Interactive

Promotion is one of the Four P’s of marketing (Product, Price, Placement and Promotion). Traditionally, promotion consists of four major tools:
o Advertising: Any paid form of non-personal presentation of ideas, goods or services by an identified sponsor
o Personal Selling: Personal presentations for the purpose of making sales and building relationships with customers
o Sales Promotion: Short-term incentives to encourage purchase or sale of a product or service
o Public Relations: The use of mail, telephone, email and other non-personal tools to communicate directly with specific consumers.

Sales promotions can be further broken down into Consumer Promotions and Trade Promotions. Consumer promotions target consumers, while Trade promotions target retailers, wholesalers, and/or other members of the distribution channel.

The most common type of sales promotions are Sweepstakes, Contests, Games (i.e. Instant-Win, Collect & Win, Odds-based, etc), Coupons, Loyalty programs, Rebates, etc. In recent years, marketers have begun to use emerging technology in conjunction with the Internet to present these tactics online to great result.

Experiential Marketing focuses on creating or altering the environments in which customers interact. It focuses on how customers sense, feel, think, act and relate to a company, a brand, a product, or a service. It seeks to create individual environments for customers to explore to achieve a business objective.

The first step for any company wanting to offer experiential marketing is to analyze the experiential world of the customer and determine what business concept best addresses it. What are the needs and wants of the consumer? How do these fit into that person’s lifestyle? What type of solutions can a business offer to meet these issues? Interactive promotions can be a contributing aspect of an experiential marketing campaign!

The next stage is to design and implement a Brand/Product experience (i.e. look/feel) and to continuously review and update to address changing lifestyles.

The Internet is great and growing opportunity for those marketing to the wiser demographic. In 2005, there were an estimated 50.4 million people aged 50 to 64 in the United States. eMarketer estimates 33.2 million people from this group are currently online. The internet is not a new thing for those 50-64. They use it (or have used it) at work and they use it at home. In a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study, 64% of people aged 50-64 indicated they had internet access at home.

Further, a new BURST! Media study found that three in five adults aged 55 and older say they used the internet more today than a year ago. This is supported by recent comScore Media Metrix research indicating the number of adults aged 55 or older online grew by 20% to reach over 27 million in 2005.

The numbers don’t lie. 71% of those 50-64 have bought a product online, 78% research a hobby or interest, and 57% admit to going online for no particular reason. The internet is alive and well with the over 50 crowd. And with data indicating 68% of consumers 50-64 will be online by the end of 2006, marketers had better take notice. Not to even mention the spending power of this demographic!

Although I’m not entirely sure this question in related to Interactive marketing, I will provide my two cents on this issue anyhow.
GM initially rose to prominence thanks, in part, to their product pricing strategy. Rather than have it’s products compete against one another to cannibalize overall sales, GM created product categories, from introductory to premium, to allow customers to continue to purchase from the ‘GM family of cars’ as they progressed through life. In theory, a customer would start by purchasing a Chevrolet, progress to a Pontiac, an Oldsmobile, a Buick, a finally a Cadillac.

From what I can surmise from some cursory research, the popular opinion is that GM’s recent decline is largely a result of high wages, generous healthcare/pension benefits provided to current and past employees, increased competition from foreign auto makers, and lack of innovation and focus from GM’s top management.

Don’t count GM out just yet though – just take a look at this recent news headline:
NEW YORK (March 10, 2006) The Promotion Marketing Association (PMA) is pleased to announce that the “Pontiac Solstice Early-Order Program on The Apprentice” campaign, conducted by Digitas, LLC and Momentum Worldwide, has been awarded the 2006 Super Reggie® Award. Link: http://www.pmalink.org/press_releases/pr_03102006.php

As with any marketing initiative, you must first identify your target customer, then determine the most effective method to get a message to that segment to elicit a response. Next, you must determine what the objective of the promotion would be. Do you want to simply increase incremental sales? Or raise awareness? Perhaps your goal is to compile a database of customers? Or simply create a buzz? The type of promotion should coincide with your goals and objectives.
There are plenty of promotional tactics to choose from. Sweepstakes, Instant-Win Games, Collect & Win Games, Coupons, Rebates, Loyalty Programs, Chance Games, etc. are all proven winners.