Determining the sales promotion programme

Sales promotion refers to ‘those marketing activities that stimulate consumer shows and expositions.

Purchasing and dealer effectiveness such as displays, demonstration and various non- recurrent selling efforts not in the ordinary routine.” According to A.H.R. Delens: “Sales promotion means any steps that are taken for the purpose of obtaining an increasing sale. Often this term refers specially to selling efforts that are designed to supplement personal selling and advertising and by co-ordination helps them to become more effective.”

In the words of Roger A. Strong, “Sales promotion includes all forms of sponsored communication apart from activities associated with personal selling. It, thus includes trade shows and exhibits, combining, sampling, premiums, trade, allowances, sales and dealer incentives, set of packs, consumer education and demonstration activities, rebates, bonus, packs, point of purchase material and direct mail.”

Objectives of Sales Promotion:

Sales promotion is a vital bridge or a connecting link between personal selling and advertising.

Sales promotion activities are undertaken to achieve the following objectives:

1. To increase sales by publicity through the media which are complementary to press and poster advertising.
2. To disseminate information through salesmen, dealers etc., so as to ensure the product getting into satisfactory use by the ultimate consumers.
3. To stimulate customers to make purchases at the point of purchase.
4. To prompt existing customers to buy more.
5. To introduce new products.
6. To attract new customers.
7. To meet competition from others effectively.
8. To check seasonal decline in the volume of sales.

Importance of Sales Promotion:

The importance of sales promotion has increased tremendously in the modern times. Lakhs of rupees are being spent on sales promotional activities to attract the consumers in our country and also in other countries of the world.

Some large companies have also begun to appoint sales promotion managers to handle miscellaneous promotional tools. All these facts show that the importance of sales promotion activities is increasing at a faster rate.

As in the case of advertising, effective sales promotion involves an on-going process with a number of stages.

1. Establishment of objectives:

Sales-promotion objectives vary according to the target market. If the target is the customer, objectives could include the encouragement of increased usage or the building of trial among non-users or other brand users. For intermediaries, objectives could be to encourage off-season sales or offsetting competitive promotions. Sales-promotion activity could also be aimed at internal personnel, making up part of the reward system

2. Selection of promotional tools:

Promotional objectives form the basis for selecting the most appropriate sales-promotion tools. The cost and effectiveness of each tool must be assessed with regard to achieving these objectives in respect of each target market. The tools available to the service marketer are described in more detail in the next section.

3. Planning the sales-promotion programme:

The major decisions that need to be made when designing the sales-promotion programme relate to the timing of the promotion and how long this tool is to be used. Also important are the size of incentive, rules for eligibility and, of course, the overall budget for the promotion.

4. Pre-testing:

This needs to be undertaken to ensure that potentially expensive problems are discovered before the full launch of a promotion. Testing in selected market segments can highlight problems of ambiguity, response rates and give an indication of cost effectiveness.

5. Implementation:

The programme for implementation must include two important time factors First, it must indicate the ‘lead time’- the time necessary to bring the programme up to the point where the incentive is made available to the public. Second, the ‘sell in time’ which is the period of time from the date of release to when approximately 90-95 per cent, of incentive material has been received by potential customers.

6. Evaluation:

The performance of the promotion needs to be assessed against the objectives set. If objectives are specific and quantifiable, measurement would seem to be easy. However, extraneous factors could account for the apparent success of many sales-promotion activities.

For example, competitive actions or seasonal variations may have influenced customers’ decision making. It can also be extremely difficult to separate out the effects of sales-promotion activity from other promotional activity-or indeed from other marketing-mix changes.