The Role of Internet Advertising and Social Networking in Product Promotion - Essay Example

Marketing Plan-Promotion In business, marketing plan is found in the larger consideration of what a business plan entails, a marketing plan is borne from a well-structured marketing strategy that stipulates what actions the business will be engaged in to realize their objectives. Therefore, a marketing plan can be defined a comprehensive blue print that stipulates the entire marketing effort that comprises of all the strategies and tactics that are a business intend to consider in cutting themselves a niche in the competitive business landscape. Promotion of a product is therefore part of the marketing pan in which a business wants their product to be widely known to the prospective consumers, the sole intention of promotion is to create the required awareness among the people on the existence of a product, its uses, effectiveness, price, and availability in the outlets. A well-structured promotion cans results into tremendous increment in the total product sales. There are many other aspects in a promotional mix that will be considered in this case to do promotion in South Africa, they are discussed below; I. Advertising For effective promotion of our product in South Africa, we have considered using advertisement as one of our strategies to meet the prospective buyers. In advertisement, we have opted to use extensive three options, televisions, Radio, and Print ads. This is following the realization that with radio, we are able to reach a number of people simultaneously-the literate and the illiterate. Because a huge chunk of the population in South Africa lives in urban areas, and that the product we intend to promote is mostly related to those in urban areas, we have also opted to use TVs and Print ads to supplement the promotion coverage. Given that the promotion is intended for the acceptance of new product in the market, we have exhausted all the possible languages in South Africa that can be of significance; Afrikaans, Xhosa, English, Tswana, Zulu, and Tsonga languages, KwaZulu-Natal, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga radio stations will be used. For the TVs, we have picked on those will national outlooks and these includes South African Broadcasting Cooperation, MNet and DSTV, and e.tv. The Print to be engaged include Beeld, City press, DailySun, Rapport, Sunday Times, and Sunday World, these newspaper have national outlook. Time factor is a very important issue in promotion and it has to be timely for the audience targeted. For the Radio and the TVs, the promotional time will be during major news time, this is at 1 pm and at 7 and 9 pm. This time were deliberately chosen because it is anticipated that most of the people will be attentive to grasp the new development in news all over the country. In the print ads, the promotion will be done on weekends because most of the people are not committed and will have ample time to read most of the newspaper and chances are that most of the people will access the information (Clow and Baack 78). In our promotional strategy, we have complied with all the regulations that govern promotion in the country, our legal team has considered all the possible loopholes in the advert and advised appropriately. 100,000 South African Rand is able to sustain 1-week advert in the Radio and TVs while in the print media, they serve for a month every weekend. We have also involved the Media Mix for the public relation exercises, they come last but are important in the fact that they make the whole advertisement appealing to the target group and give the much-required reputation. They also negotiate for the number of adverts that our pay can manage for the advert. II. Internet Advertising/ social networking/ mobile phone ads Our product will also be advertised in the internet and other social networks such as facebook and twitter including mobile phones. This is following our realization that most of our targeted clients are also expected to be internet users. Internet also provides a cheaper and efficient way of reaching a large number of people especially the teenage that are engrossed in the social networks. We use popular sites to feature our promotional messages; these are popular sites among some demographic population and the company has realized this target. This type of advertisement is rather cheap as 100,000 South African Rand is able to run the promotion for close to six months. III. Sales Promotion Because this is a new product in the market and requires most of the promotion, we have engaged sales promotion in hope that it will have significant impact in the creation of the product’s awareness. We have decide to direct the sale promotion in all possible routes including customers, sales staffs, and all the distribution channels that we have selected in the distribution of this program. In this case, we have considered the entire consumer and trade sales promotion, for proper utilization of this form, we have considered the following aspects; contests, freebies, point of purchase, prizes, product samples, premiums, rebates, and loss leaders (Clow and Baack 88). Our company is not considering coupons because of the implications it has with the retailers and other channels of distributions. The cost in this option varies and only estimate is given equal to other modes, it is not possible to give a direct quotation of the expenses that can be incurred in the whole process. IV. Personal Selling Personal selling is one of the strategies that is considered for our product given the fact that it provides our sales representatives with the direct information from the customers. One on one contact with the customers is a very important strategy for a new product because the customers will have the opportunity to engage the customers on special issues on the product; this is a very useful strategy because customers develop a sense of brand loyalty. Personal selling in this case will be divided into several cadres; direct sales that involves person-to-person relation; there are also the pro forma sales, the agency based sales that involve assigning individuals that will be doing sales on behalf of the company and will be earning on the percentage of the sales made. Travelling sales representatives that will be moving with our product from place to place will also be considered to enhance their sales in the entire country. This kind of sale is also expected to reach out into some of the events taking place in the country for a period for example, football matches, and other sporting activities. We have considered all these option so that we can galvanize all the market zones available. V. Publicity Because we are launching a new product in the market that will have to neutralize the presence of other products in the market, we have also engaged publicity in the promotion of the product in the market. We intend to manage a positive public perception of the product through various means. On of those means involve engagement of popular and famous people such as the popular artist in the country; we have also considered the use of politicians to endorse the product and we hope to count on this in promotion of the product. Art works and entertainment will be given priority in the publicity of the product. We have considered some organizations that we intend to in cooperate in the promotion of the product. This is given to the fact that they are associated with the people and the loyalty will be won if they take positive advertisement of our products.. We have considered a number of publicists and celebrities that will help us in the promotion. Some of the celebrities that we have engaged in the promotion of the product include; Marcus Muller, Shashi Naidoo, Vanessa Haywood, and Tanya van Graan. We hope to count on the celebrities’ presence and we have set a side about 200,000 South African Rand to cater for their expenses. VI. How this Promotion will reach the Target Group Considering the option we have considered for this promotion, it is impossible for us to fail in reaching any of the specified groups. The strategy we have employed encompasses and takes care of all the demographic composition in the country, South Africa. We have considered that several factors may hinder our ability to reach the targeted groups due to the geographical distances and vastness of the country but through the promotional strategies that we have used, we are able to reach all the groups of people effectively and timely so that sales will start in earnest (Clow and Baack 98). A combination of all the strategies that we have employed is robust to net every person and informs them about the presence of the product. To ascertain the effectiveness of the promotion of the product, we will be doing periodical evaluation coupled with the indicators of sales to see if the strategies are able increase and ensure the business survival in the competitive market zone. These strategies will have to change with time depending on their approved viability to the company overtime. Work Cited Clow, Kenneth E., and Donald Baack. Integrated advertising, promotion & marketing communications. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Pearson Prentice Hall, 2004. Print. Read More