small business planning

Sales promotions are activities that shape buying patterns attract new audiences or increase sales. It's a grab-bag of a word that encompasses everything that falls outside advertising, publicity and direct marketing, although these might be used to deliver your sales promotions.

Most textbooks see sales promotion as interfacing with price

* we believes sales promotions are broader than this. Too often people think discounts are synonymous with sales promotion

* not true. Sales promotions can include the provision of sampling or learning opportunities, joint promotions or collaborations with third party networks, special events, giveaways and competitions, discounts, incentives, value adding and rewards. In this section we will also look at distribution and display of promotional materials, mainly because there is nowhere else for them to go imaginatively and carefully planned sales promotions can deliver long-term benefits to your organization.

Too often they are used as an afterthought to get people through the door. Not surprisingly, they usually look like last minute panic measures and that can signal failure, not success. One well-planned, far-reaching promotion is better than heaps of little one-offs that bear no relation to your overall strategy. The work involved in developing sales promotions can often outweigh the apparent benefit, if you measure the results in the broadest possible context, you just might find you have successfully reached people outside the inner arts circle.

As the term implies - the ultimate goal is sales or transactions. However, promotions can be planned to increase sales over a long period within a specific market segment, so it is not always about immediate results.

What is Sales Promotion

Sales promotion describes promotional methods using special short-term techniques to persuade members of a target market to respond or undertake certain activity. As a reward, marketers offer something of value to those responding generally in the form of lower cost of ownership for a purchased product (e.g., lower purchase price, money back) or the inclusion of additional value-added material (e.g., something more for the same price).

Sales promotions are often confused with advertising. For instance, a television advertisement mentioning a contest awarding winners with a free trip to a Caribbean island may give the contest the appearance of advertising. While the delivery of the marketer's message through television media is certainly labeled as advertising, what is contained in the message, namely the contest, is considered a sales promotion.

The factors that distinguish between the two promotional approaches are:

1. whether the promotion involves a short-term value proposition (e.g., the contest is only offered for a limited period of time), and

2. the customer must perform some activity in order to be eligible to receive the value proposition (e.g., customer must enter contest).

The inclusion of a timing constraint and an activity requirement are hallmarks of sales promotion.

Sales promotions are used by a wide range of organizations in both the consumer and business markets, though the frequency and spending levels are much greater for consumer products marketers. One estimate by the Promotion Marketing Association suggests that in the US alone spending on sales promotion exceeds that of advertising.

Why do sales promotion

Good sales promotions say something about your work and who you are. They can be an inexpensive way of increasing awareness, of reaching new buyers or extending the buying choices of existing audiences. As an essential part of your campaign they should be planned from the beginning. While sales promotions can often be done cheaply, there should always be a line item for this activity in your budget, no matter how small.

Because sales promotions often involve working with other organizations, they can open doors into the wider community. By building mutually beneficial relationships, you could also be paving the way for sponsorship. Remember never devalue your product. This is really easy to do if you are desperate, which is why the best sales promotions are usually planned well in advance.

Different steps include in the sales promotion for leather goods .

Step 1 Work out what you want to achieve

What we want to achieve will be determined by the:

* long-term goals of the organisation

* this might be to attract audiences from particular socioeconomic groups, increase first-time attendances and so on

* particular needs of a project or show

* the subject matter might be interesting to our core customers that are interested in our leather products.

* programming policies

* for example, to introduce new and improved products in the market with reasonable prices.

Too often sales promotions are driven by events that are perceived as hard to sell. This is fine, provided you find the perfect audience match. But don't forget to include the more popular events in your sales promotion program, particularly if you are reaching out to new audiences.

Setting goals

Some of the goals you might set for your promotions program are:

* create awareness of our company as a leading player in the market .

* reach a new target market: for the females , childrens and the men for leather cloathing with wide variety and the reasonable price .

* provide an insight into a major new exhibition, book or show to promote your brand and expand the market share by doing the fashion shows and adhere to the use of your product as a fashion symble .

* build your database of potential attenders and thry to sell them your leather goods , try to find out the big malls and other good companies to promote the leather goods of our company

* build a profile for regular buyers and try to built more relations with them .

* gauge potential demand for a product, which is possible, if the promotions program is done early

enough with the target users of the leather goods .

diversification in the variety of the products offered by our company .

Step 2 Analyze the benefits

When you are identifying possible sales promotions make sure that everyone involved, including the

customer, benefits.

The benefits might be:

* the 'feel good' factor the association creates for clients or customers

* reinforcement of the company's image

* provision of rewards to clients or audiences

* stimulation from working and learning from each other

* increased sales

as applicable to our company we can go for a sales promotion through advertisements in the news paper and by conducting the fashion shows in the different cities so that we can built a close relation with our customers and the people who do not know will at least know who we are , what we offer . because this impression will come in the effect when a customer need that type of products .

