Sales promotion: what dangers to avoid for this kind of strategy?

The actions and strategies of promotions, whether aggressive or not, are used to make your product or service known to a wider audience and therefore to improve your sales figures. On the other hand, we must remain vigilant, because it is not uncommon for a promotional strategy to do more harm than good. So, here’s what you need to know to strategically promote sales .

What is a commercial promotion

A business promotion consists of giving customers good reasons to buy immediately, by offering them an economic or in-kind benefit. Among other things, doing promotional marketing helps to promote a product or service to a large audience, to retain customers, to convince new ones, to increase turnover as well as market share.

Support the life cycle of a product

Every product has 4 life phases and promotional marketing has a role to play in each of them. Indeed, it starts by giving it a tk maxx discount code when product is launched and then maximizes its sales when it is in the growth phase to re launch it in the maturity phase and sell all the remaining stock at the end of its life.

Promotion categories

Different techniques are used in sales promotion . Their primary objective is in fact to push the product towards the customer during the purchase operation. They understand :

• Sale via a premium (additional gifts, gift with conditions, special packaging, etc.);
• The games (lottery, quiz, contests, etc.);
• Price discounts (coupons and coupons, special offers, etc.);
• Samples, demonstrations and tests.

The most effective sales promotion techniques

There are many sales techniques aimed at boosting sales . However, not all of them can work the same for several products or services. Therefore, it is important to weigh the pros and cons of your promotional strategy before implementing it. Calculate, in particular, the cost / deep objective ratio in order to know if it is worth it.

In general, it is known that promotions with immediate reductions are the most effective. This because the potential customer will feel the urgency to act quickly. He will also see the immediate increase in his purchasing power, which will push him to seize the opportunity as quickly as possible and without thinking too much …

Avoiding the dangers of promotional sales

The first danger you may encounter when developing a promotional strategy is the “too” strong impact on your profit margin. It happens when the customer realizes the frequency of a regular promotion. He will therefore wait for it before buying and storing it, which will create a channel for promotional sales compared to the usual ones. To avoid this, do promotions:

• A period and limited stocks;
• On a new product;
• On a product of low demand;
• At the end of the series or season.

The second mistake not to make in these terms is to avoid too regular promotional sales because in this case, the perceived value of the product or service will tend to decline in the eyes of your customers. Indeed, a product that is almost always on sale, does not manage to sell and might hide a defect 

How to use it ?

• Define the objectives: recruit new customers, retain occasional customers, have a new product tried out
• Specify the targets: loyal customers, customers who have not bought for six months, customers of the market leader …
• Determine the reference (s) that can convey the promotion: new product, for example.
• Specify the promotion mechanism: price reduction, free product, self-paying premium, deferred premium, contests, etc.
• Choose the promotion’s communication relays: PLV, ILV, for example.
• Set promotional volume targets: + 20% volume sales, for example.

Measure the effects of promotion: return on investment, cannibalization rate …

Depending on the problem, the stakes, the product and the target, the promotional levers used differ. In the event of testing a new product, the preference is to carry a sample to a flagship product in the range. To boost sales of a highly competitive product, at a key time of the year, we promote an immediate price reduction. On a high-end product, a qualitative premium is offered in connection with the positioning of the brand or access to a gift shop for example.

Benefits

Consumer promotion generates peaks in sales growth.

It makes it possible to win over non-consumers.

It promotes an anticipation of purchases or greater consumption by loyal buyers.

Precautions to take

Respect time constraints, otherwise the promotion turns into a pricing policy.

Be careful not to degrade the image of the product by reducing the price too much: always try to associate a qualitative aspect with the price reduction.