Promotion is an indispensable part of a business and marketing mix. The position of a business with no promotion and the position of a mute person is similar as both fail to come to the notice of others. A business without users is not a business.
A business can have great production facilities, talented manpower, super technology, etc. at place. But it has zero value until it is not known by its potential users, also called target market.
Potential customers won’t business with you until you inform them. This gap between a business entity and its potential users or call them consumers is filled by promotion.
Promotion is a combination of various activities, and tools directed toward advertising of a product or a services. The idea of promotion is to inform your potential users that you have something to help resolve their problems.
Sometimes people confuse promotion with advertising. Advertising is itself a part of promotion. Advertising aims to drive sales of products and services.
Promotion of businesses, political campaigns, etc. is not a cake walk game. It takes you various efforts, activities, and tools to create, and deliver word so that your potential consumers buy from you over your competitors.
A typical promotion has four important phases – creation, analysis, delivery, and impact of message on your customers.
Creation deals with brainstorming ideas for message. The ideas generated are sent for analysis, where marketers weigh its power of influence on a customer’s mind.
The delivery phase assures final word or message that needs to be thrown in the market using advertising media and channels. And, your last and fourth phase impact ensures you to check success of your campaign using various tools, and surveys.
In conclusion, promotion is a package of creation, delivery, and impact of a word by a company or by other organisations. Advertising is included in the delivery phase of promotion.