9.7 Managing sales promotion
Sales promotions are supplements to personal selling and advertising. They tend to be a means of generating short-term sales through discounts, coupons, contests, to name a few, by creating immediate interest and precipitating purchases.
Consider this
What sorts of sales promotions does the maritime industry run?
Visual merchandising , which is subsumed under sales promotion in your text, is concerned with the way in which the product or service is presented at the point-of-purchase. It includes store layout, window display, signage, shelfing, product-in-use displayed and so on.
As with advertising, there must be specific sales objectives such as stimulating inquiries and a product trial, encouraging dealers to stock up inventory in anticipation of a retail promotion. It is very important that a sales promotion supports some attribute or benefit of the brand, and is not simply based on an economic attribute.
For example, a promotion that states there is a money-back guarantee of a shipment that is delivered late underscores the perceived reliability of the firm. This emphasis on quality of service and other positive attributes is sometimes called customer franchise-building and is, surprisingly, often forgotten in the rush to offer discounts and coupons.
Selection of sales promotion tools is dependent on factors such as the target market, cost of the tools and economic conditions among others. There are two strategies in sales promotion ¾ push and pull. A pull strategy is one whose intent is to draw the consumer into the stores and into making a purchase soon. A push strategy is one in which the marketer secures the cooperation of dealers to promote sales of the product. These were dealt with in Chapter 16 of Kotler et al. (2004).
Turn now to the following reading to catch up with the coverage of sales promotion in your text. We round off the readings from the text by examining why marketers need to adopt a socially responsible perspective to marketing communications.
In your text
Kotler et al. (2004) Chapter 16, pp. 645-648, 'Socially responsible marketing communication', 'Summary', Chapter 17, pp. 654-664, 'Managing sales promotion and selling' and 'Sales promotion'.