‘Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.’
Promoting the sale
You have provided dynamic, written material, you have had a successful appointment and the potential client seems pleased by what you have to offer. However, he or she is wavering about giving you the business project and, as always, you realise that you have hungry competitors wanting the business, too. In this case, a special offer on your part can make the difference. It says, ‘I really want your business.’
The essence of sales promotion is that it must be easily understood and relevant to your product. It will seem ludicrous to consumers to receive a free embroidery kit if they are buying a puppy! With this principle in mind, let’s look at some examples.
Promotional techniques
In hairdressing you can promote your business using hairdressing products. In fashion, you can use accessories or perfumes. With books you can offer membership to a book club. Your offer must always sound right and be related in some way to your product or service. Here are a few types of special offers you can consider; they represent some of the best promotional vehicles I’ve seen in the past few years, with the exception of competitions, which I have included for discussion only.
- Offering a free gift with a purchase is probably the most successful sales promotion on earth. A high-quality gift lives on in the memory of the customer as a favourable experience of dealing with your company. My client Thomas Cook, as a free gift with purchase, gave away a beautiful leather travel wallet with separate pockets for all the items travellers need to carry.
Of the finest leather and very well made, these wallets still look good after 10 years and are an ongoing, quality testimonial for Thomas Cook. I still use mine and am delighted every time I line up at the check-in counter to have such a useful and attractive item. The offer also brought the company a great amount of business at the time.
If you really want to move your product, think of offering a freegift with the purchase of merchandise or services of a certainmonetary value, for example, a free sunroof when you buy a car;free shirts or ties with a suit; free software with a computer; anextra month’s free advertising space with a six-month campaign;free shampoo and conditioner with a hair colour treatment.
- Buy one, get one free. Buy one suit or dress and you will receive another free. Have your eyes examined and another family member ’s examination is free. This is also a very powerful promotional technique which gives the customer two for the price of one or 50 per cent off. Of the three possible ways of expressing this offer, the ‘buy-one-get-one-free‘ statement is stronger than ‘two for the price of one’ or ‘50 per cent off’. The first phrase contains the word ‘free‘, which is one of the most powerful words in the English language.
Buy two (or more) and get one free is also powerful, depending on the price of the purchased item. For instance, buying eight motor cars and getting one free would be a great offer to a company buying a fleet, and it would sound more impressive than offering 12 per cent off the price of each of the eight cars.
- A banded offer involves packaging two things together with a band around them. When you sell four litres of paint banded with a half-litre of turpentine, make the banded price somewhat less than the combined price of both items if they were sold separately.
You have now created a promotion worthy of attention and you will sell more of each item than ever before. A toothbrush with toothpaste or mouthwash is a good banded offer; so is pantihose with a second pair, detergent with fabric softener and deodorant with talcum powder. These kinds of offers work very well.
- Price reductions will get customers flocking in, but use these sales discreetly so that you have no more than two per year. You don’t want to appear to be buying your way gut of trouble. When you have this type of sale, make it of such terrific value that people line up for your product. Those who buy merchandise at your sales once or twice and are treated well may develop loyalty to your business and come back again without it being the sales season.
It seems that the stores with the best sales also allow you to return the sales goods for a full refund. Clients will say, ‘And they even gave me all my money back, without any argument.’ The less significant companies usually have a no-returns policy. Which would you shop at in the future?
- Sampling is also a popular sales promotion technique, where a small sample of the product is delivered to your home. Many years ago a sample for a new soap powder appeared in my letter box and, when used, the soap refused to dissolve in any temperature of water. It just swirled around in little pellets with the washing. Apart from arousing my wrath, the sample achieved nothing except my refusal to ever buy the product. However, if the product is a good one, it can encourage purchase when first use has proven its worth.
- Vouchers and coupons arrive in your home as inserts in newspapers or magazines or in household letter-box drops. They offer you money off the company’s product to encourage purchase and trial use; after that it is up to the shopper to decide whether theitem is bought again.
- Quality service can be the best sales promotion technique! The Regent Hotels have a service policy which goes so far beyond the norm that guests can’t help but comment, ‘And they even…!’
