Millennials as Customers and How to Gain Their Loyalty
It is the age of the millennials — also commonly known as the Gen Y. This savvy generation not only comprises smart customers, but also include decision makers in top firms. Holding the largest share in the consumer marketplace, they have taken it hands on to change the rules of how brands engage and conduct their customer-experience design. It’s both easy and difficult to gain millennials’ loyalty. But the job is half-done once their tech-savvy psyche is grasped!
1. Customer-facing technology can’t be slow or complicated
Millennials have always embraced and aligned themselves with technology. So a user experience that is not friendly, simple, fast and advanced, is generally frowned upon by consumers. Companies should be careful not to present an obsolete process or a complicated system to consumers that will keep them away.
2. Smartphones have been the norm for millenials
Millennials are used to getting everything immediately and experiencing everything in real time. The queries need to be attended to as soon as possible and in an authentic language; otherwise, the customer moves on to someone else who understands him/her more.
3. Purchasing, for millennials, is a social experience
Engaging on social media is a part of everyday life for millennials. Often, these posts concern their consumption activities, their next purchase or what they might be looking for. This greatly affects businesses — as the opinion and review of one consumer could influence another.
4. Millennials seek an authentic and engaging experience
Which is why the company website should include a FAQ page — how to go about making a purchase, detailed repercussions of what could go wrong, or any sort of guidance. This can be done either through articles or videos — where customers can discover quick-fix methods and find instant solution to all their problems.
5. Interference or help from customer care is considered tedious
This means that they are self-reliant too and do not need customer-care executives getting in the way, just to mess up their whole experience. More often than not, they would prefer self service.
6. Surprisingly, they also want to co-exist
They’re open to new experiences and want to associate with the brand more than with just a transaction. To speak plainly, millennials are adventurous and seek the same from the brand. For example, a cause supported by a favourite company would also be supported by the loyal customers.
The bottom line is that — nothing with the millennials can be taken for granted. The skeptical approach of the previous generations also needs to be done away with. They move fast, like to experiment and are prone to changing loyalties only after one bad experience. It would also be good to know what the target audience is, in order for customer service to be innovative, seamless and top-notch on the whole.
10 Epic Ways To Reward Your Employees
Don’t Break the Bank – Inexpensive Employee Rewards Programs
Certificate of achievement: Honor the employee how acquires a unique acknowledgment, give him or her an extraordinary nametag and also a certificate that articulates their achievement.
Thank you meeting: A sincere word of thanks costs nothing and is very effective. Saying thanks about something specific may be the ultimate reward. The words “thank you” are powerful. And sometimes all you need to do is to say it sincerely.
Wall of Fame: Create a wall of fame for each recognized employee. Make a point to compose underneath their photo what they did that you’re remembering them for.
Company apparel: Offering employees free company apparel and other logo merchandise can be one of the simple employee rewards programs.
Recognition in front of peers: Feature your representatives accomplishments by recognizing them in an organization meeting, bulletin or on your organization Intranet site.
Department recognition bulletin board: Consistently a designated bulletin board highlights their duties regarding the affiliation, the individual employees, their most noticeable achievements, etc.
Secret Santa-style appreciation: Use the “Secret Santa” concept. Have all employees draw a name of another employee. They would then identify an achievement/contribution particular to that person and send an anonymous note of appreciation.
Work-from-home day: Remember significant events in your employees’ personal lives, and give them a work-from-home day so they can participate without worrying about coming into the office on time.
Sticky Notes: Post a sticky note on their monitor, expressing profound gratitude and saying why. Simple, yet compelling, when it’s authentic.
Standing O: Get all your employees together in the same room. Then welcome the employee you’re recognizing and give him or her an overwhelming applause.
The Morphing Trophy: Get a big trophy and give it to the employee you are recognizing for the week. At the end of the week, they must return the trophy but they need to add one thing to it. Then next week give it to the next winner. At the end of the year, you’ll have a trophy with 52 things stuck to it. It looks crazy and has lots of memories. At the end of the year, retire the trophy and put it in your reception area. Do it every year.
So which one are you trying out for your team?
10 Mistakes to Avoid in Sales Promotion
Numbers never lie and if numbers are to be believed, take a look at following industry figures of impact of sales promotions:
- Total Reach Value: 90%
- Total Recall Value: 89%
- Positive Impression On Customer: 52%
The relevance, reach and impact of meticulously planned sales promotion on customer behavior is unsurpassable; which inversely also means that if your sales promotion is not planned well, it could negatively affect your brand and business with equal values!
