Promotion Strategy

Promotional strategy is a method used by companies to advertise, promote & sell their goods. A company chooses its promotional strategy based on factors like product type, marketing budget, target audience etc. It is a critical activity to increase product awareness & thereby increase sales. An effective promotional strategy gets more revenue as compared to the marketing spend.

Importance of Promotional Strategy

Promotion for any product or service is essential for any company. It is because only through promotion people would come to know about the product. Only after knowing about the product they consider purchasing. Since there are some many companies & brands competing to sell their products to the same set of customers, advertising & promotion are important tools to ensure each brand is differentiated & identified.

Promotional Strategy Types

All the promotional strategies can be classified under two categories; Push and Pull.

Push strategy

In push strategy promotional activities are done for the distributors, wholesalers and retailers to push the product to the consumers. Trade fairs, wholesaler discounts, bonus and all the activities which benefit the distributors are all examples of push strategies. Hence the demand is pushed or created in the distribution channel. These activities are not visible to consumers and hence it is mostly unknown to the customers.

Pull Strategy

In pull strategy promotional activities are done for the consumers. Advertisements, digital campaigns, discounts in stores etc are some examples of pull strategy. Hence demand is created in the consumers which in turn go to the retail stores or e-commerce websites to buy these products. These activities are visible to all the customers.

Promotional Strategy Steps

• Identify the objectives of promotion: This should be a quantifiable amount in terms of revenue, unit sales, increase brand awareness etc.
• Evaluate promotional channels: This involves evaluating the marketing channels required for promotion eg TV, social media, radio, events, trade fairs etc.
• Formulate a marketing budget. The amount investment required for driving a promotional strategy should be allocated channel wise. This would help in keeping track of investments.
• Execute promotional activities: This involves creation of advertising campaigns, scheduling advertisements and making sure that promotions are happening without disruptions.
• Monitor, measure & evaluate: All promotional activities must be monitored for effectiveness & evaluated for further improvement.

Strategies:

Throwing contests for promotion

This type of promotional strategy is quite frequently used by companies to make a place for their newly launched product in the market. you must have noticed many bloggers and YouTubers posting about their partnership with various brands and asking their customers to go do various tasks to get a chance to win the contest.

After-Sale Customer Survey

Reaching your customers through telephonic calls or emails or text messages to know about their experience shopping with you does three jobs:

• It makes your customers believe that you care for them.
• It open the doors for promotional activities.
• Your customer’s feedbacks can help you to improve your business.

Branded Promotional Gifts

This is an effective strategy used by many companies to promote their brand. In this strategy, rather than handing out the business card they print the business name, logo and contact information on a functional gift.

Customer Incentive Referral Program

This promotional strategy will use your current customers and encourage them to refer your products or services to their families and friends. You can offer them gifts or discounts on their next purchase in exchange for their referral. For example, many e-commerce companies run “Customer Incentive Referral Program” to increase their customer-base using their existing customers. this strategy is far less expensive than the traditional style of advertising.

Mail Order Marketing

Just think that your company is still breathing just because of your customers. once customers have used your product and liked it, there are chances that they are going to be connected with you for a long time. Therefore, don’t make a mistake to overlook these customers. you can ask them to share their personal details in exchange for free gifts or services. You can use that information to promote your product in a new market where people are totally unaware of the existence of your product.

Social Media

There are various platforms online where you can promote your products and can reach a huge number of audiences.  There is hardly any person who is not using either Facebook or Instagram. By using this platform, you can make people aware of your product. You can talk about its uses and how it is essential for them.

Free Product and sample Giveaways

This promotional strategy is used by both small as well as powerful companies. By using this strategy, you can boost the sale of your product instantly. This strategy is mostly adopted by food or cosmetic companies. They provide a sample of their products free of cost and make people try new products.

Point of Sale Promotion and End Marketing

In stores, products are displayed strategically so that they come first in the eyes of customers as soon as they enter the store. Stores do this for two reasons convenience and impulse. Many times, you have noticed a rack displaying attractively offers on a certain product or many products are displayed near the aisle of the store. There are reasons why stores do this. They do this either to boost the sale of the product or when they want their stock moving. This strategy makes people buy certain products impulsive while they wait for their turn to check out.

Causes and Charity

People want to connect with those companies which are giving back to society along with providing excellent services. Therefore, many small, as well as powerful companies, use this strategy to strengthen their customer base. To do this, you need to tie-up with some charity organization or an NGO and then you can advertise about your initiative on your social media handles, website, and in your stores so that people become aware of it and will buy your products to do their bit for the society. A classic example of this promotional strategy used by a stationery company “Classmate”. Classmate tells their buyers that they will pay “one rupee” for the education of unprivileged children for every product bought by you. This strategy makes the use of emotions of human beings to boost sales. There is no harm to give a try to this strategy.

Customer’s Appreciation Events

This type of strategy involves throwing a small party for your customers. this small gesture will not cost you as much as fancy advertisements will cost you, but it will definitely improve the loyalty of customers towards your brand. You can also organize small competitions where you can provide gift hampers to the winner or you can also give them a discount on their next purchase. To make this kind of event more attractive you can also offer food items like pizza, soft drinks or some other snacks. This will attract customers to your store. Make sure to display products that you want to promote strategically so that it comes in the eyes of people.