Ways of promotion
Almarai specializes in the production and distribution of a wide range of food and beverages. The company offers a broad choice of juices (Almarai, n.d.). Still, currently, the set of the provided flavors of juice are relatively limited and, therefore, the introduction of a new flavor will benefit the company. In the current presentation, I will focus on how to promote the newly introduced juice flavor. The strategies to be discussed include advertising, public relations, personal selling, direct marketing, and sales promotion.
Advertising
Advertising is the most apparent means of promotion of almost any product. Acting on behalf of a marketing manager, I recommend focusing not only on creating TV adverts but also on the launching of advertisement campaigns on the Internet and social media. The study conducted by Belanche, Cenjor, and Pérez-Rueda (2019) reveals that millennials are particularly susceptible to adverts that they see in Instagram Stories. Besides, Instagram is also a platform for native ads from famous bloggers. The generation of their parents prefers Facebook to Instagram and, hence, it essential to make them see adverts for a new flavor of juice on this social network. Finally, it would also be a beneficial idea to use PPC advertising on websites.
Public relations
Public relations is a critical component of the promotion strategy of any product of any organization. In order to keep a good public of the entire company and promote a new flavor of juice, it could be suggested for Almarai to establish a partnership with some charity organizations. During the events held by these organizations, Almarai could place its juices so that the audience could drink them. This way, people will remember that Almarais beverages are connected with something decent and nice. This, in turn, leads to the fact that in the shop, the costumers are more likely to prefer Almarais juices to ones of other firms because of the awareness about the relation of Almarai to charity organizations.
Personal selling
From one point of view, it seems that personal selling is inapplicable to promoting food and beverages. That is because the concept of personal selling implies that the process of communication between a salesperson and a potential customer (Cant and Van Heerden, 2005). In this process, a salesperson’s critical task is to identify the needs of a customer and show how a product could satisfy these needs. In the case of promotion of a new flavor of juice, Almarai could install several point-of-purchase (POP) displays or organize degustation in the shopping malls. This way, a salesperson could easily communicate with people who enter a shop and persuade them to buy a new product.
Direct marketing
The concept of direct marketing implies that a product is sold directly to the public via online and TV advertisements, flyers, articles in newspapers and magazines, messages and calls, and promo actions. The main task of direct marketing is to interact with potential customers and attract their attention to a new product. Almarai could launch a promo action in a supermarket so that a person who purchases any two products of Almarai receives a package of a juice with a new flavor for free. Degustation and coupons also seem to be a promising way to familiarize people with a new product. Emails, phone calls, messages are not useful in promotion of a new beverage because people usually ignore them.
Sales promotion
Sales promotion is the last marketing strategy to be discussed in this presentation. The goal of sales promotion is to increase customers demand for a good. The cross-national research conducted by Fam et al. (2019) reveals that customers, most of all, like discounts and coupons. In this regard, it is recommended to Almarai to perform promo actions using discounts and coupons. More precisely, the company could sell a package of new juice at lower prices during the first two weeks after the product is launched. This will heat the interest of the public to a new flavor of juice and make people willing to buy it while its price is lower than after the end of a promo action.
References
Almarai (n.d.). Juices.
Belanche, D., Cenjor, I., & Pérez-Rueda, A. (2019). Instagram Stories versus Facebook Wall: an advertising effectiveness analysis. Spanish Journal of Marketing-ESIC.
Cant, M. C., & Van Heerden, C. H. (2005). Personal selling. Juta and Company Ltd.
Fam, K. S. et al. (2019). Consumer attitude towards sales promotion techniques: a multi-country study. Asia Pacific Journal of Marketing and Logistics.