Step 3 Design the offer

Your offer can be designed around one or a combination of the following:

Experience

Call the potential buyers and dealers and promote them for the sales boost , provide them incentives for their target completion

Premium or value adding

This can be achieved through a mixture of packaging or add-on offers and might include best services , genuine product and a symbol of fashion with the diversified products ..

Discount

Reducing the price of seats or admission.

All give the customer incentives to book or become a part of your organization. Avoid the 'Wait there's more' approach; be creative and deliver your offer with style. Make sure the offer is easily understood and that it appears to be and IS genuine.

There is little evidence to suggest incentives in the form of competitions, even discounts to a range of other events, encourage arts attainders to move from maybe to yes.

Step 4 Identify outlets for your promotion

Distribution and display

The fliers are sitting in a nice pile in your office. Now to the real point of print, getting it into the right hands.

Tip - Distribution and display

There are numerous ways to distribute your fliers, posters and promotional materials.

Inserts

You can insert your brochures or fliers into almost anything: newspapers, magazines, telephone, credit

card, paper deliveries, any kind of bill (though the recipient is not necessarily in a receptive frame of

mind!), shopping bags with purchases of books or CDs. These are a few ideas of what you can do if you

have the connections or the money.

Displays

Window displays went out of fashion ,give big posters

production pictures, autographed photographs of your artists. They become part of a collective memory

and are powerful. The theatre and opera director, Barrie Kosky, once said that so many arts venues have

"Mr Sheen-ed away their past* the show goes, and there is no trace of it left."

The media

Media are widely used to deliver sales promotions, usually in the form of reader offers or competitions.

Tip - Media promotions

Joint promotions

Most media companies have departments to organize promotions that will boost circulation, advertising

sales and good will. Meet them, find out their strategic priorities and program * these change regularly *

and see where, and if, you can be of mutual benefit.

Keep an eye on magazines who, in this cut throat arena, are often looking for cost efficient ways to

increase their profile and reach. Resourceful companies link up with similar companies across the country

and with a sponsor to provide magazines with the national presence they require.

+Objectives of Sales Promotion

* Building Product Awareness

* Several sales promotion techniques are highly effective in exposing customers to products for the first time and can serve as key promotional components in the early stages of new product introduction. Additionally, as part of the effort to build product awareness, several sales promotion techniques possess the added advantage of capturing customer information at the time of exposure to the promotion. In this way sales promotion can act as an effective customer information gathering tool (i.e., sales lead generation), which can then be used as part of follow-up marketing efforts.

* Creating Interest

* Marketers find that sales promotions are very effective in creating interest in a product. In fact, creating interest is often considered the most important use of sales promotion. In the retail industry an appealing sales promotions can significantly increase customer traffic to retail outlets. Internet marketers can use similar approaches to bolster the number of website visitors. Another important way to create interest is to move customers to experience a product. Several sales promotion techniques offer the opportunity for customers to try products for free or at low cost.

* Providing Information

* Generally sales promotion techniques are designed to move customers to some action and are rarely simply informational in nature. However, some sales promotions do offer customers access to product information. For instance, a promotion may allow customers to try a fee-based online service for free for several days. This free access may include receiving product information via email.

* Stimulating Demand

* Next to building initial product awareness, the most important use of sales promotion is to build demand by convincing customers to make a purchase. Special promotions, especially those that lower the cost of ownership to the customer (e.g., price reduction), can be employed to stimulate sales.

* Reinforcing the Brand

* Once customers have made a purchase sales promotion can be used to both encourage additional purchasing and also as a reward for purchase loyalty (see loyalty programs below). Many companies, including airlines and retail stores, reward good or *preferred

customers with special promotions, such as email

*special deals

* and surprise price reductions at the cash register.

Techniques of Sales Promotion to be applied .

Sales promotion can be classified based on the primary target audience to whom the promotion is directed. These include:

* Consumer Market Directed - Possibly the most well-known methods of sales promotion are those intended to appeal to the final consumer. Consumers are exposed to sales promotions nearly everyday, and as discussed later, many buyers are conditioned to look for sales promotions prior to making purchase decisions.

* Trade Market Directed

* Marketers use sales promotions to target all customers including partners within their channel of distribution. Trade promotions are initially used to entice channel members to carry a marketers products and, once products are stocked, marketers utilize promotions to strengthen the channel relationship.

* Business-to-Business Market Directed

* A small, but important, sub-set of sales promotions are targeted to the business-to-business market. While these promotions may not carry the glamour associated with consumer or trade promotions, B-to-B promotions are used in many industries.

