Sales promotion refers to short-term incentives, which are designed to encourage the buyers to make immediate purchase of a product or service. These include all promotional efforts other than advertising, personal selling and public relations, used by company to boost its sales.
Sales promotion activities include offering cash discounts, sales contests, free gift offers and free sample distribution. Sales promotion is usually undertaken to supplement other promotional efforts such as advertising and personal selling. e.g. 20% off on branded clothes, free samples with new products, gold coin inside the bag of tea leaves, etc.

Merits of packaging are:
(i) Self-service outlets Packaging acts as a 'silent salesman' in  Self-service outlets by providing detailed information about the product.
(ii) Rising standards of health and sanitation Because of increasing consciousness about health and sanitation, people now prefer to buy packaged goods.
(iii) Product differentiation Packaging helps to create differentiation amongst products on the basis of different colour, size and material of the package.

product mix refers to the important decisions related to the product such as quality, design, packaging, branding, labelling, etc.
The features of a product are given below:
(i) A product is tangible. It is made of certain physical attributes such as shape, size, etc. It can be seen, touched and felt.
(ii) In addition to physical features, a product has certain attributes, which help customers to distinguish it from other products. Package, brand name, warranty, etc, are such associated activities.
(iii) A product has some value, which can be measured in terms of money.
(iv) Every product is meant to satisfy some needs and wants of human beings.

Marketing management decisions are based on a number of controllable and non-controllable factors.

Controllable factors are those which can be influenced at the level of the firm. e.g. price of the product, packaging decision, physical distribution, etc. However, there are certain factors which are beyond the control of the firm.

These are called non-controllable factors or environmental factors. e.g. rate of inflation, credit policy of banks, competition, etc.

Therefore, controllable variables become marketing tools, which are constantly shaped and reshaped by marketing managers to achieve marketing objectives.

The combination of variables chosen by a firm to prepare its market offering, is called marketing mix.

The main components of marketing mix consists of the four P's viz product, price,place and promotion.

Customer support services refer to the after sales services, handling complaints, credit services, maintenance services and consumer information provided along with the product to the consumers. It aims at providing maximum satisfaction to the consumer. It helps in bringing repeated sales and developing brand loyalty for the product.

(i) Market planning
Marketing develops appropriate marketing plans, so that the marketing objectives of the organisation can be achieved. e.g. a marketer of LED TV's having 10% of the current market share, aims at enhancing his market share to 20% in the next two years.
For this, they will have to develop a complete marketing plan covering various important aspects including the plan for increasing the level of production, promotion of products, etc.
(ii) Product designing and development
Marketing activity also relates with designing and developing the product in such a way that it attracts the target customers.
A good design can improve performance of a product and also give it a competitive advantage in the market. e.g. if we plan to buy a car, we will not only consider its features like price, mileage, etc, but its design, shape, also.

Difference standardisation, branding and grading

Marketing concept is based on following pillars:
(i) Identification of market or customer who are chosen as the target of marketing effort.
(ii) Understanding needs and wants of customers in the target market.
(iii) Development of products or services with the aim to satisfy the need of customers.
(iv) Providing information and making the goods available to the final users.

Production concept aims at producing the products on a large scale. thereby reducing the average cost of production. This concept believes that consumers prefer those products which are easily available and affordable. Therefore, this concept lays emphasis on improving production and distribution efficiency.
Product concept contradicts production concept. It lays emphasis that only easy availability and lower prices of product do not ensure increased profits but there is a need of increasing the quality of the product. Adding superior values in terms of quality, performance and featuresin- a product can help a firm to achieve its objective of marketing.

By selling a product or service at a reasonable price and of a standard quality, the firm tries to earn a name for itself and build a position of its product in the market. Marketing, basically aims at building the reputation of the firm through various image building activities i.e. popularising products supported by advertising,  reasonable price, high quality, convenient outlets, after sale service,etc.

The differences between marketing and selling are (any five)

Marketing consists of all those activities, which involve satisfaction of consumer's need. It is the process by which products are matched with needs and through which the consumer is able to use and enjoy the product.
(i) Gathering and analysing market information
In order to identify the needs and wants of customers, the marketer gathers market information. He analyses the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats of the enterprise. Such analysis helps the marketer to take decisions regarding diversification, improvement in product, expanding markets, etc. For this purpose, computers and online sites are increasingly used.
(ii) Marketing planning
After market research, the marketer has to develop an appropriate marketing plan to achieve the marketing objective of the organisation. It involves taking decisions as to what activities will have to be undertaken to achieve a marketing objective.
 (iii) Customer support services
Customer support services refer to the after sales services, handling of complaints, credit services, maintenance services and consumer information provided along with the product to the consumers.
It aims at providing maximum satisfaction to the consumer. It helps in bringing repeated sales and developing brand loyalty for the product.
(iv) Physical distribution
Physical distribution covers all the activities required to physically move the goods from manufacturers to the customers. The two major decision areas under this Function are:
(i) Decision regarding channels of distribution.
(ii) Physical movement of goods from the place where it is produced to the place of consumption. It involves major decisions and activities like storage, warehousing, inventory control, transportation, etc.

Advantages of branding to marketers are:
(a) It helps in differentiating the product from that of its competitors.
(b) It helps in advertising and display programmes.
(e) It helps the firm to charge different price for its product.
(d) It helps the firm to introduce new product under the known brand.