What is sales promotion?

Sales promotions are defined as the set of activities aimed at increasing the sales of a specific product.

These activities are carried out to persuade the customer and convince them to purchase a product, by reducing its price and advertising it.

Sales promotion can be targeted at a range of customers:

• Final consumers: the ultimate recipients of the item in question;
• Commercial intermediaries: those who organize transactions between a buyer and a seller, earning a commission when the deal is concluded;
• Sales force: all activities, strategies, and various communication techniques used for selling a product.

Oftentimes, a well-planned sales promotion can become the nucleus of word-of-mouth, thereby increasing market demand.

The objectives of sales promotion

To establish a good sales promotion strategy, it is important to distinguish two types of promotion to implement:

• Push promotion: which tends to push the product towards distributors and retailers;
• Pull promotion: aims instead to make the product stand out at the point of sale through purchase.

The main task of sales promotion is to increase the demand for products by using incentives to stimulate purchases and achieve loyalty, to promote brand or product loyalty. 

Depending on the established objective, sales promotions are divided into two categories:

• Product dissemination with various incentives: ensuring free use of the product during the trial period, distribution of free samples and informational material;
• Incentives that convince customers of the product's value: through price reductions, distribution of vouchers, coupons and gifts, contests and point-based prize games.

In conclusion, sales promotions are actions used to achieve set objectives, which allow benefiting those who purchase a product through so-called promotions, thereby stimulating the customer to buy the promoted product.