In the next few sections we discuss each category in more detail.

Consumer Sales Promotion

Consumer sales promotions encompass a variety of short-term promotional techniques designed to induce customers to respond in some way. The most popular consumer sales promotions are directly associated with product purchasing. These promotions are intended to enhance the value of a product purchase by either reducing the overall cost of the product (i.e., get same product but for less money) or by adding more benefit to the regular purchase price (i.e., get more for the money).

While tying a promotion to an immediate purchase is a major use of consumer sales promotion, it is not the only one. As we noted above, promotion techniques can be used to achieve other objectives such as building brand loyalty or creating product awareness. Consequently, a marketer*s promotional toolbox contains a large variety of consumer promotions.

Promotional Pricing

One of the most powerful sales promotion techniques is the short-term price reduction or, as known in some areas, *on sale* pricing. Lowering a product*s selling price can have an immediate impact on demand, though marketers must exercise caution since the frequent use of this technique can lead customers to anticipate the reduction and, consequently, withhold purchase until the price reduction occurs again.

As we will see in a later tutorial, promotional pricing is also considered within the framework of the Price marketing mix component. More on of this technique will be provided in that discussion.

Trade Sales Promotions

As note in Part 12: Promotion Decisions, certain promotions can help *push* a product through the channel by encouraging channel members to purchase and also promote the product to their customers. For instance, a trade promotion aimed at retailers may encourage retailers to instruct their employees to promote a marketer*s brand over competitors* offerings. With thousands of products competing for limited shelf space, spending on trade promotion is nearly equal that spent on consumer promotions.

Many sales promotions aimed at building relationships with channel partners follow similar designs as those directed to consumers including promotional pricing, contests and free product. In addition to these, several other promotional approaches are specifically designed to appeal to trade partners. These approaches include:

1. Point-of-Purchase Displays

2. Advertising Support Programs

3. Short Term Allowances

4. Sales Incentives or Push Money

5. Promotional Products

6. Trade Shows

Below Point-of-Purchase Displays

Point of purchase (POP) displays are specially designed materials intended for placement in retail stores. These displays allow products to be prominently presented, often in high traffic areas, and thereby increase the probability the product will standout. POP displays come in many styles, though the most popular are ones allowing a product to stand alone, such as in the middle of a store aisle or sit at the end of an aisle (i.e., end-cap) where it will be exposed to heavy customer traffic.

For channel partners, POP displays can result in significant sales increases compared to sales levels in a normal shelf position. Also, many marketers will lower the per-unit cost of products in the POP display as an incentive for retailers to agree to include the display in their stores.

Advertising Support Programs

In addition to offering promotional support in the form of physical displays, marketers can attract channel members* interest by offering financial assistance in the form of advertising money. These funds are often directed to retailers who then include the company*s products in their advertising. In certain cases the marketer will offer to pay the entire cost of advertising, but more often, the marketer offers partial support known as co-op advertising funds.

w is a discussion of each approach.

Short Term Trade Allowances

This promotion offers channel partners price breaks for agreeing to stock the product. In most cases the allowance is not only given as encouragement to purchase the product but also as an inducement to promote the product in other ways such as by offering attractive shelf space or store location, highlighting the product in company-produced advertising or website display, or by agreeing to have the retailer*s sales personnel *talk-up* the product to customers.

Allowances can be in the form price reductions (a.k.a. off-invoice promotion) and buy-back guarantees if the product does not sell in certain period of time.

Sales Incentives or Push Money

Since sales promotions are intended to stimulate activity that leads to meeting promotional objectives, it makes sense that these can also apply to those in the organization who also affect sales. Thus, sales promotions are commonplace among an organization*s sales force and customer service staff where they are used as incentives to help sell more of the marketer*s product. Sometimes called push money, these promotions typically offer employees cash or prizes, such as trips, for those that meet sales requirements.

Short Term Trade Allowances

Allowances can be in the form price reductions (a.k.a. off-invoice promotion) and buy-back guarantees if the product does not sell in certain period of time.

Sales Incentives or Push Money

Business-to-Business Sales Promotions

The use of sales promotion is not limited to consumer products marketing. In business-to-business markets sales promotions are also used as a means of moving customers to action. However, the promotional choices available to the B-to-B marketer are not as extensive as those found in the consumer or trade markets. For example, most B-to-B marketers do not use coupons as a vehicle for sales promotion with the exception of companies that sell to both consumer and business customers (e.g., products sold through office supply retailers). Rather, the techniques more likely to be utilized include:

* price-reductions

* free product

* trade-in

* promotional products

* trade shows

Of the promotions listed, trade shows are by far the mostly widely used sales promotion for B-to-B marketers

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