What is Sales Promotion How to Get 3x More Customers

What is Sales Promotion How to Get 3x More Customers Picture a scenario where your tech firm is planning to launch a new smartphone on the market to compete with the likes of Apple and Samsung with their iPhones and Galaxies, respectively.That is a very tough market to penetrate because these companies already have such a large customer base and very loyal followers that they have accrued over the years. It is almost an insurmountable hurdle to overcome.When you are a smaller company or a new competitor that wants to enter the market, you need to find clever ways of successfully launching your product to make it a hit. Otherwise, it will be a miss and fall to the wayside, something you definitely need to avoid at all costs. This is where you need to use sales promotion.Sales promotion is a marketing technique to attract more customers to purchase your product, thereby increasing your sales. For the example above, your company may give away free goodies to customers who buy your new phone, let customers participate in a raffle prize dra w after purchase, or give customers a gift voucher on other products you company sells.These are just a handful of the many techniques that encompass the broad spectrum of sales promotion. These tactics will entice people into buying your product or service. © Shutterstock.com | Dean DrobotThe example above is just one of many various cases where sales promotion will come in handy. We have created detailed analysis of the significance of sales promotion and provided reasons why your company should use it to enhance sales manifold and increase revenue, too.These techniques are applicable to companies big and small, new and old. They will all benefit from them and attract a larger traffic of consumers to keep up with the competition and stay ahead of the game. If you are looking for a comprehensive guide on sales promotion and looking to learn how to attract more customers to buy your product, then you have come to the right place.WHAT IS SALES PROMOTIONBefore we delve deeper into the topic, let us have a quick look at the definition of sales promotion.“Sales Promotion is a marketing technique that is applied for a predetermined, limited time period in order to stimulate trial, increase consumer demand, or improve product availability.â € â€" American Marketing Association (AMA)In other words, sales promotion is a set of marketing tactics that can be employed to raise the sales of a particular product or service being offered. By its very nature, sales promotion is a short-term method of reaping benefits since companies cannot sustain these tactics for a long period of time. Otherwise, they will eventually incur a huge loss, as we will see with the different methods later in the article.We have created a table listing some of the pros and cons of sales promotion.ProsConsVery effective at quickly increasing salesOnly a short-term method of boosting salesEffective at clearing inventoryCustomers may expect a company to always give a promotion or a special dealGives customers opportunity to trial a productNegative brand image if done too frequentlyMany people have a misconceived notion that sales promotion is nothing more than advertising. Both are components of a company’s marketing scheme will use to promote its p roducts and services.While some of the techniques of sales promotion do in fact advertise a product or service, they are actually not the same thing. Let’s have a look at the definition of advertising to understand how they compare and contrast.“The placement of announcements and persuasive messages in mass media by organizations to convince people of a particular target market to purchase their products or services.” â€" American Marketing Association (AMA)We can notice one glaring difference between sales promotion and advertising â€" advertising is a long-term plan to increase sales whereas sales promotion is a short-term plan. Advertising looks more at creating a brand image through its products and services whereas sales promotion is about quickly earning money by selling something to customers. Sales promotion is more about giving consumers a cost incentive to buy a product. Sales promotion gives consumers the impression that they are getting more for their money, becaus e they have the opportunity to, or directly receive, free or discounted goods upon purchase. The message is to buy now, or you will miss the chance. It creates a sense of urgency.Sales promotion is all about providing an incentive to customers, usually economic incentives. It is not only for the customers, but also for the distribution channel and retailers.For instance, you are a Sales representative for Sony and you want Walmart to stock up on your goods. Walmart needs an incentive to buy your products. Otherwise, they have no need to buy your products. In this case, Sony needs to give Walmart some kind of short-term incentive, perhaps in the form of a commission to Walmart employees or a discount on Sony goods, to buy their products and keep them in inventory.This is a good example of a trade sales promotion, whereas the earlier examples have been about consumer sales promotion. Sales promotion can be primarily divided into these two groups.Consumer Sales PromotionThe first of tw o types of sales promotion is targeted toward consumers, the most important group of people buying your product or service. Businesses use various tactics to create economic incentives for customers to buy their products. Some of them include:Price reduction â€" Offering a temporary reduction in price to promote a product, making it very appealing to those customers looking to save money.Loyalty Cards or Programs â€" Giving consumers the opportunity to sign up for a loyalty card or continuing program to continue providing them more cost incentive beyond a single purchase. If a customer happens to be long-standing, then they will receive many benefits for their commitment and loyalty to the brand.Coupons â€" Giving away coupons to customers upon purchase means that they will be enticed to buy the product. It could be in the form of a gift voucher or a discount voucher of some sort, giving more value to the original purchase.Rebates â€" Returning some small amount of money to a consum er when they return their receipt. This gets the consumer to return to the department store, thereby giving a company another opportunity to get the consumer to make another purchase.Sweepstakes â€" Giving a costumer the chance to take part in a sweepstake upon purchase means that they have a chance to get their money back in the form of a lottery.Raffle Draw â€" Similar to a sweepstake but this time, consumers have the chance to win a special prize from a lottery.Samples â€" Giving customers free samples of some product for trial purposes will make them aware of the product and if it is well received, it could lead to a purchase.These are some of the more popular techniques used by companies to promote their product to consumers in order to get them to buy the products.All of these tactics induce a sense of urgency in the consumers because they are, by and large, temporary and need to be taken advantage of within a