Elements of Promotion Mix: Sales Promotion

In this study, a deep literature search was conducted to get rid of concept confusion in promotion mix. In the naming of elements of promotion mix, concept expressions that create confusion have been examined in detail and discussed in various comparative terms, and basic concepts with wide meaningful various actions have been proposed. More than 20 years on marketing, research and publications have dealt with research problems based on marketing mix and have mostly examined marketing processes. However, the types or elements of the marketing mix that are important for both the enterprises and the consumers are not analyzed too deeply, and different expressions or concepts are used in the analyzed sources. For example, when we study literature related to marketing used as a resource at our universities, there is a confusion of concepts when naming and ordering promotion mix which is an element of marketing mix. The terms which are used as promotion mix or promotion methods or tools, promotion styles, promotion procedures, promotion decisions; sales development or sales promotion or sales whetstone, sales incentive, other sales efforts; public relations or publicity, advertisement, publication by academicians who contribute to the development and expansion of marketing literature are confusion of words in naming promotion mix as well as the naming of promotion mix elements. In this study, a deep literature search was conducted to get rid of concept confusion in promotion mix. In the naming of elements of promotion mix, concept expressions that create confusion have been examined in detail and discussed in various comparative terms, and basic concepts with wide meaningful various actions have been proposed.

Introduction

Efforts related to elements of promotion mix have gained considerable importance nowadays. The main reasons for this are the fact that enterprises have to open up to large markets, thus increasing the physical distance between businesses and consumers, the quality and quantity of consumer wants and needs constantly changing. Therefore, when communicating with real and potential consumers in the target market to inform them about their business and business products, they benefit from elements of promotion mix.

In literature, more than two decades of marketing research and publications have dealt with research problems based on marketing mix in general, and marketing processes are often studied. However, the critical problem here is that elements of the marketing mix, which are important for both the enterprises and the consumers, have not been analyzed much, and different expressions or concepts have been used in the analyzed sources. These findings and the absence of studies on this issue emphasize the importance of the study. So the aim of the work is to give clarity to the confusion on the concept of naming the promotion mix and elements of promotion mix by deeply researching them, and to lift the conceptual confusion out of the way. In order to achieve this aim, later the literature was carefully scanned and concepts caused various problems have been discussed with various comparative expressions creating conceptual turmoil and basic concepts with wide meaningful various actions. Along with that this study is limited to the literature on marketing which is being used as a resource in universities in Turkey. Therefore, this study is a review, research and comparative evaluation work.

The Value of the Study

When we look at the literature on marketing that is being used as a resource in our universities, many concepts are confused. For example, the conceptual confusion that has begun to emerge in the basic concepts of product marketing, product, goods, service and so on continues until the naming elements of promotion mix. These concepts, which are settled by the academicians who have contributed to the expansion and development of marketing literature, are as follows: promotion mix or promotion methods, or means of promotion, methods of promotion, features of promotion, promotion techniques. While these concepts of naming the promotion mix is put in disorder, the other concepts, which are set as sales promotion or salesdevelopment, sales promotion, sales incentives, sales promotion efforts or other sales efforts, are confused in naming elements of the above mentioned turmoil. Even though such market turbulence has been expressed in marketing literature for years, serious steps have not been taken to eliminate the turmoil. This suggests that various issues related to marketing and promotion need to be addressed by our country's marketing scholar and academics in order to get rid of the turmoil.

In literature, more than two decades of marketing research and publications have dealt with research problems based on marketing mix in general, and marketing processes are often studied. However, the critical problem here is that elements of the marketing mix, which are important for both the enterprises and the consumers, have not been analyzed much, and different expressions or concepts have been used in the analyzed sources. These findings and the absence of studies on this issue emphasize the importance of the study.

The Aim and Scope of Study

The aim of the work is to give clarity to the confusion on the concept of naming the promotion mix and elements of promotion mix by deeply researching them, and to lift the conceptual confusion out of the way. In order to achieve this aim, later the literature was carefully scanned and concepts caused various problems have been discussed with various comparative expressions creating conceptual turmoil and basic concepts with wide meaningful various actions.

This study is limited to the literature on marketing which is being used as a resource in universities in Turkey. Therefore, this study is a review, research and comparative evaluation work.

