantages to advertising as a method of promotion. Advertising can be used to communicate to a large audience in various geographic locations. A second advantage is that the cost per viewer is relatively low. A third advantage is that the advertiser can target the ad to a specific audience. Words, medium, graphics, timing, size, or length of the advertisement can be customized based on the target market.

Advertising also has some drawbacks. First, the communication is one-way; advertiser to consumer. A customer is unable to ask questions about the product or service being advertised. A second drawback is that advertisers have no control over who might be watching, reading, or listening to their advertisements. A third drawback is the total cost of placing advertisements. Although the cost per viewer is quite low, the advertiser must pay the initial cost up-front.