Industrial Marketing

Advertising, Sales Promotion and Public Relations : Chapter 15

After setting the budget, the marketer has to select a message to fulfill the objectives of advertising, apart from creating an impact on target customers.

In the process of selecting the message, the marketer can choose one among the various creative strategies -- generic, pre-emptive, unique selling proportion, brand image, and positioning strategies. The next step is developing a media strategy in which the marketer takes decisions regarding media scheduling and media buying. The last step is evaluating the effectiveness of the advertising.

Marketers can evaluate the effectiveness by pre-testing, post-testing, and by measuring sales enquiries and responses. Industrial marketers can also go in for sales promotion. Through sales promotion activities, marketers make specific appeals to the target customers. This is done through trade shows and fairs, sponsorship of events, catalogs, technical reports, samples, gifts, etc.

In industrial marketing, trade shows are a prominent method of sales promotions. Industrial marketers also make use of public relations with various objectives such as improving the image, gaining recognition in the marketplace, nurturing employee morale, crisis management, etc.

Their public relation activities are directed at present and prospective customers, suppliers, channel members, shareholders, employees and trade unions, local communities, government and other influential groups. The degree of outsourcing of the PR activities depends on the organization's size, internal skill sets, etc.

Chapter 15 : Overview