Sales promotion is a short-term incentive and is one of the promotional mix elements planned to boost the consumers to make an instant purchase of goods or services. Sales promotion activities include offering cash discounts, sales contests, gift offers, free sample distribution, etc. Sales promotion is generally used to supply promotional exertions such as advertising and personal selling.
Did you know?
The main purpose of sales promotion is to boost sales of a product by creating demand, both consumer and trade demand.
What Are the Advantages of Sales Promotion?
The main benefit of sales promotion is that nothing beats an excellent sales promotion when it comes to increasing income. Sales promos give potential clients a low-risk way to try something new. More people will see your business if you run advertising to complement your sales campaign, enhancing brand awareness.
The Definition of Sales Promotion
Sales promotion is an omnibus term that includes all activities undertaken to promote the business. Activities like markdowns, competitions, money repayments, instalments, displays and funfairs consist of sales promotions. All these activities are meant to give a boost to sales. Sales promotion, when done often, may help in getting a bigger market segment for an organisation.
Types of Sales Promotion
Every sort of sales promotion has its own set of benefits and is tailored to meet specific objectives. The most popular retail sales promos are listed below. Promotion techniques are divided into Personal Selling and Non-Personal Selling.
Personal Selling
Personal selling is one of the oldest forms of promotion.
- It involves face-to-face interaction of salesforce with the prospective customers and provides a high degree of personal attention to them.
- In personal selling, oral communication is made with potential product buyers to make sales.
- It may initially focus on developing a relationship with the potential buyer but end up with efforts for making a sale.
- Personal selling suffers from a very high cost as sales personnel are expensive.
Also Read: How to Enter Sales Return Entry in Tally ERP 9?
Non-Personal Selling
Non-personal selling includes:
- Advertising
- Advertising is a non-individual, highly elastic and energetic promotional method.
- A sale is a function of several variables, out of which advertising is only one. Choice of appropriate media is important for the effectiveness of the message.
- The magazines, hoardings, display boards, radio, television and internet.
- The media for advertising includes pamphlets, brochures and newspapers.
Publicity
- Publicity is also a non-personal form of promotion similar to advertising. However, no payments are made to the media, as in the case of advertising.
- Publicity is the communication of a product, brand or business by placing information about it in the media without paying directly for the time or media space.
- Thus, it is a way of reaching customers with negligible cost. Basic tools for publicity are press releases, press conferences, reports, stories and internet releases.
- These releases must be of interest to the public.
Sales Promotion Pricing Policies
Brands use promotional pricing to attract prospects and customers by temporarily lowering the price of a product or service. A brand artificially raises the worth of a product or service by creating a sense of scarcity by decreasing the price for a limited time. Customer acquisition can be aided by promotional pricing, which encourages budget-conscious buyers to buy. It has the potential to boost revenue, strengthen consumer loyalty, and improve short-term cash flow.
1. Skimming Pricing Policy
Prices are set at a very high level. The product is directed to buyers, not affected by the price but by the novelty of the new product.
Example: A new model of iPhone.
2. Penetration Pricing Policy
In penetration, the companies fix a very discounted price for a new product, a selling point. A very large number of the product.
Example: The price kept by Reliance Jio of its new phone is penetration.
Pros of Sales Promotion
Pros/advantages of sales promotion are:
- It stimulates the consumer's attitude toward buying the product.
- It creates a better incentive for the consumers to make a purchase. It is a demand creator.
- It gives direct inducement to the consumers to take immediate action.
- It is flexible. You can use it at any stage of a product's life cycle.
- Sales promotion leads to low unit costs due to large-scale selling, resulting in large-scale production.
- It is an effective supporter of maximising sales. It helps the salesman and makes their effort more productive.
- Paves a way to build a good relationship with the channel members.
- Induces the intermediate to stock more of the company's product.
- Supports the brand with valuable shelf space in the retail outlets.
- Appropriate for following a pushing strategy of promotion.
- Encouraging brand switching.
- Very effective for clearance sale.
- It helps to avoid sales fluctuations.
- Enables to face or overcome the competition.
- Useful to deflect the customers from a price increase.
