For many years, promotional advertising has been a staple in a variety of businesses. Now, it’s practically impossible for a company to attain its full potential without increasing awareness through various promotional products. After all, a pen or t-shirt with a brand’s name, or a successful online promotional campaign, has a decent possibility of leaving a lasting impression. The benefit of promotional advertising is that it has something to offer businesses of all sizes and in virtually every industry. So, what is promotional advertising and how does it benefit your business? While personalized promotional metal trays were popular with businesses in the early 1900s, plastic provided far more options shortly after. Now, you can find almost any form of product to promote your brand, whether through a newspaper ad, a billboard, or an online campaign.
What is promotional advertising?
Promotional advertising entails employing one or more means to reach out to your target demographic and promote the advantages of your products, services, or brand. It often entails providing some sort of reward for carrying out the desired action. For example, providing a free eBook in exchange for people subscribing to your blog constitutes promotional advertising. Traditional promotional marketing methods include price discounts, buy-one-get-one deals, coupons, giveaways, and prizes. Offering an inducement to your target audience can help you improve sales in the near term while also building long-term loyalty. A Digital Marketing Agency can assist in creating and executing tailored promotional strategies to maximize engagement and conversions.
Advertising and promotions managers frequently perceive promotional advertising in two parts. Consider it an iceberg. The tip above the water is clearly visible and involves media advertising. The majority of the iceberg, or promotion, remains hidden. This type of promotional advertising is subtle and might take the form of:
- Developing public relations
- Sending emails to present and potential customers.
- Participating in trade shows.
- Depending on product positioning
- Getting products/services recommended.
What Are Promotional Ads Used For?
Businesses use short-term promotional advertising tactics to generate interest in a product or service, which increases sales. Some firms use promotional advertising to raise brand awareness, publicize events, and highlight improvements to existing products/services.
Common Features of Promotional Advertising
Promotional advertising have a few distinct characteristics that set them apart from conventional advertisements. Almost all forms of promotional advertising include:
- The inducement. The incentive you present is what motivates your target audience to do the required action. This could involve purchasing your product/service or subscribing to your online content.
- The time factor. Because delivering incentives is costly, promotional advertising campaigns are typically limited in duration. Furthermore, launching promotional programs on a time basis makes it easier to measure effectiveness.
- The reply method. Responses must be made easier for promotional advertising. This can be done using a website address, an online form, a social media profile, a phone number, or a physical setup. For example, a restaurant that wishes to offer discounts during the holiday season may ask visitors to sign up on its website or in person.
The Relationship between Advertising and Promotion
Advertising and promotions are two crucial aspects of marketing. In essence, advertising is usually part of a promotion strategy. Promotions often have two basic functions. One method is to market a brand, product, service, event, or other business function using earned or paid media in order to improve awareness, participation, or sales. The other requires presenting some sort of incentive. Promotional advertising falls under the second functionality.
Advertising and Promotion in Business: The Differences
While advertising can help a brand in the long run, promotional ads are more focused on quick and short-term outcomes. Furthermore, advertising campaigns necessitate efficient ideas and substantial planning, whereas promotional commercials are often simpler and faster to create. Unlike promotional advertising, which invites user interaction, advertising typically promotes one-way communication. Some of the other differences are:
- The primary goal of advertising is to establish brand identification and equity while also fostering emotional relationships with a target audience. For example, if you intend to launch a new product, you should emphasize how it is a must-have and superior to its top competitors. In this scenario, your total advertising effort must be instructive, which is unusual for sales-oriented campaigns. More often than not, the primary purpose of promotional advertising is to boost sales.
- Advertising campaigns often target entire businesses or brands, whereas promotional advertising focuses on one or two items or services. As a result, the latter is typically more cost effective.
- Emotionally connect. Advertising strategies rely on emotional connections with target audiences, whereas promotional commercials rarely do. The latter are usually succinct in their messages.
- Final result. Trust and relationships are typically built over time through advertising initiatives. Promotions, on the other hand, produce faster results because buyers typically receive time-limited offers.
What are the different types of promotions?
Depending on the size and needs of a business, using various sorts of promotional strategies may be beneficial. This includes:
- Businesses can reach out to big audiences with promotional ads in various forms of media, including online.
- Sales-promotion. Sales promotions are typically short in duration and use a variety of marketing tactics to engage with target groups.
- Direct promotion. Direct promotion entails communicating with existing and prospective clients directly. This can take the form of email marketing, web adverts, promotional landing pages, text messaging, pamphlets, and other methods.
