What is sales promotion?
Sales promotion is a type of Pull marketing technique. If you have a product which is new in the market or which is not receiving a lot of attention, then you can promote this product to customers via sales promotions. You can use various techniques like giving discounts on the product, offering 1 + 1 free schemes, etc etc.
When a brand wants to increase the sales of its products, it uses Sales promotion. The brand can increase the sales by attracting new customers to their products or by retaining the old customers by various means. The company can also motivate the dealers and distributors of their channel to perform better for their brand, and to get their stock moving.
There are two types of Sales promotions
a) Consumer sales promotions
Any sales promotion activity that you do keeping the end consumer in mind is known as consumer sales promotions. Example – if an E-commerce website gives 10% discount on its products, then it wants the consumers to make the best of this deal. This is a consumer focused promotional activity and hence can be called as consumer sales promotions.
The objective of Consumer sales promotions might be various. A consumer might be asked to test a sample of a completely new perfume in the market and rate it. An existing customer might be asked to use a Scratch card so that he receives a gift.
At the end, the result should be an action from the consumer. Either the consumer should purchase the product right away, or he should come to know about the product so that further awareness is created for the brand.
b) Trade Sales promotions
If your promotional activities are focused on Dealers, distributors or agents, then it is known as trade promotions. There is a lot of competition in any field. And in channel sales, to get the products moving and to motivate the dealer to perform better, trade discounts are given.
Example – You are a dealer for Televisions. Now Sony comes and tells you, you will be given 5% discount if you cross a sale of 100 televisions. Naturally, you will be very motivated because 5% in television sales is huge. Plus selling Sony TV’s is easy because it is already a brand. Thus, you divert all potential customers to Sony Televisions so that you can achieve the target.
Similarly, there are other types of trade sales promotions which can be used to motivate the dealer and distributor. More such techniques of sales promotions are discussed below.
