Promoting a product can consist of:

• Advertising: Billboards, TV, radio, newspaper etc.
• Sales promotion: Competitions, discounts, coupons etc.
• Publicity: Sponsorship etc.
• Personal selling: Tele-marketing, presentations etc.
• Internet.

It is important that the promotional method(s) chosen, suit the product. The following factors need to be taken into account when choosing a promotional method: nature of product, what stage the product is at in its life cycle and what funds are available.

These different types of promotion can be split into two main categories: above the line and below the line promotion.

Below the line promotional methods include:

• In-store: Vouchers and special offers.
• Loyalty card offers: Can encourage repeat purchases or encourage someone to purchase a product that they would not normally buy.
• Competitions: Include both in-store and competitions on the back of packaging.
• Packaging: Used as an 'eye-catcher' to attract the consumers' attention.

Above the line promotional methods include:

• Press: Includes newspapers and magazines. Can be detailed and ad retained but little colour is available and ads don't stand out.
• TV advertising: Very popular so ad can be shown to large audiences and can also demonstrate the product in use but there is a reluctance to watch ads and they are sometimes difficult to remember.
• Radio: Many stations to advertise on and ads can be targeted if a radio station has a particular audience.
• Cinema: Colour, sound can be used well on big screen and age group can be targeted but there is a limited audience and message can be short-lived.
• Posters / billboards: Can be sited near shops for impulse buying and good for short punchy messages but give a limited amount of information and can be effected by weather and graffiti.
• Internet: New form of advertising. It is easy to monitor and is cheap to set up but there is an uncontrollable audience.