Promotion: A Strategic Guide to Influence and Persuasion

The Distinctive Role of Promotion in Marketing

Among the four Ps of marketing, Promotion has traditionally been the most visible and widely recognized function of marketers. When people think of marketing, they often picture advertisements, discounts, coupons, commercials, or social media campaigns. These are all promotional tools—designed to communicate value and influence consumer behavior.

Let’s explore the final element of the marketing mix—Promotion—through a clear, strategic framework:

1. Understand the Target Audience
2. Set Clear Promotional Objectives
3. Design the Message

Understand the Target Audience

While customer analysis is addressed during the STP process, effective promotion requires a more focused understanding of two crucial customer traits:

1. Information Processing Ability – How well can customers comprehend brand or product information? Are they seasoned and knowledgeable (experts), or are they unfamiliar and inexperienced (novices)?
2. Motivation – How inclined are they to pay attention to promotional messages? Highly motivated individuals tend to engage deeply with content, while even well-informed customers may overlook messages if their motivation is low.

To summarize: if customers exhibit both high ability and high motivation, detailed and sophisticated messages are appropriate. If both are low, use simple, easily digestible content.

Set Clear Promotional Objectives

Here are some representative objectives of promotion.

1. Output Objectives

These relate directly to consumer purchase:

• Trial Purchase – Encouraging first-time use of a product.
• Repeat Purchase – Motivating customers to continue buying after initial use.

2. Intermediate Objectives

These are preliminary steps that guide consumers toward a purchase. They include:

• Creating awareness that the product exists (brand awareness)
• Shaping consumer beliefs about the product (e.g., positioning plant-based burgers as tasty and protein-rich alternatives)
• Generating positive emotional responses or favorable attitudes toward the product—for example, using heartwarming storytelling in advertisements to evoke feelings of comfort and trust.

Note: Why do we sometimes need intermediate objectives?

The consumer journey to purchase is a process that unfolds over time—typically from awareness to interest, to desire, and finally to action. Jumping straight to purchase with aggressive promotions like discounts may provide a short-term boost but risks long-term damage to brand equity. Intermediate objectives allow marketers to engage consumers meaningfully at each stage. 

So, a helpful promotion scheme could be an emotion-driven involvement process: Feel → Learn → Buy.

• Feel: Build an emotional connection with customers through storytelling, or emotionally engaging messages.
• Learn: Provide informative content about the product, or brand benefits.
• Buy: Encourage action through the most suitable channel—whether it’s an online or offline store, a brand-owned platform, or a third-party marketplace. Reinforce this with targeted promotions such as loyalty rewards, limited-time offers, or personalized incentives.

Message Design: Enhancing Persuasiveness

General information processing

Let’s begin by understanding how consumers generally process information.

The effectiveness of message design depends on how consumers interpret and evaluate what they see or hear. The persuasion process typically follows this sequence:

• Exposure → Reception → Decoding → Message Acceptance or Rejection

After this, consumers tend to follow one of two cognitive routes:

1. Peripheral Route (System 1) – Relies on surface-level cues such as celebrity endorsements, background music, or humor. This route is more effective when the audience lacks motivation or the ability to process complex information.
2. Central Route (System 2) – Involves deeper processing of the message content. Audiences persuaded via this route focus on facts, logic, and strong arguments. This method is more effective with consumers who are both motivated and capable of critical evaluation.

Note: These two processing routes align with Daniel Kahneman’s theory: System 1 is fast and intuitive, relying on mental shortcuts; System 2 is slow and analytical, requiring thoughtful evaluation. Knowing which system your audience is using can help tailor persuasive messages more effectively.

Enhancing Persuasiveness

Once promotional objectives are set, the next step is crafting a message that aligns with those goals and resonates with the target audience. Three core strategies enhance message persuasiveness:

1. Endorsement – Leveraging a credible source, such as a celebrity or expert, to build trust. However, celebrity endorsements can backfire if scandals arise or the celebrity overshadows the brand.

• Alternative: Some brands use everyday people to build authenticity and avoid risk. Dove’s “Real Beauty” campaign is a successful example.

1. Rational Appeals – Presenting logical, fact-based reasons.
2. Emotional Appeals – Evoking feelings like humor, fear, or warmth to strengthen audience connection. These require careful balancing:

• Humor: Memorable but risky—may distract from the message or alienate some audiences.
• Fear: Effective when moderate; too much fear causes avoidance, too little may go unnoticed.
• Emotional Intensity: Works best when balanced. Overly emotional ads can overwhelm or be ignored.

Note: Emotional appeals vary in cognitive demand. Choose the right depth and tone based on how involved or attentive your audience is.

Key Considerations in Message Design

To craft effective promotional messages, marketers should keep the following in mind:

1. Align with Audience Type – Use rational appeals for high-involvement or expert audiences (System 2), and simpler, more emotional cues for low-involvement audiences (System 1).
2. Consider Persuasion Longevity – Central route (System 2) persuasion leads to more durable attitude shifts, while peripheral route (System 1) effects are often short-lived.
3. Differentiate from Competitors – Analyze how competitors communicate and identify ways to stand out with a unique tone, message, or appeal.