Conceptual Review and Evaluation

When we look at the literature on marketing that is being used as a resource in our universities, it seems that the authors and academicians have differentiated the promotion mix and elements of promotion mix that they will use to reach a message to the target markets of businesses. For example, Mucuk [1; 173] named the promotion mix as promotion method, İśİатоğİи [2; 422] as promotion means, Тепекесİоğİи and others [3; 209] as promotion decisions, Yükselen [4; 369] named it as promotion techniques, Tek [5; 708] as promotion sub mix, Arpaci and his colleques [6; 177] promotion tool, Uraz [7; 166] sales increase efforts, Hatiboglu [8; 131] forms of promotion, Cemalcilar [9; 348] sales efforts, Kotler [10; 49, 11; 299] named the form of a boost. In the ranking of the components of the indebtedness mix, some authors include promotional material [11; 299], rather than public relations, while all authors include the basic elements of the promotional mix elements such as advertising, personal sales, public relations and sales promotion. Sales incentives instead of sales promotion [2; 422, 12; 180], sales promotion sales instead of sales promotion [1; 173, 12; 181, 3; 2010, 11; 299], instead of the sales promotion, the sales promotion is replaced by the other sales promotion [6; 177, 1; 173], sales efforts [9; 348], sales promotion [13; 152]. However, some authors and academicians have included sponsorship, media, etc. [13; 172, 14; 15, 4; 369].

When the sources of interest of this study are examined, the above images are still going on. That is, the disorder arising in the naming and in the listing the promotion mix continues in the naming elements of promotion mix, which is one of these elements. For example, the following authors and scholars have shown that sales promotion, which is an element of the subsistence of sales, can be used in sales promotion [6; 177, 15; 171, 1; 201, 5; 780], sales promotion [2; 442, 12; 180], sales promotion [8; 131, 3; 213], sales promotion [15; 241], other sales efforts [9; 417], vendor boosting efforts [11; 299]. Then in the following parts of his / her works, sales promotion, sales promotion, sales incentive, sales promotion efforts or other sales efforts or sales promotion, sales promotion, sales incentive, sales promotion efforts or other sales efforts. Looking at it in detail, we see here that the same concepts are used as logic, content, and that there is only a difference of expression, and it is understood that there are confusions going on.

As can be understood from the above information and findings, it is seen that some of the authors and academicians who gave important contributions to the marketing literature in Turkey have used different expressions in the order and naming or ordering in different forms of the promotion mix and elements of promotion mix which is one of the components of marketing mix. As we have mentioned in the previous sections, promotion mixes or promotion mix methods or means of promotion, promotion techniques, promotion decisions; sales promotion or sales development or sales promotion, other sales efforts; concepts such as public relations or public adherence or publicity, emotion, naming and sequencing of the mix of elements of entrustment. If we examine these expressions and concepts in detail, it would be more logical first to start them from the source point, i.e. the reasons for their emergence.

An element of marketing mix, «promotion» is a Latin word, give as advance; move forward /on/ further; gain/make ground, make headway in the dictionary; Promotion means raising customer awareness of a product or brand, generating sales, and creating brand loyalty [12; 353]. Promotion in Turkish is mostly used as promotion in personnel management by taking the same from French. But the marketing literature the word we used instead of the promotion word is «consumption», and this phrase seems to have been settled literally in the related literature.

However, there are also those who claim that the word «promotion» does not fully meet. They also say that promoting the product and promoting it, and then increasing it, is not about all these meanings and that it is also a communication problem [11; 3]. If the word «promotion» is used instead of consumption in Turkish language, the expression to be used should be «sales promotion» instead of sales promotion or sales incentive, sales boosting efforts and other sales efforts.

Moving on from this logic, we prefer to use the phrase «sales promotion» instead of a variety of narrow meaning expressions such as sales development, seek sales, sales evolvement, sales boosting efforts and other sales efforts among the elements promotion mix, we recommend to use the phrase «sales promotion» containing actions. Because, it seems more plausible to include sales promotion in place of the above mentioned statements among the promotion mix components.

While defining sales promotion as promotional activities outside of advertising, emotion and personal selling, which encourages interest, experimentation, and purchase in the final consumers, intermediaries and industrial buyers, by placing sales promotion among the elements of promotion mix in the book of «Basic Marketing» by McCarthy and Perrault [15; 472]. The American Marketing Association, on the other hand, deals with personal sales, advertising and in-store marketing activities that encourage consumers to buy and promote their merchants, such as: exhibitions, sample applications, tutorials and non-repeating activities, which include periodic, non-characteristic, pragmatic efforts. As can be understood from the definitions above, sales promotion involves a wide variety of actions and aims to achieve results in the short term (see Table).