So, how would you ensure a flawless sales promotion plan that affirmatively reaches and affects as many people as possible? Here are the common mistakes that you should avoid to maximize the impact and minimize the remorse:
1. Thinking Single Channel
Sales promotions can elevate the sales and profits dramatically in a short time. To fetch optimum outcomes of the sales promotion activity that took much of your hard work and huge capital, it is necessary that you utilize all the channels of promotion available to you. The current advancement of print and digital media offers a beautiful amalgamation to explore infinite opportunities to boost your sales and brand value. When your consumers see you everywhere, they get inured to your brand and you gain their acceptance. Do not keep it only online (which may be fine if you are an online company) or only print promotion. Integrate all the channels ingeniously to stand ahead the crowd.
2. Not Setting A Goal Or Deadline
Launching a sales promotion program without fixed deadline or measurable goal will lead it to whole big null point. Set a start date and end date to streamline your efforts to complet everything within the stipulated time frame. This will help keeping each component of the program in track. By setting up goals, you will always have a figure in hand to achieve and to measure the success of the campaign.
3. Fixing On Presumptions
Don’t presume customer’s behavior. Never plan your sales promotions assuming that the segment you have created defines your real or limited customer base. It is very much possible that a profitable share of customers in high concentration is in the segment you do not tap your sales promotions for. Study your data patterns well to have a diverse profitability.
4. Not Solving It For Each Stakeholder
While planning your sales promotion program keep in mind how would it impact each of your stakeholder or retailers or any other patron associated to your organization. You may launch a promotional plan that attracts new customers with some special offer or benefit but would it be fair for your regular and loyal customer who may not have that benefit? Take each stakeholder into your consideration for an overall successful sales promotion program.
5. Making It Too Complex
Keeping your sales promotion plan simple makes it easy for you as well as your customers. Your customers will feel more connected and involve when the processes are simple without much complicated terms and conditions. With a simple sales promotion activity, capturing, handling and processing the data for result analysis and profit calculation gets extremely easy and effective. So, do not unnecessarily complicate things.
6. Not Keeping It Relevant
Relevancy is the essential most factor of any sales promotion program for its success and positive outcomes. Relevant program helps you in targeting your right customers and communicate with them for awareness and sales. Relevancy of the sales promotion plan also ensures that your customers are reminded about your brand or product with full intensity.
7. Communication Gap with yourTeam
For successful promotional plan, it is imperative to involve and inform all those part of your value chain that includes your team members, distributors, retailers about your plan. This provides the required thrust to pull it to an extended level for broader effect and profit.
8. Not Testing Your Assets
This is a very common mistake that is easiest to avoid. It doesn’t take much to test all your assets that you plan to consume within your promotional program to be active, available and useful. For example, you may roll on an email campaign with a broken link due to lack of adequate testing. This is a sheer waste. Avoid it.
9. Not Capturing The Data
Without capturing the data appropriately, it is impossible to measure the effectiveness and successfulness of any activity. Capture the data to realize if your plan has delivered what you expected. Capturing the data can also benefit you to apprehend new market segments and opportunities that you never thought of before.
10. Not Using The Captured Data
This is the biggest mistake companies commonly get trapped into. Before planning the next sales promotion plan, it pays largely to dig in the previously captured data to concentrate upon profitable segments along with exploring new dimensions for unconfined growth.
For a short word, make your sales promotion plan to attract new customers while also encouraging your brand power and loyal customers effectively.
These are a few common mistakes you need to be aware to ensure a flawless sales promotion. You should do everything possible to learn whatever you can about the complexities and nuances of your industry or profession–and not just once, but regularly. By knowing the potential bottom-line of impact of your sales promotion, you’ll have the information to invest the energy necessary to host a strong flawless sales promotion that will deliver boosting results over the time period it covers.
How Brick-And-Mortar Retailers Can Beat Ecommerce Price Advantage
The online ecommerce juggernaut may seem invincible, but players like Flipkart, Snapdeal, or Amazon have a major Achilles heel. Research shows that exceptional customer service is the number one factor influencing how much a consumer trusts a company, and 75% of consumerssay they have done business with a company because of positive customer service experienced in the past and the experience with buying process
Retailers hoping to fight online giants will have plenty of ammunition at their disposal if they use this insight to up their in-store game. Brick-and-mortar retailers can counter razor-thin margins offered by ecommerce sites through superior customer service. But first, they have to listen to what shoppers need and want, and use this data to propel their customers beyond the lone factor of low prices.
