Sales promotion is a set of marketing technologies aimed to stimulate the demand

in particular products and increase brand awareness. Limited in time, it creates a

Benefits of Sales Promotion

 It helps to generate new leads. Sales promotion can boost your product
image since it encourages sharing information about it within social groups
related to your business. If you sell training football shoes, people keen on
playing football will share the message.
 Allows re-engaging with your existing audience. Once a
person subscribed to a brand’s email newsletters, they will receive regular
sales promotions. It is a way to keep the audience engaged and maintain a
close connection with the company, which is crucial for building loyalty.
 Skyrockets revenue. Sales promotions help companies to increase the
number of sold goods, even though they need to lower the price to achieve
that goal. Of course, merely reducing the price is not enough, people should
need your product, while the discount is only another reason to make a
purchase.
 Increases brand awareness. Sales promotion is a way to make a name for
your brand because people are more likely to talk about a сompany that
proposes benefits and saves their money. That’s what sales promotion does.

Sales Promotion Objectives

1. Launch a new product. If you're going to expand and turn your small
coffee shop into a bakery, you need to reach new market segments. You can
attract new customers by offering a free cookie with each cup of coffee or
suggest visitors set their own price once in a while.
2. Attract new clients. This objective should be your long-term goal since it
allows your business to grow. Your potential clients are likely your
 competitors' customers, so analyzing their product and benefits, you can
offer something more valuable.
3. Stay competitive. Researching and analyzing your competitors will not only
help you attract new clients but constantly improve your product and
customer service.
4. Make existing customers buy more. It's always easier to make an existing
customer buy more than attract new clients. Provide each client with a
personalized approach — it will help you build customer loyalty. As a result,
clients will promote your brand organically.
5. Sell during the off-season. Goods like swimwear, boats, tents, air
conditioners, refrigerators are definitely more popular in summer but you
should consider special strategies to sell them throughout the year. Offer
time-limited discounts, "1+1=3" campaigns, and other marketing tricks.
6. Run clearance campaigns. They're especially popular before summer and
winter. As dealers need to make room for a new collection, they often run
total clearance campaigns when users can buy goods from old collections at
extremely reduced prices.

Types of Sales Promotion

 Price deal. It is a temporary cost reduction, for instance, 20% off for a
coffee for a week.
 Loyalty reward program. This means that customers collect points or
credits when they buy coffee. If they get 10 points, for example, they will
have one coffee for free.
 Bonus-pack deal. It means that a customer can get more products paying
the original price. For instance, they pay a dollar for one cup of coffee and
get free candy, which gives some positive emotions and makes them come
back in the future.
 Giveaways. These tactics aim to increase brand awareness. It means giving
some items for free in exchange for personal information to use in further
marketing. For example, offer a free cup of coffee in exchange for a phone
number, which you can use for many purposes: promoting new sales,
sharing updates and news with short text messages, etc.
  Coupons. You can sell coffee for the original price and give a coupon,
which will make the next purchase 5% cheaper.
 Mobile couponing. It stands for coupons received on mobile phones
via SMS. To get a discount, a customer needs to show the coupon on their
smartphone.
 Sampling. Choosing this promotion type, companies give a sample of the
product; for instance, the first cup of coffee to promote a new taste.

Sales Promotion Techniques

1. Discounts. This technique is as old as the hills. Small companies and big
corporations use this method to sell more. One of the reasons it's so popular,
even today, is that discounts are great for both consumers and retailers.
Sellers can clear room in their warehouse for new arrivals and customers can
buy more at reduced prices. Keep in mind that a normal discount should be
between 5-20% since clients won't even notice less than 5% discount, but
more than 20% off will make them feel suspicious about your brand.
2. Time-limited offers. This technique works even better than a big discount.
With this trick, marketers manage to create a sense of urgency and fear of
missing out on their products. You can give clients 24 hours to grab this
special offer. To make this technique perform better, you need to advertise
your promotion on each channel you use. This will bring more sales and
increase your site traffic.
3. Seasonal promotions. People often buy ski suits in summer and air
conditioners in winter to save money. Selling products during off-seasons
can be a real challenge, so we strongly recommend you to run seasonal
promotions. Sell items from old collections at reduced prices and don't
forget to advertise your campaign via email and social media.
4. “1+1=3". "Buy one and get one for free" and "Buy 2 items and get the third
one for free" are very familiar marketing tricks. Such campaigns help you
sell products at a low price or save money shopping together with a friend.
Retailers can significantly boost sales with this technique reinforcing
clearance sales.
5. Holiday promotions. Christmas, New Year's Eve, Halloween, International
Women's Day, and Valentine's Day are great chances to skyrocket sales.
 People are extremely generous when buying presents for their friends and
family. Launch your holiday campaigns in advance, and invest in advertising
via email, PPC, social media, and other channels. This will help you increase
brand awareness and site traffic.
6. Gifts. Who doesn't like freebies? If you are a startup or about to launch a
new product, go for this technique. It will help you reach big audiences fast,
build brand recognition, and collect user-generated content which is
especially valuable for every type of business. Let users try your service for
free for 7 days, launch a campaign that will let each client who spends
$100+ receive a gift, or give away free samples with each order.
7. Contests. Competitions are a great opportunity to boost user engagement
and increase brand awareness and sales. You can let your audience to create
a slogan for your brand, a new advertising message, design, or share creative
ideas on how to use your product in an unusual way. Make sure that the
prize correlates with the effort spent on participating in your contest.
8. Reward points. You definitely should reward clients who buy from you
regularly - people love brands that appreciate their choice. So, with this
technique, you can start building customer loyalty. Give points to each client
who makes a second purchase or spends a certain amount of money. Then,
let them exchange those points for a product they like.
9. Special prices. Marketers usually run a 1-day campaign when users can buy
everything at a fixed price. These prices usually look tempting for users and
they can’t overcome the feeling of missing out. The goal may be an annual
clearance of goods. You can set a fixed price for each product category of
your store. For example, sweaters for $5.99, jeans for $9.99, coats for
$15.99. This technique works.
[Link]-purchase coupons. It always takes time for people to give money to a
new store especially when buying expensive products. To make them think
over the purchase faster, offer a special incentive. You can send a welcome
email to a new visitor with a coupon to get a 10 or 15% discount off their
first purchase. For better performance, limit this appealing offer to a couple
of days.
[Link] shipping. Very often users leave your site without buying just because
of expensive delivery options. To win back these potential clients, you can
run a time-limited campaign that allows them to receive their orders for free
if they spend a certain amount of money. If you sell medium-priced goods,
 do not make this fixed sum too high. Otherwise, people won’t fall for this
trick.

Sales Promotion Examples

 Email marketing
 Facebook marketing
 SMS marketing