Other authors who use sales promotion [8; 131, 132, 13; 152, 3; 213, 4; 395, 396] defining sales promotion as incentives and awards to encourage consumers to buy products now and not later, are emphasizing that the importance of sales promotion increases and the effect of economic crises on sales promotion activities is very influential on consumers' purchasing decisions in the day where competition is intensifying, brand diversity is increasing but brand loyalty is decreasing.

Marketing writers who use sales promotion among the elements of their books and articles describe that they are sales promotion and sales promotion activities in narrow terms and they talk about sales promotion and sales promotion activities in the following parts of their studies [2; 442, 12; 180]. This means that sales promotion means sales incentives in full, and therefore it makes more sense to use sales promotion instead of sales incentives among the elements promotion mix.

If the promotion promises to be used in place of sales promotion, which is the subtitle of the promotion against the word spoken, advertising agencies usually use sales promotion instead of sales promotion. Torlak and colleagues [15; 242], Аĥитşıк and colleagues [13; 208] also pointed out that the use of sales incentives, rather than sales promotion, among the elements of the retention bias in their work will lead to the purchase of sales incentives, consumers, businesses or intermediary institutions faster [11; 564] developed the «Economic Terms Dictionary: Definitions and English Translation» dictionary, emphasizing that the sales incentive is the equivalent of the sales promotion in the English language, while Aypek and colleagues [11; 564] describe the promotion incentive as the sales incentive, The above sales incentive statement is misused by defining salespersons marketing their goods as the amount of goods they sell, the purchasers they buy, the recycling of lost consumers, and so on. It is clear from this statement and definitions that it is irrational and wrong to use the sales promotion statement instead of the sales promotion among the elements of promotion mix.

Some scholars who have used sales development instead of sales promotion among their elements in their studies have identified sales development as logically similar but using different expressions [6; 216219, 15; 171-173, 10; 48, 49, 1; 201-204, 14; 14, 7, 166], namely sales promotion:

• is an important means contributing to increase the effectiveness of advertising or personal sales efforts, used to encourage the purchase and sale of a product or service within a short period of time [6; 216];
• is one promotion methods apart from advertising, personal selling, and public relations, the method that is designed to attract intermediaries to the product and encourage consumers to buy [15; 171];
• other sales efforts in participating festivals, exhibitions, etc., which are not carried out continuously, except for personal sales, advertising, public relations and direct marketing efforts, without continuity [1; 201];
• non-regular, non-regular, non-routine, short-term purchase incentives, unique promotions and sales efforts to motivate consumers or users to purchase goods and services other than personal sales, public relations and advertising, and to enhance the effectiveness of the distributors [5; 780];
• non-continuing activities except the advertising, personal sales and public relations [10; 213];
• is a sales effort that completes and coordinates advertising and personal sales [10; 154];
• short-term incentives to encourage the purchase of a product [14; 14];
• marketing campaigns that increase the effectiveness of the business, such as advertisements, personal sales and promotional activities, which are not carried out on an ongoing basis, such as exhibits, festivals, exhibitions, demonstrations and various unsuccessful sales efforts [7; 166, 167].

Table

Examples of Sales Promotion Actions (Kotler,II, 1984: 303-306; Оİиç, 1989: 5)

Marketing writers who use sales promotion among the elements of their books and articles describe that they are sales promotion and sales promotion activities in narrow terms and they talk about sales promotion and sales promotion activities in the following parts of their studies [2; 442, 12; 180]. This means that sales promotion means sales incentives in full, and therefore it makes more sense to use sales promotion instead of sales incentives among the elements promotion mix.

If the promotion promises to be used in place of sales promotion, which is the subtitle of the promotion against the word spoken, advertising agencies usually use sales promotion instead of sales promotion. Torlak and colleagues [15; 242], Altun^ιk and colleagues [13; 208] also pointed out that the use of sales incentives, rather than sales promotion, among the elements of the retention bias in their work will lead to the purchase of sales incentives, consumers, businesses or intermediary institutions faster [11; 564] developed the «Economic Terms Dictionary: Definitions and English Translation» dictionary, emphasizing that the sales incentive is the equivalent of the sales promotion in the English language, while Aypek and colleagues [11; 564] describe the promotion incentive as the sales incentive, The above sales incentive statement is misused by defining salespersons marketing their goods as the amount of goods they sell, the purchasers they buy, the recycling of lost consumers, and so on. It is clear from this statement and definitions that it is irrational and wrong to use the sales promotion statement instead of the sales promotion among the elements of promotion mix.

