Amazon’s Promotion (Promotional Mix)
This component of the marketing mix involves the strategies and tactics that a company uses to communicate with its target market. Amazon.com Inc. aims to persuade its customers to visit its websites and pay for its online services. The following strategies and tactics are used in such promotional mix, arranged according to importance in the company’s e-commerce business:
Advertising (most important)
Sales promotions
Public relations
Direct marketing
Advertising functions as the primary means for Amazon to communicate with its target market. For example, the company has an affiliate program for website owners or online publishers to earn revenues by displaying advertisements and corresponding links to products sold on the Amazon.com website. This strategy widens the company’s market reach. Also, Amazon.com Inc. applies sales promotion as a secondary strategy to attract customers and persuade them to purchase goods and services on the website. For example, the company occasionally uses discounts and special offers to generate more sales. On the other hand, the firm strengthens its brand image through public relations programs, such as Amazon Smile, which donates a percentage of sales to charitable organizations. These programs enhance consumer perception about the corporation [Read: Amazon’s Stakeholders & Corporate Social Responsibility Strategy]. Moreover, in using direct marketing, the company directly communicates with businesses to offer its online services, such as publishing and digital content distribution. In this component of Amazon.com Inc.’s marketing mix, advertising is the main determinant of the organization’s marketing communication effectiveness.