Definition:

Defining your key messages, target audiences and channels to be used to advertise and promote your organization, products, services, accomplishments, and events.

• What it is: A promotional strategy developed by an organization to make sure that all of their promotion works together to fulfill the strategies, goals, and plans of the sponsoring organization or company. It includes clear identification of the outcomes and deliverables desired by the company, the target audience, and their interest and desires, as well as the approach that will be used in the promotional process. Promotion includes all forms of traditional media, new forms of social media, and the use of key influencers to maximize the desired promotional elements of the company/organization.
• ​What does it do: A well designed promotional strategy will focus efforts on the desired outcomes and audiences. It will reduce the cost of promotion and increase the reach and engagement from the promotional vehicles.

Uses:

• How is it used: A good promotional strategy is used to optimize how the organization will identify the right messages to be delivered to the right audiences, through the right place or channel.
• ​Where: The promotional strategy can be created at the entire company level, and sub-strategies can be created for each business and or product group within the company. Each of the layered strategies should be consistent with the parent strategy of the group in which they operate. Individual promotional events will not have a strategy of their own, but their promotional plans should be consistent with the larger promotional strategy. The types of advertising can vary greatly but a common list provided by LearnMarketing.is included in the table below:

• Why: Without good promotional strategy efforts and costs could be wasted, underutilized and the desired deliverables and outcomes of the promotion may not be reached.

Limitations:

• Where it shouldn't be used: Strategies are used to understand the larger direction of the organization or product. Each promotion does not need a strategy. But the promotional plans should be consistent with and fit within the larger promotional strategy of the company, organization, or product/event.
• Any restrictions: none
• Warnings: Never let the creativity of the promotion overshadow the purpose of the promotion. There are creative and entertaining promotions where the sponsor of the promotion is hard to recognize and the audience is not engaged with the desired outcomes of the promotion.

Demonstrations:

• Setting Promotional Objectives  
• Advertising Foundations
• Promotion Strategy Introduction

Step-by-step process:

• Finding Brand Insight: Determine what brands you are working with. Brands can be for a company or organization, a business or service group, or for a specific product or service. Once you have clarified what you are branding you must clarify the RAB and USP of the brand you are promoting:
• Relevant Distinguishing Benefit (RAB): Products and services have features, but those features create a benefit for the customer. As an example, an article of clothing can have a brand logo as a feature, but the benefit to the customer may be an appearance of status or the affiliation with a company or brand that builds their identity and links them to the desired group. To build a strategy you need to understand what benefits are possible for your product or service that you are promoting.
• Unique Selling Proposition (USP): What is the unique approach you will use to promote your product. What is the unique message/channel/content that you will use to present your product or service to your target audience?
• Finding Consumer Insights: Understanding your customers and their hopes, dreams, and desires are critical to creating a promotion that will engage them
• What makes your Audience Tick: What is important to your target audience? Are they driven by altruism and making the world a better place, or are they driven by greed, lust, and desire? Are they motivated by showing their love and caring for others, or do they act out of fear and preserving their image, and personal safety? Are they driven by a desire to be healthy and fit with lots of outdoor athletic activities, or are they a couch potato looking for others to entertain them or support their hobbies. Understanding what is important to them and their goals and desires will help you in developing a strategy to attract them to what you have to offer and engage them in the promotion.
• What is your Target Audience Interested in: A target audience often has common areas of interest like athletic events, outdoor activities, hobbies, types of entertainment, travel, etc. If your target audience is interested in "Do It Yourself" remodeling of homes, you can identify opportunities that leverage that interest in home remodeling as a part of your promotional strategy.
• Merging Brand and Consumer Insights: The merging of brand insight with consumer insight may identify a point of creativity to develop a promotional strategy. Think of it as a Venn Diagram of two overlapping circles (the circles being brand insight and consumer insight), at the overlapping intersection is an opportunity space to find a promotional strategy that leverages what your product or service has to offer to a group that is entered in and motivated by your message.
• Develop a Story to Tie Promotions Together: Identifying an overall strategy creates an umbrella covering the different individual promotional approaches and content. By creating a storyline that ties all of the different promotional elements together you get the impact of the individual promotion vehicle, as well as the connection in the consumer's mind of the other vehicles within the same storyline and promotional strategy.
• Chevrolet created a promotional strategy where they gathered consumers together in a unique way (focus groups) of examining Chevrolet products and the awards they had won. They leveraged the interest that consumers have in individual reviews and testimonials with the messages they were trying to deliver. By seeing consumers surprised by what they learned about Chevrolet, consumers found it more credible than if Chevrolet had said it themselves. They started with simple focus groups and their feedback. As the promotion caught the attention and interest of consumers they built upon the strategy by creating bigger, more elaborate, and creative ways to involve consumers in focus group settings. But all of them fit the same strategy, approach, and storyline.

Template for capturing data:

 How to Write a Marketing and Promotional Plan Template

Output representation and recommendations:

A PowerPoint showing the strategy is a common presentation format.

Examples:

Snickers: The Snickers brand did research to see how their product was perceived by consumers. Because of their use of peanuts and dairy (caramel) they were considered a more healthy treat than most candy bars. Because of the chocolate and sugar, they were also perceived as a product that could bring a quick sugar pick me up. As they studied their customers they learned that people would often find that when they were hungry it affected their mood and how they interacted with people. People often become irritable and angry when they were hungry. Snickers either coined or leveraged the term HANGRY to indicate that a person "Wasn't Themselves" when they were hungry. Since Snickers was uniquely positioned as a healthy treat to provide nutrition to address the fact that they were hungry and sweet to bring a quick boost, it could make you yourself again. They used actors who were known to be irritable and angry to represent the person when they were hangry, and the person themselves returned when they had eaten a Snickers. They had many different promotional spots, but they all fit within the promotional strategy that was leveraging their brand insight with the target audience’s consumer insight.

Top Ten Promotional Strategies  

Additional resources:

• The Marketing Mix
• Marketing and Promotion Strategies
• Promotion 
• Advertising Strategy 
• The 6 Best Advertising Strategies for Small Business
• Advertising Strategy: Most Effective Advertising Strategies