Any business owner’s goal is to increase sales. There are many marketing tips and tricks to do so, like increasing brand awareness, sales funnel automation, email marketing, lifecycle marketing, etc. I want to talk to you about sales promotion in this blog post. There are different promotion methods to increase sales. Sales promotion is a way to motivate your potential customers to buy from you and come back for more purchases.
I’m going to teach you how to use sale promotion methods like discounting and giveaways to increase product sales and brand awareness. Without further ado, let’s look at the definition of sales promotion.
What is sales promotion?
Sales promotion is the process businesses go through to encourage potential customers to buy or try a product or service. There are many forms of sales promotion, and all are focused on motivating an interested person to become a customer. You can use free channels like your website and social media platforms to introduce your promotions. You can also use paid funnels like Google Ads to get the word out there. Triggering your target audience’s emotions, needs, and values combined with creative visual and copy content is what makes a good sales promotion. An effective sales promotion is an offer to invite your customers to check out your products. An offer they couldn’t refuse.
Free samples
To this day, giving out free samples has been one of the best sales promotion ideas. This strategy works when you give out product samples to anyone visiting your store, whether they make a purchase or not. Giving out free samples is a way to introduce your products to potential customers and give them the opportunity to try your products. Free samples work best if you have food products and cosmetic products like sample perfumes and lotions. People love to test a product before buying it. So if you have a product you are trying to sell, give out free samples.
Buy one, get one free
Like free samples, BOGO deals (buy one, get one free) are among the most excellent sales promotion strategies. You can boost your sales by offering two of the same high-demand products at a lower price. BOGO sales are also a great way to clear stock. But how does it work?
Let’s say a product costs 3$, and you sell it at 10$. If you offer a 50% discount, you can still earn 2$. With BOGO sales, you can earn twice. If you sell two of the same products for 10$, your profit will be 4$. Basically, you offer a discount, sell more products, self-liquidate, and still manage to make considerable profits.
Cashback promotions
In a cashback promotion, customers are returned an amount of money they spend on your product. It’s a great strategy to show your customers they can earn some of their money back if they buy from you and stand out in your competition. With the cashback promotion, you can have loyal customers and also strategize campaigns to draw in new customers. You get to choose the cashback percentage based on your profit and your product value. Cashback promotions also mean you don’t have to put a discount tag on your products. Customers will always buy your products for less than the actual price.
Lifestyle discounts
Lifestyle discounts are specified for a particular buyer persona. By analyzing your market and target audience, you can define your buyer personas. According to the people who are your potential customers, you can give out specific discounts. Lifestyle discounts are usually given out to people on a specific carrier or at a specific age group. Some of the best lifestyle discount examples are teachers, students, veterans, and seniors. While you can give our lifestyle discounts yearly, there are also seasonal and monthly events to run a lifestyle discount campaign. For example, September is a great month to have back-to-school discounts. You can keep an eye on monthly events to choose the best times to have a lifestyle discount campaign.
Flash sales and discounts
Flash sales promotions are a great way to increase your sales since they create a sense of urgency to purchase for your customers. If you run an online business, flash sales can be one of the most effective promotion strategies. Flash sales happen for a limited time. So your customers will seize the opportunity to make a purchase in a limited time. There are two ways you can run a flash sale. You can do a flash sale once or twice a year. You can also do a flash sale at a specific time every month, creating a pattern, so your customers can get ready to make a purchase on the flash sale. The most important thing here is to make sure you use social media and email marketing to announce the time of your flash sale so your customers won’t miss it.
Vouchers and coupons
Vouchers and coupons are a great way to thank your current customers for their purchase from you and to motivate them to come back. You can offer them by email, on your website, on your packaging, in catalogs, and so on. The best way to use vouchers and coupons is to offer a mystery coupon. A mystery coupon gives your customers an exciting, adventurous sense that encourages them to make a purchase. Vouchers and coupons are also a great solution to convert window shoppers into customers. A lot of people search through your website and add items to their cart but leave your website without making any purchases. By targeting those people and offering them a discount coupon, you can motivate them to purchase the next time they visit your website.
Charitable cause promotions
With charitable sales promotions, you can make an impact and increase sales. You will impact your community and draw customers to make sales with a charitable cause. With a charitable promotion, you inform your customers that a certain percentage of your profit will go towards a charity of your choice for a while. This could be a charity you are passionate about or one that represents your brand’s social responsibility. This type of promotion is a win in all situations. The charity will have an income. You will be able to express your brand’s value and attract customers with the same values. Your customers will know the money they spend with you is going for something they care about.
Free shipping and returns
We talked about window shoppers before. Apart from vouchers and coupons, another way to convert window shoppers to customers and make sure they leave with their carts closed is offering free shipping and returns. Free shipping is an excellent promotion to motivate customers to do business with you, especially when talking about free returns. Return shipping makes it hard for unsure customers to make a purchase. Knowing they will go through more expenses and drama if they need to return a product for any reason will negatively affect their decision. When you offer free returns, you make more sales with unsure customers and manage to build trust with them.