- This is self-promotion. This process involves organizations to deploy personnel to meet with leads and attempt to convert them into customers. However, it is possible that this will also happen to existing clients.
- Public relations. Building public relations is using non-paid media outlets to promote a specific product, service, brand, or corporate message.
- Online promotion. Online promotions have expanded by leaps and bounds in recent years. Businesses of all sizes today use a variety of internet tools to raise awareness and persuade their intended audiences. Given the ubiquitous use of the internet and its influence in people’s purchasing decisions, disregarding digital marketing carries a high risk.
Pros and Cons of Promotional Advertising
While promotional advertising is an excellent technique to execute short-term campaigns and get the intended results, it also has some potential downsides. Before embarking on this journey, you must first understand what to expect.
The Benefits
- Brand recognition. When done correctly, customers who continually seeing your promotional advertisements may become more aware of what your brand has to offer. Once your target audience is familiar with your brand, you may anticipate them to try your products/services at a reduced price.
- Customer referrals. In today’s world, where sharing information is as simple as a click or two on a mobile device, you can anticipate customers to spread the news about your specials. If you have a terrific promotion, the chain of referrals may be beneficial to you.
- Customer loyalty. Running promotions from time to time has the ability to generate repeat customers and promote brand loyalty. Running promotions for existing clients is usually a good idea because it shows them that their presence matters in the grand scheme of things.
Potential Shortcomings
- Price sensitivity. Customers often wait for special campaigns before making purchases, even if they are devoted to the brands in question. The risk of frequent promotions is that there may be a notable decline in purchases at market prices during non-promotional periods. Furthermore, the high sales volumes created during and immediately following a promotional campaign are often difficult to sustain in the long term.
- Image of the brand. A brand’s image may suffer if it runs a promotional campaign for an extended period of time. This is because clients may begin to perceive the company as providing substandard or obsolete products/services at routinely lowered pricing.
Tools of Trade
Whether you want to give freebies, discounts, incentives, add-ons, loyalty programs, or extended warranties, getting your message to your intended audience is critical. While you have a variety of traditional tactics to select from, the web world has added several efficient ways to promote your brand.
Digital Marketing
The internet enables advertising and promotions managers to reach out to their target consumers swiftly and cost-effectively. However, they often require a multi-pronged digital marketing strategy that includes:
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
- Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
- Influencer and social media marketing.
- Email Marketing
- Content marketing
- Mobile device marketing
- Instant message marketing
- Pay-per-click (PPC) marketing.
Traditional tools
Traditional promotional advertising tactics include television and radio commercials, print adverts, billboards, and product placement. One disadvantage of these approaches is that, while they can be effective when utilized correctly, they are typically far more expensive than most internet options.
Factors to Consider
Determining which promotional advertising methods will help your organization expand necessitates a few easy considerations.
- Target audience. Is your target demographic more likely to watch TV, listen to the radio, or browse the internet? This is quite simple to determine by evaluating your buyer persona.
- This is especially important when your promotional advertising strategy goes beyond the internet. This is the case if you choose the billboard, physical signage, or product placement option.
- Size of your business. This aspect is considered while calculating the viability and cost of a promotional campaign. For example, small firms may find print, television, and radio advertisements to be prohibitively expensive.
Some Excellent Promotional Advertising Examples
Advertising and promotions managers use a variety of strategies, including contests, freebies, free delivery, upselling, and cross-selling. Here are a few terrific promotional advertising ideas that can help firms achieve the desired results.
- Run promotions with your Google Business account.
- Use promotional commercial videos.
- Organize live-stream-able events.
- Offer incentives to customers who record video testimonials.
- Utilize the services of social influencers.
- Offer discounts to persons in specified groups (students, teachers, elders, etc.).
- Offer free samples (both in-store and online).
- Run a buy one, get one (BOGO) campaign.
Conclusion
Promotional advertising may be exactly what your company requires if you intend to introduce a new product or service, or if you want to make your target audience aware of any area of your organization. Knowing your company’s strengths and shortcomings, as well as your consumer profile, is critical when deciding which sort of promotional advertising will be most effective for you. While promotional advertising may be used to attract new customers, it also helps to maintain existing clients by encouraging repeat business. Given that a large number of people are now turning to the internet to make various transactions, it is critical that you pay close attention to this medium. If you don’t believe you have the time or expertise to design promotional adverts for the digital landscape, working with a reputable agency that specializes in this area may be in your best interests.
