Sales Promotion
A special, limited-time form of advertisement used to launch a new product or boost sales, often using giveaways like bags, t-shirts, or umbrellas to connect the consumer with the advertiser.
- Push promotion: encourages middlemen or distributors to run promotional campaigns through incentives like bonuses or extended credit (e.g. breweries).
- Pull promotion: gives consumers incentives directly, such as discounts, credit facilities, samples, or point-of-sale displays.
Methods: free samples and special offers, technical assistance (after-sales service, delivery, maintenance), special trader services (discounts, display materials), price reductions, sponsoring competitions, and training the sales force.
Unlike advertising, which persuades consumers over the life of a product, sales promotion aims to directly increase sales for a specific period, using gifts, discounts, or trade fairs rather than indoor/outdoor media.
Public Relations
Activities used by a firm to endear itself to customers, win public acceptance, and build goodwill — “a planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between an organization and the public.”
Methods: feature articles about the firm’s products, gifts/free samples, exhibitions, trade fairs, cinema advertising, discharging social responsibilities (funding bridges, roads, hospitals, schools), and sponsoring national programmes.
Sales Promotion vs Public Relations
| Sales Promotion | Public Relations |
|---|---|
| Boosts the image of a product | Boosts the image of a firm |
| More costly | Less costly |
| Has immediate effects | Has long-term effects |
Personal Selling
Face-to-face communication where a firm’s staff meets a customer to demonstrate a product and explain its importance. It lets the salesperson understand customer needs directly, builds the company’s image, allows immediate feedback, and suits introducing new products, technical goods needing demonstration, and expensive goods.
