Sales Promotion Strategies

The kind of promotional mix employed determines the promotional strategy. Generally speaking a particular combination, type or amount of sales promotion, personal selling, publicity and advertising are brought into the promotional mix, which becomes the promotional strategy in the course of implementation. The marketing strategy as much guides the determination of the promotional strategy, which may be divided into sale promotion strategy, personal selling strategy, publicity strategy and advertising strategy. The strategies, sustaining promotional strategy, developmental promotional strategy or promotional appropriation.

(i). Push and Pull Strategies

The push and pull promotional strategies may be used to enhance sales. The push strategy concentrates on middlemen or retailers who push the sale of the product to the final consumers. This strategy covers cooperative advertising, attractive terms of sale, coupons and discount facilities. The pull strategy is directed toward the final buyers. It persuades the buyers to go to the sellers to buy. Sales promotion, particularly customer promotion, is an important form of the pull strategy. Customer promotion, may call for the offer of samples, money-refund offers, prices-off, premiums and so on.

The push strategy asks the sellers or retailers to attract the layers.

Trade promotion is thus the main form of the push strategy. Trade promotions refers to buying allowances, free goods, co-operative advertising, push money, sales contests and so on. The marketing manager has to adopt both these strategies to promote sales.

v Features of pull strategy

Pull strategies depend upon mass communication. Products are literally pulled by buyers through the channels on the basis of mass promotional efforts. In a pull strategy, the product is pulled through the channel by creating end- user demand. Customers force retail shops to stock those mass- promoted products. In turn, retailers demand the highly advertised product from wholesalers. The firms having well- known brands can exercise control over channels through pull promotion strategies. Personal salesmanship plays a secondary role in pull promotion. Marketer rely on intensive distribution. Dealer margins are also lower in pull promotion.

v Features of push strategy

Industrial marketing strategies are mostly the push type strategies relying primarily on personal selling. Also in the sale of medical products and in life insurance, marketers have to employ a lot of salesmen to call on physicians and prospects for life insurance. In push type promotion, personal selling expenses are considerable and dealer margin is also higher. In this, after – sale service is also important and marketers rely on selective distribution. Push strategy can be successfully used when:

1. We have a high quality product with unique selling points.

2. Where we have a high priced product.

3. We can offer adequate incentives (financial) to middlemen and their salesmen.

v Push – Pull strategy

Most consumer goods manufacturers generally employ a push- pull (combination) strategy to sell their products. The ratio of pull to push may differ according to the requirements of market situation. Salesmen are used to push the goods through the marketing channel, while advertising and sales promotion will support personal selling to accelerate sales. Thus, all tools of promotion work together.

(ii). Sustaining Promotional Strategy : The main aim of this strategy is to stablise the market share. Sales promotion becomes necessary to sustain a market share. At a laggard stage, the markets may shrink. Unless appropriate steps are taken, the marketer may find that the market may be slipping away for, to his product. But this strategy can be adopted only after employing the penetrating strategy. That is, the market share should not decline after a higher level of sale has been attained. The sustaining promotional strategy stabilies the market share. Sales force promotion by way of bonus and other incentives many contain the market from slipping away. Steps are taken to prevent the sales force from going across to the competitors. Brand loyalty of customers is fostered and reinforced.

(iii) Developmental Promotional Strategy: The introduction of new products may require expansion of the market. Innovators need to have a developmental strategy. New products or brands are popularized by offering trade discounts, cash rebates, premiums, money refunds, and so on. The new consumers are given effective after- sales service. Consumer franchise building is done with development strategy. The promotional mix for a brand not yet popular may require emphasis on both personal selling and sales promotion.

(iv) Promotional Appropriation : Promotional objectives determine promotional appropriation. The forms of promotion, the costs of each component of promotion, the activities to be performed and appropriation on personal selling, sales promotion, advertising and publicity are determined under this strategic approach. The marketing manager has to arrive at the optimum promotional mix of the given objectives. And this requires proper planning and programme evaluation. Product attributes, brand differentiation, purchase frequency, the nature of the market, the size of market and its location, the nature of prospective buyers, their purchase frequency, distribution and price strategies are evaluated before the formulation of an appropriate sales promotion strategy.