SALES PROMOTION

The word promotion, when considered, literally means to move forward or advance. Sales promotion is the communications tools that is used to inform the target market of the benefits of the product, thus advancing sales.
Sales promotion, also called below-the line promotion is An activity designed to boost the sales of a product or service. It may include an advertising campaign, increased PR activity, a free-sample campaign, offering free gifts or trading stamps, arranging demonstrations or exhibitions, setting up competitions with attractive prizes, temporary price reductions, door-to-door calling, telemarketing, personal letters on other methods”.

There are many sales promotional techniques available, such as price promotion, these are offers like 2 for 1, 50% off, ‘reduced’ and ‘sale’. These either offer a discount to the normal price or the customer receives extra for the same price.
Competitions and prizes are another popular for of promotion, this is an incentive for the customer to purchase a ticket or product.

Sales promotions give the company the opportunity to develop sales with loyal customers, to develop trial sales with new customers, to counteract competitor activity and to it can even help them to create a database. On the other hand, too much sales promotion can damage a brands image, the balance must be right between sales promotion and maintaining brand image.
The different categories of sales promotion include the ‘win’ factor – consumers can win a prize or contest.
The ‘free’ factor – here consumers get something for nothing, this is a big pull factor that a lot of clients look for.
The ‘save’ factor – consumer have to save something, such an coupons from a newspaper, to gain points or free products, another such example is the ‘Boots card’, points are collected and then the possibility to purchase products with the points is available.
Cause Related – here the consumer believes that when they purchase a cause related item another organisation such as a charity will benefit from the purchase. This ties into events as often an event will have a charity tie in, in which they can use the logo to promote sales of the event itself.