Advertising is one of the aspects of a promotion strategy. According to Cateora et al., advertising refers to efforts made by companies to use non-personal messages to woo clients, particularly buyers, to influence their loyalty and decisions to acquire particular products or services. Sales promotion is another approach that denotes consumer-focused and trade-oriented strategies put in place by institutions to enhance their sales capacities by customizing their clients’ buying trends and behaviors. This technique has the potential of attracting fresh customers while at the same time maintaining the existing clientele base.
Public relations as part of promotion strategy elements refers to organizations’ attempts to deliver positive images concerning their respective brands to their targeted clients using platforms such as radios, TVs, news bulletins, and one-on-one conferences among others. The cost-effective nature of this promotion strategy makes it the most preferred by companies such as Apple and Samsung. Personal selling as a form of promotion strategy denotes the idea of deploying individuals to sell particular commodities to customers on a one-on-one basis. These agents’ attitude plays a key role in influencing customers’ purchase decisions. Another strategy, namely, direct marketing, is the act of availing items or services directly to clients via mail orders or calls without involving retailers.
When devising a global promotion strategy, all the above components should be customized to fit into the “culture, tastes and preferences, language, environmental conditions, and lifestyles” of the people of a specific country. Trade barriers in the contemporary business environment are almost negligible, thanks to global technological advancements. However, selecting one or some of the above promotion strategies requires a considerable degree of customization due to diversity issues and variations in product life cycles witnessed among nations across the world. KFC-Japan is a good example of companies that faced challenges with their promotion strategies. Particularly, this organization sought to offer products to international markets without considering the various unique demands of clients in countries such as the U.S. According to Alwazir, Wal-Mart’s failure to embrace customized items also witnessed losses of over $100 million it’s Germany and Japan among other regions. Hence, the above promotion strategy components have to be tailored to meet the exclusive needs of diverse customers around the globe.