With the rapidly increasing competition in the market, brands have become more conscious about attracting and retaining their potential customers. The marketing strategies of businesses are not just limited to advertising now, but they also use different sales promotion techniques to achieve their objectives. Studies have shown that most consumers try a new product only when they see an offer running on that. This is how powerful consumer promotions can be. Many consumers would have never tried a product if they didn’t get an offer on it. You might be missing out on many potential customers if you don’t run a sales promotion offer.

What is Consumer Sales Promotion?

Consumer sales promotions are the marketing strategies businesses use to boost their sales and achieve other short-term business goals in a limited time frame. The goal of a sales promotion program can be to increase sales, improve customer engagement, boost brand awareness, or anything that benefits a business in any manner. Almost every brand now uses sales promotion strategies to attract new customers and increase sales of their products. Some of the most effective consumer sales promotion techniques are listed below:

1. Free Samples

Offering free sample products especially works when your goal is to introduce a new product in the market or to promote a less popular product. It is a great way to make your potential customers try your products by eliminating the risk. Consumers are often afraid of spending their hard-earned money on something that they are not very sure about. This is why offering free samples or free trials is the best way to make them try a product that they might have never considered otherwise.

2. Early Bird Discounts

Early bird offers are the discounts that brands provide their customers on making a purchase or booking in advance. This sales promotion strategy is generally used by airlines, premium hotels, and other travel-based companies. These are very short-term offers under which a brand offers an additional discount on booking a flight or a hotel in advance.

Even e-commerce businesses can run early bird discount offers by providing additional discounts on specific purchases in the first few days of an offer. For example, if you are running a 20% discount offer for a month, you can provide a 30% discount to those customers who make a purchase (above a certain amount) within the first 5 days of the offer.

3. Gift Coupons

Offering gift discount coupons for future purchases is another sales promotion technique that doesn’t only help you boost sales, but is also effective in retaining customers. After your customer makes a purchase, you can send them a discount coupon code via email, text message, or you can even give it to them physically. The percentage of discounts may vary depending on the amount your customers spend. The more a customer spends now, the higher discount they will receive for their next purchase. Make sure that you keep these discount coupons’ validity short to make your customers come back more often.

4. Gift Products

Another great idea is to gift free products to your customers on making purchases above a certain amount. This strategy is most widely used by supermarkets where customers get free products on achieving the required spending threshold. The higher a customer spends, the more valuable free product they receive. For example, you can offer a product worth Rs. 100 free on purchases above Rs. 1,000, a product worth Rs. 500 free on purchases above Rs. 5,000, and so on. This sales promotion technique is not only effective in motivating customers to spend more but also allows you to make your customers try less popular products from your store.

5. Lucky Draws

This is a less popular, but highly effective sales promotion strategy to boost your sales or increase brand awareness in a short span of time. Launch a lucky draw offer and make as many customers as possible aware of it before the offer starting date. In such offers, a brand generally comes up with a minimum spend threshold that the customers need to achieve in order to enter the lucky draw contest. Out of all the participants, winners (generally three, five, or ten) are randomly selected and offered premium gifts.

For example, you can run a lucky draw contest with specific conditions, such as a minimum spend of Rs. 10,000, a short pre-specified offer period, a limited number of winners, and a prize for each winner. Every customer who spends above Rs. 10,000 within the offer period becomes eligible for the lucky draw. If running a lucky draw contest, make sure that you select winners randomly through a transparent process.

6. Happy Hour Sales

Happy hour sales are very often run by e-commerce businesses. These are flash sales valid only for a short duration, generally a few hours. Under a happy hour sale, you can offer specific products at heavy discounts for a short duration. When an offer is valid for a short period, it creates a sense of urgency among your customers. No customer wants to miss such a great deal and hence, they are motivated to make a purchase before the offer ends. When running happy hour sales, you must ensure that you offer really good discounts that can encourage your customers to make a quick decision without having a second thought in mind.

7. Cashback

Cashback-based sales promotions are one of the most traditional yet successful strategies to keep your customers coming back. When you offer your customers some cashback after every purchase, they feel like they are receiving something in return for their purchase. Getting something, even if it’s a little amount, is always better than getting nothing. So, if you are offering a small percentage of cashback on all the purchases your customers make, you are giving them a reason to prefer your brand over your competitors. You can even offer cashback in the form of store credits that they can use against future purchases.

8. Free Shipping & Returns

By offering free shipping and returns on your products, you can encourage your customers to buy your products at zero risk. If they don’t like it, they can always return it (though within the pre-specified time period only). However, only a few consumers return a product after purchasing it. By offering free returns, you can eliminate your customers’ fear of wasting their money on a new product.

9. BOGO Offers

Under a Buy One Get One deal, you can either offer one product for free with another product or provide one product at a discounted price with another item. When customers see a BOGO deal running, they are tempted to avail of its benefit as they don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to get two products at the price of one. You can use a BOGO deal to boost sales for a specific product or to clear out old inventory. Also, make sure to keep the offer validity short in order to create a FOMO among your customers.

10. Sweepstakes

Sweepstakes are just a different type of lucky draw contest where the winner is selected completely at random. Generally, there is no minimum spending requirement to enter a sweepstakes contest. All the customers who have made a purchase during the specified period, or simply all the registered users on an e-commerce website are eligible to participate. Any customer can be selected at random and provided with a pre-specified gift.

11. Loyalty Points

Almost every business is now having a loyalty program under which they offer a fixed percentage of loyalty points to their customers after every purchase. Customers can later redeem these loyalty points against several options available, such as discount coupons for future purchases, gift vouchers for other brands, and other products. Offering continuous loyalty points is an effective sales promotion strategy to boost brand loyalty and encourage repeat purchases in your business.

Choose RewardPort As Your Sales Promotion Partner

RewardPort, being one of the top sales promotion companies in India, can execute a consumer promotion program exclusively for your business taking every small detail into consideration. The team of marketing experts at RewardPort analyzes your business requirements carefully and comes up with a sales promotion plan that works well for your brand. With plenty of reward and redemption options, RewardPort becomes a great option to consider when looking for sales promotion companies.