The aim of any business is the sale of its products and services to the customer. Promotion is a means of communicating with the customers about those products and services. It increases awareness of the product and influences the customer to opt for your product over others. Another aim of promotion is to enhance visibility of the products.
Features of Promotion
Promotional strategy could be short term or long term. Short-term promotion mainly looks at boosting sales volumes in a short period. It works on the premise that all products have a particular perceived value or reference price. Promotion aims to enhance that perceived value by adding more benefits or reducing the price. Long-term sales promotions involve being associated with customers for a certain period, irrespective of immediate sales benefits.
Types of Short-Term Promotions
Familiar tools of short-term promotions include discount coupons, sampling, demonstration, bonus packs and such offers as buy one, get one free. The advantage of this type of promotion is it encourages the customer to buy now. In case of a new product launch, sampling and demonstration might work well for you. For instance, if you have launched a new milk drink, you may set up a kiosk near the local school and offer samples to the students. It will give you an instant surge of visibility for your product with the target audience.
Types of Long-Term Promotion
Long-term promotional strategies focus more on creating awareness about the product and services rather than immediate sales. Typically, in this type of promotion, the emphasis is on the event or the activity and your product is simply associated with the event. Long-term promotion includes activities such as sponsorship of a community fair to raise money for a local hospital and distribution of promotional items such as caps, pens and key chains.
Sponsorship of Events
Your company can be associated with an event in a variety of ways. It is necessary to choose events that complement your product range. You may sponsor a dance competition if your business is selling dancing shoes and other dance accessories. You may not get immediate sales, but there is good visibility in the target audience that will eventually boost sales. Or you may use the opportunity to gather contact details of the participants which will serve as a database for future.
Distribution of Promotional Items
It is a good idea to distribute promotional items to existing and prospective customers to ensure continuous visibility of your product. Choose the promotional items which can be used regularly such as pens and caps. Ensure adequate branding on the items. Be particular about quality standards. For example, if you offer pen that stops working the next day, it will cause a negative reaction towards your product.
Tags: your product, associated with, immediate sales, promotional items, associated with event