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1. Why sales promotion is an integral part of marketing? How does it differ from marketing and advertising?

June 14, 2013 By: Meliza Category: 1st SEM

Answer: Sales promotion refers to activities, materials, devices and techniques which are used to supplement the marketing and advertising operations and help to coordinate the advertising with personal selling efforts.Sweepstakes are the most well-known sales promotion tools, but there are also others like samples, instore displays, coupons, promotional discounts, contests, trade shows, price-off deals, premiums, rebates and gift offers.

Depending on the product and need of the brand at the moment, these tools are combines to sell a product or service.

The American Marketing Association defines sales promotion as ‘media and non-media marketing pressure applied to a pre-determined, limited period of time in order to stimulate trial, increase consumer demand or improve product quality.’

 

Sales promotion also increases the basic value of a product for a limited time and directly stimulates sale, selling effectiveness or the effort of the sales force. It is often used to inform, persuade, and remind target consumers about the business and its marketing mix.

 

Difference between Sales Promotion and Advertising

A total business communication strategy includes advertising, sales promotion and personal selling. Sales promotion is designed to increase sale in a limited area, over a limited period, using clearly defined tools, with a limited budget and clear cut objectives. Advertising, on the other hand, is done through mass media, over a very large area, tries to reach a very large audience and often not even trying to achieve immediate sale.

 

Every company should have a promotional strategy in place. The function of a promotional strategy is to:

 

 

Provide information

 

In the early days of promotional campaigns, when many items were in short supply, most advertisement or promotions were designed to tell the public where they could find the product. Even today, much of sales promotion is designed to inform, often target specific segments.

 

Differentiate

Marketers often develop a promotional strategy to differentiate their product from those of competitors by defining meaningful distinctions like attributes, price, quality or usage of the brand. This is the core of product positioning. These needs to be supported by market research which reveals what the consumer wants and what attributes are important to him.

 

Increase sale

In modern marketing, to increase immediate, short term sale is usually the most common objective of a promotional strategy.

 

Stabilise sale

A stable sales pattern evens out the production cycle, reduces some production and management costs, and makes it easier to do financial, purchasing and market planning.

 

Increase the brand’s value

Some promotional strategies are designed to add value to the product, such as warrantee  programmes and after-sale services.

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