Sales promotion is one of the seven aspects of the promotional mix, which are advertising personal selling, direct marketing publicity/ public relations, corporate image and exhibitions. Sales promotions are short-term incentives that are done to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service [P.DALOK 200].
Sales promotion can be used to inform, persuade, and remind target customers about the business and its market mix. Some common types of sale promotion include: Samples, Coupons, Sweepstakes, Contest, In-store display, Tradeshows, Price off deals, Premium and rebates. There are many reasons why companies opt for sales promotions other than advertising. Some of the reasons include increasing competition and products becoming more standardized, build brand awareness, create interest, provide information, stimulate demand and also reinforce the brand.
In this essay I have briefly described sales promotion, and comprehensively discussed the reasons for sales promotion.
Definition of sales promotion
Sales promotions are short-term incentives to encourage the purchase or sale of a product or service. C. Mitchell 1999 defines sales promotion as a process of persuading a potential customer to buy the product And it includes several communications activities that attempt to provide added value or incentives to consumers, wholesalers, retailers, or other organizational customers to stimulate immediate sales.
These efforts can attempt to stimulate product interest, trial, or purchase. Below are reasons for sales promotion.
Reasons for sales promotion
1. Increasing Competition
The air of change is gaining momentum after the introduction of economic liberalization. Due to increase in competition, companies are finding it increasingly difficult to compete on quality. They are therefore resorting to more innovative methods of sales promotion (Du Toit and Erasmes 2008:347).
2. Customers Have Become More Price Sensitive
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