Basic Marketing: A Global Managerial Approach

Perreault−McCarthy: Basic

Marketing: A

Global−Managerial

Approach, 14/e

2. Marketing’s Role within
   the Firm or Nonprofit
   Organization

Text © The McGraw−Hill

Companies, 2002

The third P—Promotion—is concerned with telling the target market or others

in the channel of distribution about the “right” product. Sometimes promotion is

focused on acquiring new customers, and sometimes it’s focused on retaining cur-

rent customers. Promotion includes personal selling, mass selling, and sales

promotion. It is the marketing manager’s job to blend these methods of communi-

cation.

Personal sellinginvolves direct spoken communication between sellers and

potential customers. Personal selling usually happens face-to-face, but sometimes the

communication occurs over the telephone. Personal selling lets the salesperson

adapt the firm’s marketing mix to each potential customer. But this individual atten-

tion comes at a price; personal selling can be very expensive. Often this personal

effort has to be blended with mass selling and sales promotion.

Mass sellingis communicating with large numbers of customers at the same time.

The main form of mass selling is advertising—any paidform of nonpersonal pre-

sentation of ideas, goods, or services by an identified sponsor. Publicity—any unpaid

form of nonpersonal presentation of ideas, goods, or services—is another important

form of mass selling. Mass selling may involve a wide variety of media, ranging from

newspapers and billboards to the Internet.

Sales promotionrefers to those promotion activities—other than advertising,

publicity, and personal selling—that stimulate interest, trial, or purchase by final

customers or others in the channel. This can involve use of coupons, point-of-

purchase materials, samples, signs, catalogs, novelties, and circulars.

In addition to developing the right Product, Place, and Promotion, marketing

managers must also decide the right Price. Price setting must consider the kind of

competition in the target market and the cost of the whole marketing mix. A man-

ager must also try to estimate customer reaction to possible prices. Besides this, the

manager must know current practices as to markups, discounts, and other terms of

sale. And if customers won’t accept the Price, all of the planning effort is wasted.

All four Ps are needed in a marketing mix. In fact, they should all be tied

together. But is any one more important than the others? Generally speaking, the

answer is no—all contribute to one whole. When a marketing mix is being devel-

oped, all (final) decisions about the Ps should be made at the same time. That’s why

the four Ps are arranged around the customer (C) in a circle—to show that they

all are equally important.

50 Chapter 2

Manufacturer or producer

AOL Nissan MonteDel Procter & Gamble

Wholesaler

Wholesaler

Retailer

Consumer

Wholesaler

Retailer Retailer

Exhibit 2-10

Four Examples of Basic

Channels of Distribution for

Consumer Products

Promotion—telling and
selling the customer

Price—making it right

Each of the four Ps
contributes to the
whole