5 Sales Promotions to Inspire Your Next Offer
In competitive markets, businesses need to come up with increasingly creative and enticing sales promotions to retain and acquire new users and customers. Successful companies employ a variety of sales promotions designed to target new customers, existing customers, drive repeat business, or increase customer satisfaction.
With so many different types of sales promotions out there, it can be difficult finding the right one to suit your needs. These are the five best examples of sales promotions to help innovate and inspire your marketing strategy and drive revenue.
Promotional Products
Promotional products are an often-overlooked sales promotion tool that, when used effectively, can drastically boost sluggish revenue and growth. One of the best marketing strategies using promotional products in recent years came from Coca-Cola.
In the 1980s, the company lost a high-profile taste-test against Pepsi. It, therefore, needed a strong marketing campaign to stand out from its competitors. As the 90s and 2000s got underway, Coca-Cola turned to traditional promotional products as other companies began to move away from them.
Coca Cola branded glasses became iconic. At the precise moment when competitors were launching aggressive TV ad campaigns, Coca-Cola took the company back to basics and pushed free promotional products to consumers. The results were unparalleled growth and healthy revenue streams.
Free Gifts
Many new store openings run free gift offers. For example, an electronics store might give away the first 100 customers a free stereo or pair of headphones. But when companies push free gifts beyond small trinkets, they reap the rewards in exposure.
Chick-Fil-A recently ran a high-profile promotion where they gave the first 100 customers at their new store free chicken sandwiches for a year. The sales promotion generated significant interest and got the new store a high level of public exposure.
Loyalty Program
Few sales promotions bring in repeat business like loyalty promotions. Loyalty promotions are vastly popular, with hundreds of firms offering a customer loyalty program in one form or another.
However, McDonald’s perhaps runs the most successful loyalty program of all in its McDonalds Monopoly. The loyalty program is striking as it functions as a board game, dishing out prizes and free items as people collect more cards to fill their monopoly board.
Free Samples
Small free samples are a good way to introduce your product to people who may have never tried it before. This is most effectively employed by the food and beverage industry.
Costco, for example, uses free samples to great effect. Everyone in the store receives free samples, encouraging them to try something they may not have tried before. This can also work for cosmetic products, new types of spas and therapy, or cleaning products.
Cause-Related Promotions
Several companies have effectively used cause-related promotional strategies. Walkers, a potato chip brand in the UK, runs a “books for schools” program where a percentage of each sale is donated to schools to purchase books for their students.
In the US, GAP and Apple both launched their (RED)- branded products. A percentage of these sales was donated to HIV/AIDS programs operating on the African continent.
These five sales promotions are effective ways of marketing your company and boosting your company’s exposure and image. Consider employing one of them to boost revenue. All of these cases show that the best type of promotional marketing is one that makes you stand out. So whatever you do, put your own spin on it to make it unique and increase customer retention.
