Page 641 - Encyclopedia of Business and Finance

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Promotion

cedures, the variables, and the data names used in advertising, personal selling, public relations, and sales
the program. It also includes the purpose and objec- promotion. Each of these elements can be further divided
tives of the program. This information is intended into additional subcomponents or strategies. The majority
to allow another person to understand the program. of a company’s promotional resources are usually spent on
Internal documentation is found within the code of these four elements for a simple reason: Companies per-
the program. External documentation is found sepa- ceive these methods as the most effective means to pro-
rate from the program and may include instruction mote their products. Other specialized promotional
manuals or online help. techniques, however, are also used to enhance promo-
tional objectives.
POPULAR PROGRAMS
Because of the popularity of applications that provide Advertising. Advertising is often thought of as the paid,
GUIs for end users which are user-friendly, many pro- nonpersonal communication used in the promotion of a
gramming packages today include a “visual” component. cause, idea, product, or service by an identified sponsor.
Some of the most commonly used languages by program- The various advertising delivery methods include banners
mers are Visual Basic, NET, Visual C++, and C#. Java, at sporting events, billboards, Internet Web sites, logos on
JavaScript, and XML are used for interactive web develop- clothing, magazines, newspapers, radio spots, and televi-
ment. sion commercials. Among the common forms of advertis-
ing are advocacy, comparative, cooperative, informational,
SEE ALSO Information Processing; Software
institutional, persuasive, product, reminder, point-of-pur-
chase, and specialty.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Deitel, Harvey M., Deitel, Paul J., and Nieto, Tem R. (2003). Personal Selling. Personal selling is considered one of the
Simply Visual Basic .NET: An application-driven tutorial
approach. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall. most effective promotional techniques because it facili-
tates interaction between consumer and seller. With per-
Gaddis, Tony, Irvine, Kip, and Denton, Bruce (2003). Starting
out with Visual Basic .NET. Boston: Addison Wesley. sonal selling, a salesperson can listen to and determine a
consumer’s needs by asking questions and receiving feed-
Schneider, David (2003). An introduction to programming using
Visual Basic .NET (5th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pren- back from the consumer. Furthermore, personal selling
tice Hall. activities can generate long-lasting friendships between
Stern, Nancy, Stern, Robert A., and Ley, James P. (2003). consumers and sellers that typically generate many repeat
COBOL for the 21st century (10th ed.). New York: Wiley, purchases. Personal selling can also occur by means of
2003. interactive computers, telephone conferences, and interac-
Venit, Stewart (2002). Extended prelude to programming: Concepts tive videoconferencing. A drawback of personal selling,
and design. El Granada, CA: Scott Jones. however, is its high cost. Examples of products promoted
through personal selling include automobiles, life insur-
ance, real estate, and many industrial products.
Ronda B. Henderson
Public Relations. Public relations has been described as
building goodwill with a company’s various constituen-
PROMOTION cies, including consumers, employees, government offi-
cials, stockholders, and suppliers. The overall goal of any
It would be safe to say that most companies engage in
some form of promotional activity every day of the year. public relations effort is to project a positive company
Promotion is one of the four Ps of marketing—price, image when dealing with such issues as community and
product, place, and promotion. Promotion is generally government relations, employment practices, and envi-
thought of as a sequence of activities designed to inform ronmental issues.
and convince individuals to purchase a product, subscribe
Consumers. Public relations efforts are extremely
to a belief, or support a cause. All of the various tools important for maintaining a company’s consumer
available to marketing managers for promotional activities
base. Consumers must believe that they are buy-
constitute what is known as the promotional mix.
ing from a caring, honest, and trustworthy com-
pany. Negative media stories about, for example,
PROMOTIONAL MIX exploiting workers or producing substandard
Marketing managers use different components of the pro- products can do enormous damage to a company
motional mix as tools for achieving company objectives— in the eyes of consumers. Erosion of a company’s

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