Authors who use sales promotion efforts and other sales efforts as opposed to sales promotions can use these expressions to promote and enhance the sale of goods and to encourage the seller's activities and to encourage consumers to buy and sell the goods [11; 299-307, 9; 352-420]. Judging from this definition, we see that these efforts only involve short-term sales stimulus actions that directly induce behavior, and that they are involved in a wide range of actions, involving very large, diverse actions of sales promotion.

As seen from the above definitions, all of these definitions are logically close to each other, but different expressions are used, and at the same time all of these definitions appear to be part of the definitions given by McCarthy and Perrault and the American Marketing Association for sales promotion, as described in the previous sections of this work. It is worth mentioning that McCarthy and Perrault and the American Marketing Association define sales promotion with the above expressions, not sales development. Hence, it seems to be more appropriate and logical to use the sales promotion statement instead of sales development among the elements of promotion mix.

Conclusions αnd Recommendαtions

As it was discussed in the frame of this study, promotion mix or promotion methods, or promotion means, beginning from the naming promotion mix, are also being continued in the naming and listing the elemetns of promotion mix as promotion formats, promotion decisions; sales development or sales encouragement, other sales efforts are continued as public relations or public admission or advertising, etc. Therefore, in this study, a deep literature search was made to get rid of the concept confusion, and the expressions that created confusion in the naming of the elements of entrustment were examined in detail and discussed in various comparative discussions.

As can be understood from the above information and findings, it is seen that some of the authors and academicians who gave important contributions to the marketing literature in Turkey have used different expressions in the order and naming or ordering in different forms of the promotion mix and elements of promotion mix which is one of the components of marketing mix. As we have mentioned in the previous sections, promotion mixes or promotion mix methods or means of promotion, promotion techniques, promotion decisions; sales promotion or sales development or sales promotion, other sales efforts; concepts such as public relations or public adherence or publicity, emotion, naming and sequencing of the mix of elements of entrustment. If we examine these expressions and concepts in detail, it would be more logical first to start them from the source point, i.e. the reasons for their emergence. Moving on from this logic, we prefer to use the phrase «sales promotion» instead of a variety of narrow meaning expressions such as sales development, seek sales, sales evolvement, sales boosting efforts and other sales efforts among the elements promotion mix, we recommend to use the phrase «sales promotion» containing actions. Because, it seems more plausible to include sales promotion in place of the above mentioned statements among the promotion mix components.

As a result, in the context of all these discussions, a deep literature search has been conducted and various comparisons and assumptions of compromise include wider meaningful actions rather than various but narrower expressions such as sales development, sales encouragements, sales promotion, sales boosting efforts and other sales efforts have come to the conclusion that the use of a predicate expression of «sales promotion» would be more appropriate and logical. It is hoped that this result will be helpful and explanatory in light of the future work, so from now on we can say that «sales promotion» will be used instead of sales development, sales encourages, sales stimulation, sales boosting efforts and other sales efforts.

The general conclusions reached during the working process, and the detected literature; there are many conceptual confusion in the marketing literature, and no serious steps have been taken in order to eliminate these confusion. Hence, we can say that these confusions have led to various confusions in the minds of students, whether researchers or even academics, who want to benefit from different sources in their work. This suggests that marketing, especially those issues related to promotion, should be taken seriously by our country's marketing academics.

Here, we proposed some factors that create confusion, that is, the points to be discussed, the angles from which to build the mix of commitment, and the basic elements promotion mix. So, work like this should be done uninterruptedly and constantly. Also, other factors like direct marketing, sponsorship, media, etc. that create confusion, ie, points to be discussed, which angles to build up promotion mix likι advertising, personal sales, public relations and sales promotion.

In literature, more than two decades of marketing research and publications have dealt with research problems based on marketing mix in general, and marketing processes are often studied. However, the critical problem here is that elements of the marketing mix, which are important for both the enterprises and the consumers, have not been analyzed much, and different expressions or concepts have been used in the analyzed sources. These findings and the absence of studies on this issue emphasize the importance of the study.

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