Here are 6 strategies that may help conventional brick and mortar store owners compete with ecommerce sites:
Know your customer:
It is now more important than ever for retailers to take a genuine effort in understanding their customers. I’d suggest that you initiate programs that help you know your buyer and his preferences. Some effective ideas include capturing customer data through CRM practices, a loyalty program, social media strategies, etc. Online companies score over conventional store owners, because they know so much about their customers. But with a little imagination and ingenuity, this information can be collected and used effectively. In fact, large retail companies have already started to implement strategies around this idea.
Engage customers:
Large retail companies have data but they have to use this information to communicate and personalize their relationship with their customers. Personal information about buyers is probably the biggest weapon in their arsenal that could help them handle competition from online companies. Retailers, large and small, can use this data to send information about offers, receive feedback and engage customers. With tools like email, SMS, missed call, apps, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, implement such ideas would be a cakewalk.
Blend the good aspects of online and in-store shopping:
Imagine you are the owner of a retail store and a customer checks in asking for a particular material of cloth. Being an earnest businessman, you inform the person that although the material isn’t in stock, you can get it for him in two days time. Problem solved, you’d say? But wait! There’s more that you can do. You can direct this customer to your Facebook page and tell him that he can choose a color of his choice and inbox the preference to your page. You, in turn would see to it that the chosen color is set aside for the customer. This can then continue as a tradition wherein your customer can order from home and yet assure the quality of the product before buying. Another instance where online and offline shopping can be integrated is when retailers blend in-store shopping and online payment. Apple has already marched towards this end. iPhone customers can scan bar codes of products and purchase them through their Apple Pay app.
Enhance the Shopping Experience:
Installing mobile charging pods, keeping children entertained with a separate kids’ play area, matching the customers pace, etc. can go a long way in enhancing customer experience. The last aspect is particularly important. It is more than likely that your in-store customer has already researched about the product before entering your place. He is already aware of the different models available online and has probably chosen your store because yours was the lowest price of all and also because he’d like to be sure about the quality of the product. Understanding such customers and creating a positive experience for them is important.
Service first then sales:
I recently had the misfortune of purchasing a product through a teleshopping network. Whilst everyone in the company was happy to sell me their product, none of them shared the same enthusiasm when I had to complain about the product quality. If I had taken the pain of shopping through a conventional brick and mortar shop, I could at least visit the place and get the problem sorted. But it’s been a month now, and I am yet to speak to a ‘customer relations person’ who could own up to the problem and offer a solution. This is where brick and mortar shops can easily outshine their online counterparts. By demonstrating to your customers that their complaints matter, you’ve not only earned their trust, but also given them the satisfaction that there lies a solution to their problem.
Webrooming:
Webrooming refers to the process of researching products online and then visiting the store to purchase them. A report by Merchant Warehouse estimates that around 69% of customers with a smart phone, webroom. And to put this trend into numbers, Forrester Research estimates that this trend is likely to result in $1.8 trillion in sales by 2017. There are several reasons why customers prefer webrooming as against showrooming. Merchant Warehouse says, 47% of them don’t prefer paying for shipping, 46% wanted to touch and feel the product before buying, 36% of them wanted the store to match the online price and around 37% wanted it to be easy to return the product back to the store if they didn’t like it. So have a great presence online and on social media and run good offers there incentivizing the customer with coupons to use it offline.
Even in the age of online shopping, consumers want to be able to trust retailers before they buy a product. Retailers can take advantage of this factor by keeping customer engagement at the heart of their strategizing.
10 Ways to Build your Business with O2O – Online to Offline
A Garter Survey says that 98% marketers say online and offline marketing are merging. What does it mean for offline businesses who are feeling that they are losing out to online businesses? Simply put they have to embrace a O2O – Online to Offline business strategy.
What is O2O or online to offline Marketing?
