What is Sales Promotion?

So far I’ve covered the importance of your company website, public relations and an overview of the marketing wheel.  In today’s post, I want to educate you on what sales promotion is.  Time and time again, I hear people say “advertising” when they really mean “sales promotion”.  The two terms are often confused with each other but they are not the same thing.

Sales promotion is used as a short term technique to persuade customers to make a quick purchase.  These are things like:

·         coupons

·         buy one get one free deals

·         giveaways

·         free events such as workshops

·         loyalty programs

·         buy now – pay later plans

·         free samples

This is just a short list of the things that you can do to incorporate sales promotion into your marketing plan, but it gives you an idea of what sales promotion is to begin with.

Advantages of sales promotion:

Price competition – One of the advantages of sales promotion for small business owners is that you can significantly lower the price of a product (at least temporarily) that is in direct competition with a larger retailer.  This in turn can drive traffic into your store, hopefully turning these new customers into permanent customers.

Encourages repeat purchases – Things like loyalty programs can encourage repeat purchases.  We’ve all been to a coffee shop or sandwich place that gives you a card where they punch it every time you purchase something.  Then after you’ve purchased 10 coffees you get one free.  That free one at the end kept you coming back, didn’t it?!

Entices new customers – As a small business owner, it’s often more difficult to make customers aware of your product or company since you don’t have a massive advertising budget.  But people always want something that is going to provide a benefit to them, so if they are going to get something for free, they are more likely to come to your store, instead of going down the street to your competitor.

Disadvantages of sales promotion:

Short-lived – The biggest disadvantage of sales promotion is that it doesn’t develop brand loyalty.  It is intended to generate immediate, short-term results.

Price Sensitivity – If sales promotions are done too frequently, customers will come to expect great deals all the time.  In this case, they will just wait until you have another promotion before purchasing the product.  Promotions are great tools, but do them infrequently.  Otherwise, you’re losing out on sales of regular priced items and losing profit.

Quality image may be compromised – When you heavily discount a product, customers may think that the product isn’t selling, so there must be something wrong with it.  For that reason, sales promotions need to be used sparingly, especially in businesses where quality and image are important to their marketing strategy.

So, definitely incorporate sales promotional activities into your marketing plan.  Plan them out to coincide with your other campaigns, but don’t do too many of them.  Remember that sales promotion is not advertising… it’s a tool that is used to generate quick, short term activity.

For help planning your sales promotion activities, contact us at info@s-b-m-s.ca.

Public Relations - A Key Component to Your Marketing Wheel

Public relations is an incredibly important part of your marketing communications plan.  It is essentially free advertising, done by journalists and reporters.  It is used to promote products, people, places, ideas, activities, organizations, and even entire countries!

The benefit to public relations is that it is more credible than traditional advertising.  News stories, feature articles, and events seem more real and believable to readers than ads do.

 Some of the public relations tools that you can use are:

·         Press releases
·         Speeches
·         Product publicity
·         Public affairs
·         Lobbying
·         Investor relations
·        Product Development
·         Special Events
·         Public service activities

Here’s where your marketing wheel starts to take place.  Remember that in the first blog of this series, I talked about your website being the centre of the wheel and everything you do needs to lead back to your website.  Your website is a great tool to use for public relations.  People search the internet for information, not necessarily to purchase something.  Using your website as a public relations tool gives your customers the information they are looking for.  If your company has appeared in the news, put a link to that newscast on your website.  Had an article written about you or your company?  Put that in there too.  Maybe your company just won an award.  That needs to be broadcast too.  All of this is giving customers information about your company, which is what they are really looking for.

 Your marketing team needs to have a great working relationship with journalists and reporters that represent your industry and your target market.   You need to know how they prefer to receive stories, whether it be by email or through a press release distribution site.  I have also just called up some of my contacts and asked if they would be willing to do a story on a certain topic.  If they have the time and they find it newsworthy, they’ll do it.

 Now, here are some tips when submitting a press release.  If you would like to submit a press release that will actually be effective

a)      Make sure you have something newsworthy to say
b)      Make sure your press release is professionally written
c)       Make sure it’s truthful and it isn’t an outright advertisement
d)      Make sure you are sending it to the correct place and contact person

So, remember to include public relations activities into your marketing communications plan.  It will help build your reputation without breaking your bank account.