6 Promotion Sales Tactics that SMEs must know in 2021

Table of Contents

The main thing that distinguishes a mediocre and successful sales
promotion campaign is knowing why the promotion is done and knowing how to
choose the proper techniques to fully utilize the wide array of benefits that
can be achieved from sales promotion campaigns. 

 

What is a sales promotion campaign?

 

 

A sales promotion campaign is all about providing customers higher value than normal, this can be done through various techniques that will be covered in this article. Providing customers with this increased value will make the barrier of entry for purchasing lower than normal, and if implemented properly, will surely heighten their overall shopping experience. With customer satisfaction, they will gain brand loyalty and will then maintain as a regular customer, which will be the ultimate goal for any business.

 

#1 Brochures

 

Brochures are often seen as an inferior method to get customers, but in actual fact, it is a cost effective and efficient method of getting your brand name out there. Before customers will want to purchase from your shop, they need to know that you exist, thus brochures are extremely effective in this regard. With that being said, the brochure must be designed in a way that is consistent with your overall brand message and identity.

 

It is also imperative to not overwhelm customers with too many brochures as that may reduce your brand equity. Everything should be done deliberately and with proper intent in mind.

#2 Discounts

 

No matter what industry you are in, discounts will most probably already be a part of your existing sales promotion tactics. Who does not like to buy stuff at a cheaper price? As for businesses, it is a tried-and-true method to increase bottom line sales, and with the increased sales comes increased brand awareness and loyalty.

 

Discounts comes in various forms, such as product-specific discounts to ensure that out of fashion items are more appealing to the customers, and minimum spending discounts to entice the customer to spend more than they plan to.

 

All this does come at a cost though, if you give out too many discounts, you risk alienating customers to only purchasing during promotion periods, thus hurting the bottom line.

#3 Loyalty Programs

 

According to the Leaky Bucket Theory , companies are constantly losing customers, so to grow market share, or for this analogy “fill up the bucket”, businesses are required to be good as customer acquisition (filling up the bucket), or customer retention (reducing the leak).

 

Loyalty programs are an amazing method to gain customer retention, but this method like all the others, needs to be implemented with deliberate planning, if not customers will just not care about the program and businesses will bare the cost for little returns. The most crucial part of building a customer loyalty program is to integrate it into customer’s everyday routine. Once the customer is comfortable with the program, they will trust businesses to deliver a consistent experience no matter where they are.

 

#4 PWP (purchase with purchase)/ GWP (gift with purchase)

 

After building customer loyalty with one of your products, it is time to widen that range of loyalty to other products. This is commonly done with PWP or GWP promotions. Often times when businesses are trying to push a new product, they find it hard to convince customers to try out that product, that is where PWP/GWP promotions comes in. Customers will be encouraged to purchase and use the product if they are bundled together with a commonly purchased item. This method can not only convince customers to try out new products, but is also an efficient way to get rid of existing stock.

 

#5 Vouchers

 

Vouchers are another retail promotion tactic that will help spread your brand awareness to new customers and heighten loyalty for existing customers.

 

For new customers, the opportunity to try out a new product at a discounted price is an extremely attractive deal. Not only that, with the time sensitive nature of vouchers, it gives them a sense of urgency and makes them feel as though they are wasting a good deal if they do not claim it.

 

The technology behind voucher has tremendously improved over the years, starting from just printing them in brochures to vouchers now being implemented as a core product in a digital marketing plan. Currently, many companies have found success in running digital marketing campaigns and then retargeting these customers with digital vouchers with tools such as sKale with additional tools such as geofencing to only show ads to customers within a certain distance from their shop and only if the customers have recently shown interest in the brand before. 

#6 Returns

 

While many businesses see returns as an additional cost, it can also be a huge opportunity for them to build a relationship with their customers.

 

The cost of a service failure is something that is extremely overlooked by many business owners and marketers throughout the industry, that is because it is very hard to quantify it, but through a McKinsey survey done in 2004, 87% of customers that had a positive service failure experience said that they purchased more products/services from the business. 72% of customers who experienced negative service failure experiences decided that the company was not worth it and just switch to another brand.

 

Returns are one of the best methods of service failure recovery, which means that if a customer has a bad experience with your product, providing them a simple return process will more likely cause them to have a good experience with your business and thus gain customer loyalty which is good for the long-term health of your business.

 

Which sales promotion tactic is right for you?

 

How do you know which sales promotion tactic would be appropriate for your business? The only way to find out is through proper planning. What is the goal for your sales promotion? Is it to increase sales? Or to increase customer loyalty? Sometimes mixing and matching the solution will give you the result you are looking for, but it is important that every decision requires deliberate planning and execution. If done too often, you risk diluting your brand equity and causing customers to only purchase during promotion periods. You need to decide on balancing between maximizing sales and increasing brand loyalty whilst maintaining brand image.

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