The best & simplest definition is “A business strategy that draws potential customers from online channels to physical stores.” Online-to-offline commerce, or O2O, identifies customers in the online space, such as through emails and internet advertising, and then uses a variety of tools and approaches to entice the customer to leave the online space. This type of strategy incorporates techniques used in online marketing with those used in brick-and-mortar marketing.” as defined on investopedia.com
Marketers of large companies have moved beyond digital marketing techniques and are expanding marketing’s role to create new digitally led business models. The sweet spot of the physical and digital worlds represents opportunities for marketers to apply customer insights to create and test new digitally led experiences and business models. Baidu and Alibaba are doing this in a big way in China while on demand services companies like Airbnb and Uber have made these into unique business models.
But what does this all mean for the small and medium size business. How do they adjust to this with limited resources?
Here are 10 things sme/msme can do to embrace this change and increase their revenue without too much investment.
1. Customer Data
Start collecting data of visitors and buyers. This is the starting point and perhaps the key driver of your O2O strategy. The fancy e commerce valuations you see are mostly driven by data. Merchants need to put in place a system where you collect information such as name, email, mobile number and as you move ahead you can add transaction history and other data points. Reward customers with offers and freebies to share data via website, sms or on paper. A simple tool to start with is www.zoho.com to manage the data.
2. Email and SMS
You have now data of visitors and customers. Segment it. The more data points the better segmentation. This is not very scientific. Just segment it by gender, area, age & transaction initially and then evolve to by birth date, preference, days of visit etc. Reach out to them by email or sms. Update them on offers, invite them to events, and wish them on their birthdays. A good DIY tool for email is MailChimp , ConstantContact. SMS is a very cost effective direct to customer tool .There are local vendors who will provide this service for prices as low as Rs.0.10 per sms
3. Facebook
Most likely your customer is on Facebook. Set up your page and get people to like your page. Keep the page active with 4 or more posts a week. Always use images and if possible videos. Unfortunately, now it doesn’t mean that if you post all your fans see your post. So you will need to “boost” you post for a little fee. Use the Audience feature to add your data on Facebook to get people who already know you. This is another effective way to reach out to your prospects and customers. Based on the size of your business it would be a good idea to manage the page yourself for a while and probably engage an agency when your ROI is up. There are many other tools on Facebook to help push your business. Create offers that can be redeemed in-store.
4. Twitter
A recent study by Small Business Customer website shows that nearly 60% of Twitter followers buy from an SMB. One way to initiate more traffic to your Twitter business page is by integrating a “follow” button on your website. Once your profile becomes familiar with existing customers, you can tweet to your followers about your upcoming product launches or trade shows and encourage them to retweet about your event. You can consider offering special discounts or freebies to your Twitter followers when they and their friends attend the offline event.
5. Instagram
Instagram will soon join the 100 million users club and if you haven’t yet used this innovative visual storytelling platform to meet your business goals, it’s high time you considered it. You can build anticipation among your Instagram community about your upcoming offline event by taking instant photos of your event’s stage being set and so on and post it on the website. Another way is to send exclusive invites to your Instagram fans and encourage them to meet up at your store or on the streets and post photos of them using your products or services. It would be a cool idea to host such real life meet-ups among your online community to build your brand offline.
6. Google – Places and Maps
More than 70% of online Google search activity is related to finding local stuff. And nearly 80% of online local searches on Google Places can end up visiting your offline store. It’s time you considered it carefully to build your business. Here’s a way to initiate it. Make sure you have a 100% score on the Google Places listing by filling all details. Optimize your listing description with product/service keywords. Encourage your existing customers to give good reviews on the Google Places & Maps to stand out among your competitors.
7. Strategic Partnerships
Strategic partnership can jointly benefit you and your partner as you can offer value added services to your existing customers. It spreads the marketing load to each partner while promoting their respective products/services. More importantly, your relationship with customers gets strengthened. For example, if you are an offline music training center you can partner with an online music instruments selling website to attract new students. You can distribute to your existing customers a free e-book or an online demo of your product/service that features you and your strategic partner(s). Make use of exclusive online discounts as a way of promoting your partnership among new and existing customers.
8. IOT
With the onset of the Internet of Things, offline businesses can harness it to offer customers a virtual like shopping experience. Take for instance, a fashion clothing store that makes use of iPad or tablets in changing rooms to help customers request various colors and sizes. IOT isn’t just about increasing sales, but leverage it effectively to boost overall shopping experience for your customers. As an offline business, you can access the same level of information just like an online store to improve your new or existing customer’s experience. One way is to follow up data on your customer’s recent online shopping journey and offer special discount on products they looked online. Your message can be something like, “Hello Jenny, the trousers you looked online two days ago is now available at our store at 10 percent off and its available in three additional colors.” The IOT technology can be harnessed to build better relationships with your customers like never before.
