The action and effect of promoting is known as promotion. The term, from the Latin word promotĭo , is used to name the impulse of a process or a thing; to the improvement of the conditions of something; and to the activities carried out with the intention of publicizing a product or increasing its commercialization.
Sale, for its part, is the action and effect of selling. This verb refers to transferring ownership of something to someone else after payment of an agreed price. Sales are both operations and the quantity of things sold.
The notion of sales promotion, therefore, is linked to campaigns whose objective is to promote the commercialization of certain products or services. Through these promotions, companies try to position a product on the market and capture the interest of consumers. It is likely that, if the consumer takes advantage of the promotion, buys the product under special conditions (with a special price, in a 2 × 1 package, etc.) and he likes it, he will continue to buy it later even when the promotion does not exist.
It is important to be clear that sales promotion is an action that has the following hallmarks:
• It has very clear objectives, such as increasing the demand for a specific product in the market or increasing the presence of the brand as well as support the advertising of an article in a place.
• No less important is that it also has limits, both in terms of products and the time for carrying out the relevant action or actions.
• It should also be noted that the results it allows to achieve are identified as being almost immediate. Hence, at the same time, it can be said that they are ephemeral.
It should not be overlooked either that any sales promotion can have two audiences:
• Dealers and distributors. Hence, measures are carried out to increase the traffic of the product and the brand in their businesses, to increase the number of orders…
• End consumers. In this case, the sales promotion will be in charge of letting them know about the launch of new items, increasing their purchases, stimulating the sales of those products…
Sales promotion can have other objectives besides promoting sales in the short term and increasing market share in the long term. A promotion can help break customer loyalty with competitors, break seasonality, or try a new product, for example.
The discounts, the free samples, the coupons, the rebates, the awards, the advertising gifts and contests are some of the tools that can be used in a sales promotion.
However, don't forget to refer to other very useful sales promotion tools either. Among these are the following:
• Advertising specialties, these are articles that have the name of the brand, product or business in question engraved and that are given to the consumer. This would be the case of key rings, pens, T-shirts…
• Rewards to the regular customer, which will be translated into discounts or gifts.