Continue to do research on the company you wrote about for Modules 1 and 2 (Keurig Coffee Makers). Now focus your research on this company’s promotion and communications strategy. Find out as much as you can about the company’s promotion mix.
Before starting on your paper make sure you are familiar with the five main aspects of the promotion mix – advertising, public relations, personal selling, sales promotion, and direct marketing. Review all of the background materials regarding these five aspects, and make sure to include in your paper references both to sources of information on your chosen company and to the required background readings. When you have finished researching your company’s promotion strategies and thoroughly reviewed the main promotion strategies covered in the background readings, write a two- to three-page paper addressing the following questions:
- What kind of advertising campaigns is this company currently engaged in? What kind of media do they advertise in, for example television, the internet, etc.?
- What kind of public relations efforts does this company engage in?
- Does this company ever use sales promotions such as coupons, giving away free samples, etc.?
- Does this company use personal selling at all? If so, did you ever deal with one of this company’s salespersons when you purchased their product?
- Does this company use direct marketing? For example, do they send out emails to customers? Or use telemarketing?
SLP Assignment Expectations
- Answer the assignment questions directly.
- Stay focused on the precise assignment questions, and don’t go off on tangents or devote a lot of space to summarizing general background materials.
- Make sure to use reliable and credible sources as your references. Articles published in established newspapers or business journals/magazines are preferred. If you find articles on the internet, make sure it is from a credible source.
- Reference your sources of information with both a bibliography and in-text citations. See the Student Guide to Writing a High-Quality Academic Paper, including pages 13-14 on in-text citations. Another resource is the “Writing Style Guide”, which is found under “My Resources” on the TLC portal.
The following book chapter provides a solid overview of the five main promotion strategies along with other aspects of marketing communication. Pay special attention to pages 19-29 including Tables 1.3 and 1.4 that compare the different promotion strategies:
Fill, C. (2009). Chapter 1: Introduction to marketing communications. Marketing Communications: Interactivity, Communities and Content. Prentice Hall, New York. http://catalogue.pearsoned.co.uk/assets/hip/gb/hip_gb_pearsonhighered/samplechapter/FillC01.pdf
The following reading goes into even more detail about the pros and cons of specific choices of media and other choices in promotion strategies. Pay special attention to the section “Key Media Characteristics” on page 141-144 as this table will give you a summary of the different types of media used and pros and cons of each:
BPP Learning Media. (2013). Chapter 4: Section 5: Media planning. Marketing and Sales Strategy: Course Book, pp. 136-144. London: BPP Learning Media. [EBSCO eBook Collection]
Richardson, N. & Gosnay, R. (2011). Chapter 8: How communication works. Develop Your Marketing Skills- Creating Success Series. Kogan Page Ltd., London, GBR.
