promotion mix modeling by fuzzy approach (a case study of automobile battery industry)

the main purpose of this paper is to develop an effective and efficient promotion mix model and determine the share and value of each of the underlying variables in the promotion mix in accordance with the marketing and promotional goals and strategies of a firm. the review of earlier studies indicate that the promotion mix components such as competitor’s advertisement, public relation budget, variety of sales promotion variables, sales persons skills, competition intensity and customers’ satisfaction level, product life cycle and marketing goals have been mainly stochastic, dynamic, vague, imprecise, qualitative or intangible that require approaches coherent with the innate nature of these variables to understand. however, in most of the current models, the issue of designing a mix with structured approach and in a time-series framework has been handled without paying enough attention to the data nature and humane judgments, and neither the impact of the input variables on output variables in promotion mix. this paper tries to compensate for the aforementioned shortcoming by employing a fuzzy approach in modeling, reliance on the actual performance data, and analysis of the experts’ views. by using this approach, we achieved most satisfaction on reaching marketing and promotional goals besides minimizing cost of doing such activities. furthermore we use some variable such as organization life cycle, marketing strategy, promotional activities budget, competition intensity and industry nature as a key construct for designing effective model. employed fuzzy approach ranked the importance of promotion variables as follow in automobile battery industry: personal sellin