Sales promotion is one of the most loosely used terms in the marketing vocabulary. We define sales promotion as demand stimulating devices designed to supplement advertising and facilitate personal selling. In other words, sales promotion signifies all those activities that supplement, co-ordinate and make the efforts of personal selling and advertising more effective. It is non recurrent in nature which means it can €Ÿt be used continuously.
Concept of Sales Promotion
Sales promotion consists of diverse collection of incentive tools, mostly short-term designed to stimulate quicker and / or greater purchase of a particular product by consumers or the trade. Where as advertising offers a reason to buy, sales promotion offers an incentive to buy. Sales promotion includes tools for consumer promotion (for example samples, coupons, prizes, cash refund, warranties, demonstrations, contest); trade promotion (for example buying allowances, free goods, merchandise allowances, co-operative advertising, advertising and display allowances, dealer sales contests); and sales-force promotion (for example bonuses, contests, sales rallies).
Sales promotion efforts are directed at final consumers and designed to motivate, persuade and remind them of the goods and receives that are offered. Sales persons adopt several techniques for sales promotion. Creative sales promotion can be very effective. It is the marketing managers responsibility to specify promotion objectives and policies.
Definitions of Sales Promotion
- According to American Marketing Association “Those marketing activities other than personal selling advertising and publicity that stimulate consumer purchasing and dealer effectiveness such as display shows and exhibitions, demonstrations and various non-recurrent selling efforts not in the ordinary routine.”
- W.J. Stanton defines sales promotion as all those activities other than advertising, personal selling, public relations and publicity that are intended to stimulate customer demand and improve the marketing performance of sellers.
Purpose of Sales Promotion
Sales promotion tools vary in their specific objectives. A free sample stimulates consumer trial, while a free management advisory service cements a long-term relationship with a retailer.
From the marketer’s perspective, sales promotion serves three essential roles it informs, persuades and reminds prospective and current customers and other selected audiences about a company and its products. The relative importance of those roles varies according to the circumstances faced by a firm.
The most useful product or brand will be a failure if no one knows it is available! Because distribution channels are often long, a product may pass through many lands between a producer and consumers. Therefore, a producer must inform middlemen as well as the ultimate consumers or business users about the product. Wholesalers, in turn must inform retailers and retailers must inform consumers. As the number of potential customers grows and the geographic dimensions of a market expand, the problems and costs of informing the market increase.
Another purpose of sales promotion is persuasion. The intense competition among different industries, puts tremendous pressure on the promotional programmes of sellers. In India, even a product designed to satisfy a basic physiological need requires strong persuasive promotion, because consumers have many alternatives to choose from. In the case of luxury product, for which sales depend on the ability to convince consumers that the products benefits exceed those of other luxuries, persuasion is even more important.
Consumers also must be reminded about a products availability and its potential to satisfy. sellers bombard the market place units hundreds of messages every day in the hope of attracting new consumers and establishing markets for new products. Given the intense competition for consumers attention, even an established firm must constantly remind people about its brand to retain a place in their minds. Much of a firm’s sales promotion may be intended simply to offset competitors marketing activity by keeping its brand in front of the market.
Objectives of Sales Promotion
The basic objectives of sales promotion are:
- To introduce new products: To induce buyers to purchase a new product, free samples may be distributed or money and merchandise allowance may be offered to business to stock and sell the product.
- To attract new customers: New customers may be attracted through issue of free samples, premiums, contests and similar devices.
- To induce present customers to buy more: Present customers may be induced to buy more by knowing more about a product, its ingredients and uses.
- To help firm remain competitive: Sales promotions may be undertaken to meet competition from a firm.
- To increase sales in off season: Buyers may be encouraged to use the product in off seasons by showing them the variety of uses of the product.
- To increase the inventories of business buyers: Retailers may be induced to keep in stock more units of a product so that more sales can be effected.
Rationale of Sales Promotion
Rationale of sales promotion may be analyzed under the following points.
- Short-term results: Sales promotion such as coupons and trade allowances produce quicker, more measurable sales results. However critics of this strategy argue that these immediate benefits come at the expense of building brand equity. They believe that an over emphasize on sales promotion may under mine a brands future.
- Competitive Pressure: If competitors offer buyers price reductions, contest or other incentives, a firm may feel forced to retaliate with its own sales promotions.
- Buyers expectations: Once they are offered purchase incentives, consumers and channel members get used to them and soon begin expecting them.
- Low quality of retail selling: Many retailers use inadequately trained sales clerks or have switched to self service. For these outlets, sales promotion devices such as product displays and samples often are the only effective promotional tools available at the point of purchase.