Services Marketing

Promotion and Communication of Services : Overview

These are personal selling, advertising, sales promotion, publicity, public relations, and direct marketing. A service company should also have a knowledge about the basic differences between packaged goods and service industries to design effective promotional techniques. The service personnel play a more important role in service delivery when compared to packaged goods.

The delivery location is also important in services and finally, a service customer acts as a co-producer unlike in packaged goods industry. Keeping these differences in mind, a service company can opt for any of the promotional techniques like sampling, premiums, prize promotions, price/quantity promotions, refunds and future discounts, and coupons.

While designing a specific promotion campaign, a service organization should be able to answer questions like which services are to be promoted, who are the target customers, what value is being added to the service, when should the campaing be launched, how far it should be extended, who are the beneficiaries of the campaign and finally, how can a service firm differentiate its promotion from those of competitors.

Answering the above questions will help a service organization design a service promotional campaign. However, some promotional campaigns still fail as they consume a lot of time and resources and might prove ineffective. Therefore, guidelines are provided for effective promotional campaign.

An organization requires to plan effectively, should have focused objectives, the campaign launch should be perfectly timed, and it should add value by tie-ups and promotional overlays. Further, an organization should motivate its customers, intermediaries and employees, involved in the sales and marketing departments of an organization through its promotional campaigns. Finally, it should develop a well-differentiated campaign from its competitors and regularly assess the success of a campaign.

Chapter 12 : Overview