"Competitive Promotional Strategies"

Before I even start considering how I should put together my project, I want to review my own business and how it stands with my competitors.  Mostly, how I structure my pricing and promotions.  After all, it is a PROMOTIONAL video.  So I checked out Chakravarthi Narasimhan's article: Competitive Promotional Strategies.  Now, most of this article contains lots of mathematical equations and honestly, situations that aren't that relevant to me.  However, the first part of the article contains some very useful and basic information that can help me shape my business plan and create a promotion that is most profitable and effective to get the audience that I am looking for.

Now I generally do offer promotional discounts every year around this time.  It usually involves me raising my prices but still offering the old prices if you reserve your date before the month of May. This usually proves to be effective but I never knew why.  Narasimhan claims that there are three tools for promotions: Advertising, Trade Promotions, and Consumer Promotions.  Overall, Promotional Discounts.  Now, I have discovered that the reason that why my yearly promotional discount is so effective is because it is wise to "fluctuate prices in order to include brand switchers".  There are two reasons why this is effective. First, there aren't generally brand switchers in my business, only new comers who know nothing about anyone else.  So, a price change can make a big difference when selling your self.  And second, it attracts both higher and lower class audiences. It's hard to believe but sometimes a higher price for a wedding vendor is advertising in itself.  Some people are looking for quality rather than a low price and sometimes that turns people off when they see a low price. A soon higher price will suggest that we still have the quality of a reliable business.  Having these constant price changes will attract a much wider range of audiences and will not turn off the higher class that can get me a pay check.


Article: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2352790uid=3739704&uid=2134&uid=4577523657&uid=2&uid=70&uid=3&uid=3739256&uid=60&uid=4577523647&purchasetype=article&accessType=none&sid=21101693542557&showMyJstorPss=false&seq=8&showAccess=false

Photo: http://www.webcommunicator.net/images/sitepicts/2010/photos/promotion.jpg