Promotional Decisions:

This is done mainly through advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations and publicity as it is done in the case of promotion for tangible products. Emphasis, however, is on personal selling and advertising which are used more effectively than the other aspects of promotion. In the transport industry, for example, advertising and personal selling both play a very significant role in promotional activities of the services offered.

It is easy to sell something that the buyers can see, smell, feel or something that can be demonstrated. Services are not in this category of products. Point of purchase displays are impossible but the benefits of using the service can be effectively advertised or explained through personal selling. Recreation, entertainment, travel, sports, etc. benefit considerably from publicity through newspapers, radios, television. For many years advertising has been used for covering many service fields such as the ones quoted above plus housing, household operation, transport and insurance.

Until recently, the professional associations of doctors, lawyers, accountants, etc thought that it was unethical to advertise their services. They prohibited advertising. Things are changing now and some advertising is being done by their members. They also do an indirect type of promotion. For example, they:-

Participate in community affairs and this helps them to put their names before the public;

Advertise to attract new industry; this is done by banks, utilities, railroads, etc. they are aware that if anything helps the community to grow, it will definitely lead to a market expansion for them.

The main objectives of the promotional programme in a service firm should have three components. (I) it should portray the benefits of the service in an appealing manner, (ii) it should differentiate the service benefits from those of the competitors and (iii) it should build the firm's good reputation. The reputation of the firm becomes very essential because of the intangible nature of the service being offered.In addition to the 4P^S mentioned earlier services have three additional P^S i.e people, processes and physical evidence.