Importance Of Sales Promotion

This week, we are focusing on one aspect of promotional activities which is sales promotion. There are different definition given to the term sales promotion by different authorities and authors, but I will be using Tanner & Raymond (2010) definition which is the activities that complement a company’s advertising, public relations and personal selling endeavours. Pg 243. For example, distributing product samples to customers, an exhibition of product in stores or trade fairs or shows and preparation of printed materials for salespeople to use or displayed at the point-of-sales. Sales promotion is aimed at final consumer and designed to motivate, persuade and remind consumers of the offering.

There are different sales promotion tools that are commonly used in Nigeria to target

It has become an alternative to paying retail prices and it has helped families to save during economic crisis. Retailer such as Jumai who work together with MTN, a multinational mobile telecommunication company operating in Africa, et al to study what customers buy, therefore use couponing to motivate their customers to purchase electronics, dresses, shoes by offering free voucher which includes stuffs like buy 3 for 2 or buy two get one free and 10-80% off the original price.

Lastly, the required infrastructure for sales promotion such as communication, social media, contact identification, collaboration, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), and research portal is in existence in Nigeria.

To conclude, there has been an increase in the usage of sales promotion by so many industries in Nigeria which has improved the gross margin. The most significant sales promotion tools have been mentioned above. It is, therefore, important that during the sales promotion activity, that management should strategically promote it in order to counter the doubt that might be in the customers mind by using reliable or credible approach.