Chapter 9

Chapter 9 talks about International Promotional Strategies, International Advertising, and International Selling Strategies.
A promotion is any type of communication designed to inform, remind, or persuade customers about a company and their goods and services. It is normally followed by the AIDA process, which is making the audience aware of the companies advantages and product benefit. Once you know about the good things a product has you then gain some interest in the product, followed by the desire and finally the action to buy it.
Promotional campaigns are designed based on The International Communications Process. First it starts with the sender who encodes the message, using language and symbols to design it. Once the message is encoded, it is the delivered through communication channels to be decoded or interpreted by the receiver. Once the receiver -consumer, decodes the information, the receivers reaction, in other word the feedback should be received by the sender. In my opinion the feedback is the most important part of this process because it's what tells you if the information you sended was successfully decoded by the consumer, if not, it means that your communication process failed and that you need to work on it. Noise is anything that interferes with communication.
Promotional media are the vehicles or channels used to pass the information to the market or the audience. It may be broadcast, print, outdoor, and the big boom now a days electronic media.

Advertising is any form of paid promotion. It is a good tool to use to crate awareness and interest. There are 8 steps to have in mind when developing and advertising campaign: Identify the target audience, set communication goals, develop an advertising budget, develop a media strategy, create the ads, develop the media schedule, implement the plan, evaluate the campaign.
Product placement is when you pay to advertise your product into some other media. Like Eddie Bauer and Ford vehicles for example or Cover Girls and America's Next Top Model.
Publicity, on the other hand is non-paid advertising like PR for example.

A media schedule is a calendar that says when are the ads going to be played and in what different media. This is a great tool for marketers to be on top of the ad campaign, tracking media exposure, and analyzing what works and what doesn't. Not ever media channel works for every product, this is a great tool to recognize what works and what doesn't and to figure out how successfully the campaign is.

When crating advertising it is important to know that there are two types of advertisements, organizational ads and product ads. Organizational ads promote the brand image, and the product ads promote a single product.

Selling Strategies
Personal Selling involves face to face interaction between a seller and a buyer. It is a successful tool because it allows immediate two-way communication. It follows a process that includes: an approach, sales presentation, answering objections, closing the sale, and follow-up.
Every sales person gets compensated with a sales commission which generally is a percentage of the total sale.
A sales promotion is an inactive way to sell am product. The most common ones are coupons, rebates, or a premium when you get an additional product sold. This action is normally used to create an incentive to buy, get consumers attention, interest and desire to buy the product. Victoria Secret's free underwear coupon for example. Every month I get on the mail a postcard with a little business card size coupon giving out a free gift. I go to the store thinking that I am only going to claim my free gift and once I am there I end up spending at least $30.00
Integrating marketing communication is a planning process that integrates all the elements form the promotional mix to ensure that all marketing communication efforts send a consistent message to customers.