Being in sales, we are not new to sales promotions. But this post puts everything in sales promotion campaigns at one place and prepares you for your next campaign.
Outline of the post –
- What is sales promotions
- How Sales Promotions work?
- When sales promotion is usually considered by a brand?
- Ways of doing sales promotions
- Examples for some sales promotions work in B2C & B2B
- What you can do as a sale rep or sales manager leading teams
What is sales promotion?
Sales promotion is any short term activity designed to increase sales of a product or service. These activities by a brand can take any form, but the end objective is to increase top line growth in the immediate short term.
How Sales Promotions work?
Sales promotion involves motivating buying behaviour of target audience or existing customers
i) Target audience – persuading them to become customers
ii) Existing customers – add more revenues by triggering repetitive buying or upsell or cross sell or contribute to referral customers for brand
iii) in some cases it can involve encourage use of trial of a product or service
When sales promotion is usually considered by a brand?
New business, Repeat business from existing customers, Up sell or cross sell, Brand awareness, Referral business, Word of mouth
- When introducing a new product or service
- To generate new leads
- Sell out extra inventory
- Gain valuable insights like what exactly the target customers desire
- Encourage existing customers to buy more – UPSELL
- Sell during off season or slow periods
- Short bust of revenue increase or Increasing last minute revenue and more
Ways of doing sales promotion?
- Free product samples
- Buy one get one free deals
- Cashback promotions
- Lifestyle discounts, ex: back to school offers to students
- Gift cards
- Flash sales & Discounts
- Coupons or voucher code
- Charitable cause promotions
- Free shipping & Returns
- Loyalty program promotions
- Joint promotions, ex: Amazon and ICICI credit card
- Shopping sprees, ex: SPIN a wheel and get anything in the store upto INR 1000 for free
- Branded gifts or bundles – Burger & Pepsi
- Referral discounts – Byju’s referral discounts
- Rebate, exchange an old phone and get a rebate of 4000 on your new Samsung phone
- Social media contests, challenges and giveaways, ex: Repost, Retweet, tag your followers,etc.
- App exclusive promotions
- extended payment terms
- No cost EMI with bank tie ups
- Industry conferences
- Free on boarding service
- Trade buying allowance
- Merchandise allowance – offered to retailers for displaying your product banners,etc.
Example of sale promotions in B2C & B2B –
B2C – A commercial building company like SATTVA, doing free summer camps that kick up footfall for the stores in the building.
B2B – Trade shows and exhibitions by NASSCOM, ex: participation from SAAS companies and HR Automation companies,etc.
Your readiness?
- Get the objective of the sales promotion correct
- Achieve solid grasp on customer journey and experience for your product or service
- Have all the required answers to address customer queries
- Capture customer data and feedback in the system
- Follow up with leads in the shortest possible time
- Monitor the impact of sales promotions on your conversions
- Stay positive and keep rocking
