Types of sales promotion strategies

Sales promotions are classified as push promotional strategy or pull promotional strategy. Push promotions focus on distributors or retailers of a product while pull strategies focus on the end user or consumer. Push promotional strategy apply mainly to manufacturers. To distribute their products through retail channels, manufacturers must work with these channels to promote their products. But pull promotional Strategy are applicable to manufacturers and retailers, since they focus on the consumer. Many effective strategies combine both.

Types of Sales promotion strategies

1. Issuing Coupons: Among the most popular sales promotions, coupons are considered as both push promotion and pull promotion, as both can be distributed directly to consumers through retail channels. Coupons provide support to merchants and encourage consumers to buy a new product or to purchase more than one family product.

2. Providing Samples: Providing samples to consumers is another example of a push and pull strategy. Offering sample of a new product directly to consumers can help generate demand for the product. While offering the product samples through the retail channel, it creates an incentive for the retailer to promote products in stores. Manufacturers are increasingly offering online samples along with loyalty programs.

3. Offering gifts: Gifts are products offered with the purchase, like a handbag that is offered to customers whose purchase value exceeds a minimum amount. Gifts can be packaged with a product or mailed to customers on their request. In such case, offering gifts not only increases sales but may also increase distribution lists of promotions by direct mail and email, and at the same time opting for the mail list. Gifts can also have the logo of the manufacturer or the retailer in them, which increases the brand awareness.

4. Loyalty Programs: Loyalty programs are one of the pull strategy that are used with other promotional strategies. Loyalty programs provides a continuous flow of sales promotions to consumers who have enrolled in these programs. The coupons, free samples, and Gifts are first offered in loyalty program, and then to the general public. Awarding points for every dollar spent, then redeeming the points for products is another popular feature of many loyalty programs.

5. Exhibition displays: The exhibition displays are a momentum strategy often underestimated, but are very effective if implemented correctly. Manufacturers can exhibit their retail products as a part of their promotion strategy in combination with other sales promotion strategy. Displaying Samples can attract attention and provide valuable marketing assistance for smaller retailers, that might result in increase of sales.