9. Wallets
Digital/online wallets can now be used not only for online shopping payments, but even for offline businesses. You can make use of this trend, whether you have a food store or a cab services company. Give your customers the freedom to pay through online wallets anytime, anywhere. This can result in increased revenue, as your customers will be long satisfied since they aren’t required to carry cash or plastic cards to make payments when they avail your services or products. So whether you are a small start-up or a growing offline business, you have the option of choosing an extensive range of digital wallet services.
10. Loyalty
Simply put, there’s no shopper who doesn’t like to get rewarded. A loyalty program should aim at encouraging the loyal engagement of your customers, in other words get buyers to patronize your business. It can’t get any easier than using the digital platform to promote your loyalty program for increased offline revenue with repeat customers. You can reward loyalty points to your existing customers when they subscribe to your online newsletter. You can also reward them when they refer their social network friends to visit your offline store. Another way is to conduct special online loyalty surveys to know more about your customers’ shopping activities both online and offline to gather valuable data. Just ensure the redeem limit is not too steep to reward your customers.
Following all these strategies require time and planning, get a team to work on these and plan accordingly. Similar to online revenue, offline store can gain more profit and revenues by being up to date. All the best!
18 ‘Refreshed’ Sales Promotion Ideas
Over the past decade we have had the opportunity to work with many of the leading brands across the country, have had discussions with the marketing gurus in different sectors on what common promotion ideas works across any of the business segments. We came up with these ideas, which are NOT new, simply being looked at with a fresh NEW perspective, that are proven methods of sales promotion.
1. SALE!
- Promote it well and go all out to make it heard.
- Give preference to your existing customers, ALWAYS!
- ‘Upto xx%’ – doesn’t work, be honest.
- Sale must be on everything, not on the limited stuff.
- Dress it up and make it an event
2. FREE
- The free stuff should be actually useful.
- Don’t always give your own stuff free, always.
- No *conditions apply.
- Free stuff should lift your product not degrade it.
3. BOGO / 2 for 1
- Keep it simple.
- Apply it on few items & products.
- Must be ‘limited to….’ quantity, time etc.
4. Contests & Sweepstakes
- Easy to participate
- Have as many winners – ‘Assured Prizes’ – ‘Everyone Wins’
- Make the giveaway exciting and what people want.
- Request an action, get data and use it.
5. Assured Gift
- Add a dash of surprise and excitement.
- Make the gift experiential.
- The gift should have a high perceived value.
6. Codes & Coupons
- Use M-coupons & E-coupons.
- Distribute it through partners to increase reach.
- Use it for acquisition but also for retention, refferal & rewards.
7. Like, Share & Get
- Use Facebook not to show off but to engage.
- You don’t brag, let the fans do that for you.
- Reward participation and actions.
- Have conversations not monologues.
8. Tweet & get Free stuff
- Run contests.
- Reward the 100th, 1000th, etc. followers.
- Retweet followers tweets.
- Reward most retweets, best # message.
9. Pin & Get!
- Run competition – Pin & Win!
- Run offers with powerful images.
- Have great images and many of them on the board.
- Acknowledge and reward regularly for ‘pinning’
10. Refer & get stuff!
- Create a simple and easy to understand referral program.
- Make it worth the while for customers to refer.
- Act quickly on the refferals generated.
- Make sure the reference is rewarde too with a great offer to buy.
11. Deal
- price-off on purchase is mostly the best offer.
- Let it be sizable and above competition in your category.
- Don’t make it too frequently but make it BIG!
12. Upsell
- Offer complementary product or services.
- Time the pitch well.
- Be specific with the upsell offer.
- Make assumptions & suggestions.
13. Reward loyalty
- Doesn’t have to always be loyalty program.
- Reward actions other than purchase too.
- Reward not only with points – acknowledge and make them feel special.
14. Engage
- People love to have dialogues & interactions with the brand they buy.
- Encourage participation.
- Engage everywhere – in store, online, on phone.
- Let them have conversations with the brand.
15. Free Trial
- Works for tech products and non tech products too.
- Free trial is a statement of confidence.
- It works for donut, a software or a car – find a way to let the buyer get an experience of what you sell.
16. Cross Promo
- Align with other brands to reach new customers.
