Consumer sales promotion tactics are the strategies that businesses use to boost their sales during a particular time. The only way for a business to succeed is by gaining more customers and selling products or services. You must inform them about it and increase sales with the appropriate consumer sales promotion techniques.
Successful companies use sales promotions to boost sales, increase brand awareness, and improve customer satisfaction. All these factors are critical and ultimately drive more sales. You can find several examples of sales promotions that different businesses use. However, not all of them might be suitable for your business.
First, you can identify your business goals and plan sales promotion strategies accordingly. Here are some most effective consumers sales promotion strategies to drive more sales faster:
1. Discount Coupons
Offering products at discounted prices is one of the oldest yet most effective sales promotion techniques. The end-of-season sales are great examples of such discounts. Customers wait for end-of-season sales to purchase the products they couldn’t afford to buy during the season. Discounts are beneficial both for customers and retailers. Customers can buy more for less price, and retailers can clear their stock faster.
Apart from running seasonal discount offers, you can provide discount coupons to your customers for their next purchase. If customers have your discount coupons, they are more likely to return to your store before they expire. This is how you can drive repeat business and encourage customers to purchase more often.
2. Free shipping/returns
Consumers do consider the shipping cost while making online purchases, especially when it’s their first purchase from a brand. They are most likely to change their purchasing decision if high shipping costs are associated with a product. If your brand is charging a shipping fee on its products, you might be missing out on many potential customers.
Most customers don’t want to spend money on a product if they doubt its quality, usage, life, etc. With high shipping costs and no guaranteed returns, the overall price of the product becomes expensive, and the purchase seems riskier to the customer. Offering free shipping and guaranteed returns with a 100% refund reduces the customers’ fear of wasting money on the wrong product.
3. Contests & Giveaways
Running prize contests online or offline is one of the simplest and most efficient ways to increase brand awareness and boost sales. These contests create healthy competition among your customers, making it interesting for them to participate. Social media contests can be very powerful and bring unexpected results. Some common examples of social media contests include:
- ‘Top Spenders Offer’ under which the top spenders of the week or month are awarded. These contests aim to boost the overall business revenue.
- ‘Purchase to Win’ contests under which a brand chooses random buyers of a particular product as winners. These contests are focused on boosting the sales of the product.
- ‘Like, Comment, and Share to Win’ contests under which the participants are rewarded for sharing your brand’s official social media page with their friends. These contests are aimed at increasing brand awareness.
4. Buy 1 Get 1 Free
BOGO deals are the most popular consumer sales promotion tactics for retail businesses. The idea of getting two items for the price of one seems amazing to the customers. Businesses generally run BOGO offers to clear the stock or to encourage customers to purchase a newly launched product.
It also increases brand awareness as many customers share the free product with their family or friends. Though it is the same as a 50% discount, calling it a BOGO deal is more impactful as freebies attract more customers.
5. Free Samples
If you allow your customers to try your product for free, most of its buyers would have never bought it without trying it. Customers don’t want to spend money on a product without knowing whether it works for them or not. You can offer free samples of the new product with a popular product that most of your target audience knows about.
This has dual benefits. It boosts the sales for your main product and introduces your new product in the market. After trying the free sample product, many customers may buy it.
6. Flash Sales
Big discount offers become more effective when combined with limited periods. The duration can be anything between 24 hours to 30 days depending on your stock availability and customer interests. Flash sales develop a fear of missing out among your customers. Under these sales, products are offered at heavy discounts for a limited duration.
You can build excitement ahead of time by announcing the sale launch date. This creates a sense of urgency, and your customers buy their favorite products as soon as the sale is live.
7. Bundle Products
Bundle products or combo offers discounts on related products when you buy them as a bundle. For example, a combo of shampoo (priced at Rs 150) and a conditioner (priced at Rs 120) can be offered at a combined price of Rs 230.
This encourages customers to buy combo packs instead of buying only one product to save some money. Bundle offers can move your inventory faster as you sell more products with a low discount.
8. Loyalty Reward/Cashback Programs
Research has shown that gaining a new customer can be five times more expensive than retaining an existing one. This is why customer loyalty is important for every business. Running a continuous loyalty program is one of the best ways to motivate customers to stay loyal to your brand.
Loyalty programs can be of different types:
- Rewards-based programs
- Cashback-based programs
- Tier-based programs
Under these programs, your customers get rewarded every time they make a purchase. For successful loyalty programs, you need to make sure that you offer interesting redemption options against these reward points. These programs can retain customers only if the rewards you offer are valuable and useful for them.
9. Referral Discount
Referral discounts help you increase your market reach by encouraging your customers to recommend your brand to their friends. You can offer discounts to your customers and their referral friends when they purchase your products. The referral program becomes more efficient when you give a higher discount for more referrals.
You can also offer them incentives for sharing their experiences with your product on social media. Consumers believe in user-generated content more than a brand promoting itself.
10. Scratch Cards
Scratch Cards are like mystery offers. You can offer scratch cards with different discounts, such as 5%, 10%, and 25% discount. The customers only know their reward after they purchase and scratch the gift card. Human minds are curious, and curiosity makes them participate in the offer to see what they get inside the scratch cards. Once they get a discount, they will most likely purchase before the discount coupon expires.
11. ‘Spin to Win’ Contests
‘Spin to Win’ contests are one of the best ways to include gamification in your sales promotion and make it interesting for your customers. You can run a ‘Spin to Win’ contest on your website or offline store. Provide your customers with an opportunity to spin the wheel once every day. You can include reward points, cashback, discounts, and a few big prizes in this wheel.
Make sure that they win something most of the time. If not discounts and rewards, they should at least get a few reward points for spinning the wheel. They can redeem these rewards once they have collected significant points.
This motivates them to visit your website at least once every day. These contests also help you increase your brand awareness through word of mouth.
How Can RewardPort Help?
RewardPort is a reward and loyalty solutions providing company. RewardPort can help you plan and run a sales promotion strategy that works for your business and aligns with your customer interests.
The marketing experts at RewardPort take every business detail into account and run sales promotions exclusively for your business. Your marketing campaigns are not restricted to one or two platforms with RewardPort but are executed on multiple platforms, including on the web, offline, SMS, etc
Frequently Asked Questions
How can consumer sales promotions help businesses increase revenue?
Sales promotions aim to attract potential customers by reducing the prices of products. These techniques encourage customers to purchase a product they would not have bought at their original price. Sales promotions help you acquire new customers, boost sales, retain customers, increase brand awareness, and ultimately increase gross revenue.
What are common mistakes to avoid when implementing consumer sales promotions?
Some most common mistakes to avoid when implementing consumer sales promotions are:
Not defining your target audience
Not being consistent
Spending a lot on promotions without proper research
Not tracking results to optimize future campaigns
How can consumer sales promotions help businesses increase revenue?
Consumer sales promotions aim to increase your sale and volume of inventory churn. You may need to use sales promotion tactics to clear old and aging inventory, move stores, renew your stock, and counter similar challenges. All these activities can result in higher revenue, however, may reduce your profit margin.
