Advertising alone does not always encourage certain consumers to take action, such as trying out a new product. Sometimes marketers must also use other promotional methods along with advertising. A sales promotion is a promotional method that uses short-term techniques to build awareness and encourage consumers to purchase a product. Sales promotions are specifically designed to persuade a consumer to act in response. The main factors of sales promotion apart are that it involves a short-term value offer and the consumer must perform some activity in order to be qualified to receive that value offer.
Two Key GroupsAlthough sales promotion classified as business-to-business is used in many industries, these types of promotions are more limited than the consumer and trade sales type promotions. The business-to-business method is used for buyers in larger companies who make the purchasing decisions inside the company. The techniques commonly used in business-to-business sales promotion include price reductions, free products, trade-ins, and trade shows.
English: Swiss parking disk (early 70s). Selected ...
English: Promotional action "Buy Croatian" 2011 in...
Lighter, photo taken in Japan. This kind of Lighte...Sales promotions can be aimed at various people including the consumer, sales staff, or distribution channel members. According to Know This.com (2008) "Sales promotions targeted at the consumer are called consumer sales promotions. Sales promotions targeted at retailers are called trade sales promotions". Consumer and trade sales promotions are the two key groups.
Sales Promotion Aimed at ConsumersConsumer sales promotions are the most well-known methods of sales promotion. As discussed in Principles of Marketing, Consumers are exposed to sales promotions almost everyday and many of them are conditioned to look for these types of sales promotions before they make their purchase decisions (Know This.com, 2008). One common technique used is price-based consumer sales promotion. This technique uses temporary price reductions that persuade people to choose a certain product.
Price-based consumer sales promotions include the use of coupons, price deals, refunds, and...