Promotional Tools - Essay Example

Introduction

Promotional tools refer to the activities or tactics one plans to execute and plan to persuade the clients to purchase the services or products. It is quite challenging for businesses to find an appropriate promotional tool for their products; thus, combining more than one tool is mostly advised to help them find the most effective. Businesses use various promotional tools such as sales promotion, public relations, customer loyalty programs, direct marketing, and advertising, among others (Ndubisi & Moi, 2006). The study's focus is to illustrate two of the promotional tools that the group found more effective, i.e., the customer loyalty programs and advertising.

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Customer Loyalty Programs

Customer loyalty programs refer to long-term and structured marketing effort that offers incentives to regular customers who have demonstrated their loyalty buying from a certain company. These programs encourage or motivate customers to buy repeatedly from a given company. Referral programs acknowledge those clients who get their family and friends to buy from the brand (Ndubisi & Moi, 2006). The programs aid in strengthening the business-customer relationship. The promotional tool also aids in establishing a well-grounded customer base for the company. When customers are satisfied with the services and products, they began acting as brand ambassadors for the business, thus drawing more people to purchasing the company's products. They improve business revenue and contribute to distinguishing brands from their market competitors. A good example of these programs is rewarding.

The effectiveness of these programs can aid in identifying vital leadership traits. For instance, they can aid demonstrate how influential a certain leader is. For a leader to encourage the clients to purchase more and draw other customers, they must be very influential. Additionally, it can demonstrate the leader's integrity level based on the relevance of the rewards they issue their customers with. Using these programs as a promotion tool also demonstrates how visionary the leader is since they are trying to establish a long-term rather than a short-term strategy. The loyalty programs' main drawbacks are that most of the businesses use this promotional tool; this may result in market saturation. Another drawback is the limitation of the data collected and difficulty-identifying customers that are loyal to the business.

Advertising

Advertising involves selling the business on various media platforms like newspapers, radio, and social sites. Advertising aims at ensuring the information reaches as many people as possible, thus increasing brand awareness (Khan, 2007). Advertisement boost customer trust as most takes advertised services and products as being legitimate. The type of advertising platform a leader chooses for the products and services determines their traits (Khan, 2007). A leader with integrity should figure out which platform suits the product and services they are offering. A good leader must understand the customer’s needs and devise appropriate strategies for solving them. The promotion's financial stability helps determine the visionary of the leader and their ability to think ahead. The various drawbacks of using this tool are that it is quite expensive, and customers are disadvantaged because they cannot give their feedback directly.

Management differs from leadership. Management skills get used to build, direct, and plan organizational systems to attain the business's goals and mission, whereas leadership skills aid in inspiring, motivating, aligning, and directing individuals. Leadership skills are vital in promotional programs, whereas management skills are crucial in advertising.

Of the two promotional tools, advertising seems to be more effective in the electronic manufacturing services industry. It is so since advertised information gets to reach a wide geographical area compared to the customer loyalty programs, which only benefit those customers who are already shopping with the brand. Despite the high advertising cost, the benefits the company gets is high.

References

Khan, M. A. (2007). Consumer behavior and advertising management. New Age International. https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=7wxU46n8hdEC&oi=fnd&pg=PA248&dq=promotional+tools+in+management&ots=-W2J0G3uRT&sig=h3-XyPxwK8VnIx-TaDyfAecgUWU

Ndubisi, N. O., & Moi, C. T. (2006). Awareness and usage of promotional tools by Malaysian consumers: the case of low involvement products. Management Research News. https://www.academia.edu/download/51860408/Awareness_nd_usage_of.pdf