What can sales promotion do for a small business?
Sales promotion is invariably a shorter-term strategy designed to: • Accelerate sales of slow moving products. • Clear old stock to make way for new. • Level out peaks and troughs. • Develop customer loyalty. • Motivate your sales staff or intermediaries. • Counter competitive activity. These are useful activities for companies of all sizes. Sales promotion is a method of increasing sales over the short term, to win business from competitors in a well-developed sector, where ‘me-too’ products abound and differences between perceived benefits are slight or non-existent. Sales promotion is a powerful weapon in areas like newspapers, supermarkets and petrol. To many observers, sales promotion as practised by the big players produces dubious long-term effects. If you are always giving 50 per cent off your new kitchen installation or double glazing then even the most gullible person will realise it is fictitious. But used with care, sales promotion can turn dead stock into cash, draw new cu
