Promotion, Advertising, and PR

April 13, 2006

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In order for your business to succeed, you generally need to promote your products or services to the same buyers that your competitors are targeting. Even if your business is one-of-a-kind, you still need to tell target buyers that your business exists with some kind of advertising or promotional communication. Public relations (PR) activities are another way to promote the image or reputation of your product. PR is similar to promotion and advertising, but can be more indirect, since some or all of the publicity a company's products and services receive from public relations activities may not be controlled by the company.

If you're a big manufacturer of business-to-business goods, you may need to do much more personal sales promotion (to purchasing agents of your customer firms) than a consumer goods retailer, who would go to a promotion mix that emphasizes paid advertising.

Planning promotional programs outlines the steps you need to take to create a comprehensive promotional game plan.
Promotion ideas discusses a number of opportunities for materials or events that involve direct product purchase incentives.
Advertising ideas discusses the use of advertising to inform, educate, persuade, and remind.
Public relations ideas discusses some indirect but highly effective ways of keeping your business in the public eye.