Sales Promotion Examples
Some of the most common activities used by the marketer to increase sales are:
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Refund
It denotes selling a product at a reduced price less than the MRP for a restricted period. This offer is given to clear off the stock or excessive inventory. E.g., Coke announces a 2-litre bottle at ₹35.
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Discounts
This refers to reducing a certain percentage of price from the list price for a limited period. The discounts induce the customers to buy and to buy more, e.g. seasons sale at xyzzy garments.
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Refund
This refers to refunds or part of the price paid by the customer on presenting the proof of purchase. For example, ₹2 off on the presentation of an empty pack of ruffle lays.
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Quantity Deal
It refers to the offer of extra quantity in a special package at less price or on extra purchase some quantity free. For example, buy three get one free.
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Contests
It refers to the participation of consumers in competitive events organised by the firm, and winners are given some rewards. For example, Camel, a stationery firm, arranges a painting competition.
Types of Sales Promotion Strategies
Types of sales promotion strategies are :
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Premium Gifts or Product Combination
These are the most popular and commonly used promotion tools. It refers to giving a gift on purchase of the product. Generally, the gift is related to the product, but it is unnecessary. For example, a mug with coffee and a toothbrush free with toothpaste.
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Immediate Draws and Immediate Gifts
It includes the offers like 'Scratch a card' and immediately win a fridge, a four-wheeler, dresses, P.C., etc.
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Lucky Draw
This draw is taken out by including the bill number or names of customers who have purchased the goods, and the lucky winner gets a 4-wheeler, P.C., A.C., T.V., etc. You can take out the lucky draw at any time and any number of times.
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Usable Benefits
This comprises benefits like after purchasing more than ₹5000, you will get a free foreign tour, a discount voucher, etc.
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Packaged Premium
In this type of sales promotion strategy, the gift is within the packed food. The gift is not kept in all the products except a few, but the eagerness to get the gift makes the customer buy the product, especially children. For example, gifts in packaged food, etc.
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Container Premium
In this type of promotion, sales are made by storing the product in a premium box, container or jar. The container can be used repeatedly by the customer to store something useful in the customer's daily chores. For example, Society's tea powder is stored in a bottle, coffee is stored in a premium glass container, etc., which the homemakers in the kitchen can reuse.
How Can a CRM Software Drive Your Sales Promotion?
The first question that hits our mind is, what is CRM? CRM stands for Customer Relationship Manager. A person who maintains relationships between the customer and the seller about the customer needs from the company.
CRM software is the technology that helps you keep track of everything about your customers and your potential customers to build great relationships with them. In the past, Customer Relationship Managers were all regarding sales. But now CRM is for every department's sale and marketing service commerce I.T. A good Customer Relationship Manager helps you do amazing things. They centralise all your important customer information and company data so that your team has the right information to deliver the easily connected experiences customers expect.
Also Read: The Concept of Slump Sale Under GST and What It Entails
How to Build a Strategic Sales Plan?
Step 1
Known your business, discover the purpose behind your business. To build a good sales promotion strategy, you need to define your business's goals and objectives clearly. Do you want to be in leader, challenger, follower or miscellaneous?
Step 2
Knowing your buyer persona is the key to a successful company sales plan. The next step in building a good strategic sales plan is to know your customer, about customer behaviour, what they are buying and how your customer devotes their period.
If you are well versed with your customer, you will have more hold over their consumption patterns, and accordingly, you can build your sales plan.
Step 3
Regulate your company's budget. It is important to align your sales budget with your sales forecast and goals. Because if down the track you realise that you are spending a much higher rate than you're selling, you could get in some strife. So, be sure to outline your allocated budget for sales initiatives.
Step 4
Use good media. Now that your company knows who your customers are and what information you require to transfer to your customer, you need to select efficient and capable media for your goods and service promotion.
Putting money into promotion media should be cost-effective. Implement sales promotion strategies from the suitable media at the right time so you make sure your message reaches the audience.
Conclusion
Take your sales strategy beyond the best strategies. Most of the so-called best sales promotion strategies won't help the sales team succeed. Instead of the next fill in the blanks template, create a strategy that communicates more value in your sales conversations.
Now, you know all the details regarding sales promotion, its types and how to build a strategy.
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