- Offer & get privileges from other brands for YOUR customers & THEIRS!
- Choose alliances carefully and in sync with your brand positioning & target group.
17. Excitement
- People love ‘what money can’t buy’ experience.
- Add a dash of fun & excitement.
- Sports & movies can help make the promos effective.
18. Pamper
- Everyone loves to feel important.
- Doesn’t have to be indulging, could be just acknowledging.
- Let it be more personalised and less automated.
Planning a #selfie contest?
First let us accept the fact – people love taking selfies! According to various reports, the average millennial will take 25,700 selfies in their lifetime; and about 93 million selfies are taken worldwide each day. People are more comfortable taking a selfie than asking someone to click their picture.
So is your brand doing anything to take advantage of this Social (here-to-stay) phenomenon? Selfie contests ensures the most direct engagement and connect between your brand & the consumer.
When planning a selfie contest –
- Come up with a great idea; the one that is simple & easy for people to connect with.
- Ask the consumer to feature your brand, this is a must!
- Give a compelling reason to participate: reward or fame will work well.
- Incentivise for multiple actions – Post, shares, tags, likes, etc.
- For a successful selfie promotion, it should run at least for 30-45 days, to have larger reach among your target audience.
- Engage actively on all the possible social media platforms – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and others.
- To gain the trust, pick winners and reward them, EVERYDAY!
- Make it less cumbersome; don’t put in too many conditions – just click, post, tag & win!
- Promote the contests, online & offline.
- If your target group is the youth, play around friendship. If its family then involve the participation of children.
Don’t let your brand miss out on the #selfie phenomenon!
10 Ways to make your Sales Promotion actually Work!
Sales promotions are a great way for any organization to incentivize & reward potential customers and motivate them to make the purchase. The key to a successful promotion campaign is the plan – right from the launch of the campaign until the very end of it.
Once you have an idea for the campaign, you need to work on the following points to make it successfully work for your brand:
1. Incentivization – Changing perceived value of the product.
Incentives are keys for a successful sales promotion as it increases customer participation & stimulates brand interaction. While choosing incentives, you should always think of your actual target audience. They need to be relevant. For instance, cartoon toys for the kids or movie vouchers for youngsters. incentives appeal to your target audience, that your brand is providing a value add along with the purchase. These incentives helps you sell more & gets your customers engaged with your brand for a longer time.
2. Communication – Online & Offline
Today, your customers have become more technology, online & offline media friendly, compared to how they were until few years back. Hence, they can be reached by social media or through internet on their smartphones. Combining the offline & online media is an effective & swift way to reach the target audience.
3. Collect, Manage & Nurture Data
Data collected can help in customer acquisition & retention. While maintaining the database, unusable data must eliminated from time to time to avoid disorder & confusion. To extract a long term loyalty from your customers, you need to make them realise their importance in your organisation, which can be done through the data collected.
4. Be Relevant
Sales promotion must be relevant to the product & target audience, easy to understand. This increases the probability of it resulting into a sale. It is necessary that the promotion hits customer at a particular behaviour stage.
5. Customize and Localize – attitude & behaviour of the target audience.
The sales promotions must suit the psychographics & demographics of the target audience, well adjusted to their requirements & conduct.
6. Clarify objective & provide tangible benefit – gain the customer’s trust.
The campaign should be able to clearly convince the customer that value received is much higher than the amount spent on the purchase. Be truthful about the objectives to foster a trustworthy relationship. Lay the foundation or a long term loyalty by offering substantial benefits & clarified objectives. The customers like to measure the added value they receive along with the purchase.
7. Timing, duration & frequency – maintain them.
If introduced at an appropriate time, sales promotions can yield great results. Being a time driven economy, in India festivals, occasions & seasons are great influencers for customers. If repeated too often, customers will be unable to differentiate between the added value and the original product.
8. Engage your customer – involve them.
The customers wnats to feel special & appreciated; recognize this need & nurture it to witness groundbreaking results. Engage them with the brand and induce a sense of association & bonding with the product. Appeal them with contests, sweepstakes, coupons & rewards.
9. Integrate with the promotional mix
Sales promotion is an aspect of the promotional mix including advertising, personal selling, direct marketing & public relations. Intensify the efficiency of sales promotions by complimenting it with the other elements of promotional mix.
10. Integrate with social media
Promotions must be run on social media such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & others. This generates sufficient word of mouth to increase effectiveness of the campaign.