Loyalty program promotions
Loyalty programs are a way to ensure your returning customers stay loyal to you and keep coming back for your products or services. There are different ways to have a loyalty program promotion. For example, you can use punch cards. Punch cards motivate customers to come back for a certain amount of purchases to “win” a prize. You can also give our rewards every time a customer returns to make a purchase. The rewards motivate customers to shop more to use those rewards in a future purchase as a free item or discount.
Joint promotions
In situations where you own a company with multiple businesses or you work with a joint company, you can benefit from joint promotions. A joint promotion works when you make a bundle of products or services you and your partner company offer. You and your partner companies will promote the package, which is like a free promotion for all of you. This presents the opportunity to reach out to your partner companies’ customers and motivate them to purchase from you in the future.
Contests and giveaways
Contests and giveaways on social media channels are a fairly new but very effective sales promotion strategy. When you build an account on Instagram, Facebook, or any other social media platform with your active target audience, you can run contests and motivate your customers to interact with you. For example, you can offer a prize in return for your followers tagging some friends on your giveaway post. This will increase your brand engagement and awareness. If you manage to make your existing customers excited enough for the contest, it will succeed. You will have more interactions on social media channels and have the opportunity to have potential customers in the future.
Shopping sprees
Shopping spree promotions can begin with a contest. The winner will have the opportunity to choose products from your shop up to the price limit you choose. For example, you can have an “enter to win” spinning wheel and offer a shopping spree of 500$ for the winner. Shopping sprees are an excellent word-of-mouth marketing strategy. Your winners will be excited to tell their friends about winning the contest and show off the items they chose in their shopping spree. This will result in potential customers hearing about your products and promotions and checking your brand out.
Branded gifts or bundles
One way to draw attention to your products is to offer two or more products at a reduced price. It feels great for your customers to brag about buying a bundle of products with a fair discount. You can bundle relative products and offer a discount or a free item in your promotion. Your loyal customers are the ones who appreciate this promotion the most. The more loyal a customer is, the more branded gifts they are offered. This is a great opportunity for word-of-mouth marketing as well as shopping sprees.
Referral discounts
Drawing in new customers is always a concern for businesses. A great sales promotion is offering discounts to your existing customers when they promote you on their social media channels or introduce your brand to a friend. You have to make a decision whether a referral alone is enough or you need the referred person to make a purchase. Either way, you can offer discounts to your existing customers for their next purchase. For example, you can offer a 20% discount for three referrals.
Google My Business offer points
If you have high traffic to your website from Google searches, you can benefit from Google’s offer points. In your Google business account dashboard, you have four different post options. If you click on Add Offer, you can make a promotion or offer a discount. This offer will be shown on your profile every time a user searches for you or finds you on Google Maps. This promotion will both increase sales and website traffic.
Recurring sales
Customers usually return to make a purchase depending on how their last experience with your brand happened. Offering recurring sales is a way to respect your customers’ wishes. You can offer yearly or seasonal sales and promote your sales on social media so your customers know this is a part of your branding strategy. Recurring sales are different from flash sales because flash sales don’t usually happen on a routine. Recurring sales are more secure and give your customers the time to prepare to buy from you in the promotion timeline you offer.
Preorders
If you have a popular product, you can offer preorders. Customers who are excited about your products and love coming back for more really appreciate being the first to use your new products. Preorder promotions provide a sense of adventure and mystery about your new product and get the hype up about your brand between your customers. This promotion strategy is also a good word-of-mouth marketing strategy.
Weekend offers
Weekends are usually not active sales days for businesses, especially online businesses. If you offer discounts and promotions on weekends, you can motivate your customers to make purchases on Saturdays and Sundays. This will help you increase sales on days that you have no sales. A discounted sale will not profit as much as a normal sale, but still, the number of products you sell on a weekly basis will increase, and so will your profit.
Trade-in promotions
The “give old, get new” promotion is a famous strategy among retailers. This strategy is called the trade-in promotion. Allowing your customers to update an old product with a new version is a great opportunity to promote your new products and also show your customers appreciation for their loyalty to your products.
Workshops
If you offer craft products like art or cooking materials, you can offer in-store or online workshops. Workshops are a great way for potential customers to interact with your products and try them. You can offer your products, talk about their benefits, how they stand out from their competition, and motivate your potential customers to buy them. If you manage to offer a discount on your products for people who showed up for your workshop, you can make a huge sale after your workshop.
Final Thoughts
Choosing the right promotions to increase sales depends on your products, target audience, and branding strategy. With a little research and following this guideline, you can choose the promotion ways that will work best for your brand. Everything I spoke about in this blog post will help you understand the different and best sales promotion ideas. You can use them to increase sales and brand awareness.
Have you ever used any of these promotion ideas? Let us know what works best for you in the comments below!
