Results and Possible Methods
For my business, I will have to make a decision on which method I will use for the promotional service of my business. From the primary data I have collected, I have constructed a graph which shows how the public knows about the Virgin Megastore and its products.
From these results, 30% of the people chose printed media (10 people) and 47% of the people chose broadcast media were the two most popular ways of promotion which helped the people be let known of the Virgin Megastore. Since Virgin Megastore is the main competitor in the market, I will use similar promotional devices because that business is very effective in the way that they promote their business and its products.
If I was to use one of these two ways of promotion, I would have think of how they would benefit my business and how they would limit the promotional service for my business. These types of promotion are also the two types of advertising: broadcast media (i.e. radio, TV, cinema) and printed media (i.e. newspapers, magazines, leaflets). On a whole, broadcast media is very effective when it comes to getting your message of your business or product across to the target market because it can reach out to a large audience. It is also more interesting to look at and it’s better quality. However, it is very expensive to use broadcast media for example TV commercials which can cost millions to advertise. On the other hand, printed media for example newspapers can be effective because it’s easy to target and they’ll often be read more than once, but, they are silent, static/boring and often they aren’t in colour. If I were to consider using advertising, I would have to bear in mind that advertising costs money, so I would have to charge more for the products to pay for it.
There are three factors that determine the type of promotional service used:
- Resource availability and the cost
- Market size and concentration (people in a given area)
- Customer information needs
Television, an example of broadcast media, is used for advertisements which can reach to millions of people and you can target people who watch particular programmes, but they are expensive to use. I don’t actually think that this would benefit my business because my target audience is not in the millions figure; I am only targeting people in U.A.E which only has a population of approximately 2.5 millions people. I think that using the TV for my promotional service would possibly be a waste of money because I don’t need to target to a very large audience compared to a place like the U.S.A. Radio is commonly used because it’s cheap and you can target listeners to particular stations, however, it’s only sound and the audience is much smaller. I think that this would be ideal for my circumstances because I don’t have a very large audience but it would still target to the people. It is much cheaper for me to use and a great deal of people listen to the radio in Dubai. I possibly could use cinemas because they have a high visual and sound impact and I can target particular films. Unlike the TV and radio, the audience is very captive which means that they aren’t as easily distracted. However, they are expensive considering the audience size. Virgin Megastore does not commonly use cinemas for a promotional service, with that being said, I could use this for my business’ benefit because cinemas are increasing in popularity and more and more people are going.
The second type of advertising is printed media; newspapers, magazines and leaflets are easy to target effectively and they are often read more than once but they’re static, silent and sometimes they aren’t even in colour which possibly could discourage the possible customers. I think that newspapers have good potential because I can promote my business and its products in the 7 Days paper or Emirates Today paper which is very much read. This goes for magazines as well; they are read often and have potential to be efficient. Leaflets are probably the most effective out of the printed advertising media because they are cheap to produce and distribute, but they are quite easy to ignore. They are usually in colour and have a package full of information to display to the consumer.
Other types of advertising media include posters, billboards and internet sites which are all potentially effective to use. Posters and billboards are large, they have a large visual impact to the person, they stay in one place for long time until a new one is placed and they can be seen daily by a great deal of people. In Dubai, billboards and posters are usually located on the sides of main roads i.e. Sheikh Zayed Road which only allows the driver to view the advertisement for a few seconds, so they can’t contain much information and they’re vulnerable to the sand, wind and possibly graffiti. I think that this promotional device could be potentially beneficial if I place the billboards and posters in the right location in Dubai. I wouldn’t place them on a fast strip on the main roads because of the lack of time to see the advertisement, but I would place them near busy roundabouts or stop lights because there is a delayed timing which increases the time spent looking at the advertisement. Internet sites, as a whole, will probably not be useful because it is hard to find which sites to advertise it on and I would have to make sure the advertisement really grabs people because it’s competing with the millions of other sites on the internet. The positive side of it is that it has a high visual impact, can be interactive and it links directly to the business or purchasing products.
Conclusions and Evaluation
Now that I have considered using all of the different methods of promotion available, I can now make a firm decision on which promotional service I should use for my business. I have narrowed the decisions down to printed media and broadcast media, and through the in-depth analysis of each of the methods for the different advertising types, I have decided to use the radio and cinema for my promotional service.
The other type of broadcast media is the use of the TV; I will not use this because it won’t be worth all the costs for just a small target audience, Dubai. However, if I were to use the radio, I could broadcast my advertisements to the most famous radio stations in Dubai, 104.1, 92.0, 103.8 and 104.8.
With the addition of cinemas, I am sure that this will work efficiently to promote my business because great deals of people go to the cinemas in Dubai. There are seven popular cinemas in Dubai and the most popular ones are in the Mall of the Emirates and Ibn Battuta. If I promote my business in these cinemas, it will work finely to bring in sales for the business.
If I were to use the radio and the cinema for my promotional service, this decision would be a long term choice because over a long period of time, they would hopefully bring in a steady flow of customers with a stable amount of income. For a short term promotional service, I would choose leaflets. They are good to use for my business when there is new products on sale or special offers available in the shop. I would have to consider where to distribute the leaflets because this could affect how many people actually come to the shop and purchase the products. In addition, when distributing the leaflets, I could try to persuade the potential customer using language which will show how he/she will benefit from the particular product. I would also have to consider what information I put on the leaflet. If it is boring, not colourful, if there aren’t any clear, bold headings or the language is vague or confusing, the person will probably just give up and throw away the leaflet, thus, a waste of material and money producing the leaflet.
Using the radio and cinema for my promotional service will bring advantages or benefits and also limitations to my business. The radio stations in Dubai are commonly used for promotions in many businesses, from this; I think that I should do the same because it will hopefully work well. It will probably bring in an increase in customers, sales and overall a larger income. On the other hand, it will cost my business money to broadcast the advertisements on the radio and if it doesn’t bring in a profit, then all of the money used to promote the business will be for nothing. The other promotional service I chose to use is cinemas. As stated earlier, a large number of people watch movies in the cinemas, and if they are waiting for the movie to show, I can promote the business and its products at that time. I think it will be quite difficult to find room on the movie previews because a lot of other businesses promote in the same way. If I do succeed in getting a space of time in the movie previews, I would have to make sure that the information that I am providing the person is informative, clear and interesting so that the promotion will work effectively. If I succeed in doing that, then most probably there will be a larger income. Again, if this service doesn’t work, then the money put forth to provide it, would be a waste, thus, no profit gain.