short time period. These will be looked into further in detail in a later section of this article, where we discuss effective sales promotion tactics to increase your customer base.Why bother with setting up a loyalty program for your business? Heres the answer. Trade Sales PromotionThe second type of sales promotion is targeted toward retailers and wholesalers. Although it may be intuitive at first, there are plenty of reasons for a company to target the resellers instead of the consumers to promote a product. They include:Develop in-store merchandising support â€" Visual merchandising done right is the most effective method of presenting products in such a manner that will draw attention to them. As a result, more customers will purchase your goods instead of that of a competitor’s.Control inventory â€" A company can offer to help stock up a retailer’s inventory when they normally experience a shortage of goods in, for example, the holiday season.Expand distribution channels â€" Getting your product presented at more retailers opens up the po ssibilities of increasing sales since your product is now more readily available.Generate excitement â€" One of the most powerful, and overlooked, tools of promoting a product is through word of mouth. When a product is being sold at a particular reseller, the employees and staff members of that reseller can talk about the product and generate buzz for you, thereby drawing more customers.There are several ways of going about trade sales promotion. We have listed some of the more frequently used methods below.Point-of-purchase displays â€" Manufacturers provide resellers free point-of-purchase (POP) displays to promote their product or brand. These include special racks, display cartons, and signs.Trade Shows â€" A very efficient method of reaching out to resellers to purchase your product in bulk is to demonstrate your products in real-time at various trade shows. Some of the biggest trade shows on the planet centered on mechanical, electronic, and technology goods are CeBIT and Han nover Messe, both taking place annually in Hannover, Germany.Push money â€" Also known as spiffs, this is a kind of commission awarded to employees of a retail store who successfully sell a certain number of units, thereby meeting the requirements of a sales goal.Trade deal â€" Giving resellers a short-term incentive to purchase your product will persuade them to stock up on your goods. A reseller will usually receive some form of special allowance or price concession on the goods purchased.Trade sales promotion is a great method of adding value and incentive to wholesalers and retailers to purchase your product. In turn, this can be used to add value and incentive to the public, your ultimate end-customer.This article focuses primarily on increasing your sales and acquiring a larger customer base, so the more effective methods of promoting a product fall under consumer sales promotion instead of the trade dales promotion.We will go into detail on how consumer sales promotion can be used to increase sales, since it is very direct has a strong impact on sales whereastrade sales promotion is indirect and has a weaker influence.EFFECTIVE SALES PROMOTION STRATEGIES TO TRIPLE YOUR SALESEver since concept of trade began in the ancient Egyptian and Roman times, there has always been the notion of advertising and marketing goods so that people can sell their products to the general public. This has remained the same even in the 21st century.Granted, the means by which we accomplish this has vastly evolved. Centuries ago, merchants would joke with their customers to establish rapport. In a local bazaar, merchants would shout over each other to get the attention of customers to sell their product.Nowadays, we rely more on debit and credit cards and digital stores are fast replacing regular brick and mortar department stores. In addition, we are in a struggling economy and people have become more concerned about costs, making price more important than ever before. Consum ers want value for their money, and sales promotion gives them that.If you are able to successfully give customers an incentive to buy your product, then you have effectively “sold” your product by luring in customers. Businesses have found many techniques to promote and sell their products in this day and age.If you follow these tips we have laid out for you, then you will also experience a boost in your sales. Research has shown that a combination of these tactics will triple you sales. Even quadruple it at times! Keep on reading to discover the various methods many multinational corporations and small companies use in their marketing scheme. Sales promotion has become a staple in marketing tactics around the world.We have listed the most effective and popular methods to increase your sales.FreebiesA good way of enticing customers into buying your product is to include a complimentary gift with every purchase. Oftentimes, it is mentioned on the product packaging that a custome r will receive a present free of charge upon buying a product.This adds extra value to a product because a customer is getting more than what they normally would at that particular price.These days, the most important thing that consumers look for is value. “Am I getting more value from this product by spending this much money?” If the answer is yes, then they will buy it. An easy way to convince them is to give them some freebies.Example 1: Office SuppliesThe freebies are usually relevant to the main product being sold. For example, an office supply store like Staples may give customers a free pen or pencil with every purchase of a notebook. If you are buying a notebook, then odds are you are going to need a pen to write with.Otherwise, you have to spend more money on a writing utensil to make use of the notebook. If you as the manufacturer of the notebook are able to bundle your notebook with a pen or pencil and sell at the same price as a regular notebook, then you are effect ively adding more value to your product.There is now an economic incentive for a consumer to buy it because they are getting more at the same price. Staples will now experience a boost in sales by giving free goods with their office materials.Example 2: Colgate and GilletteAnother example of offering a freebie is a department store or a drug store bundling a free toothbrush with a toothpaste or a free razor with a shaving cream.For instance, Colgate may offer a new line of toothpaste and in order to lure customers into buying this product, they can include a free toothbrush with it. Customers now have a new a new toothpaste and a new toothbrush as well, all at the price of the toothpaste. Customers will think, “That’s a pretty good deal!”Another case would be if Gillette was bundling a free razor with every one of their new shaving gels. This will entice more customers into buying the shaving gel or cream because they are getting a free razor, something they need anyways.More value has been added to the original product and Colgate and Gillette will earn more money form the boost in sales.Example 3: Emirates AirlinesThese are a couple of good examples of brands offering free goods with their products to get a boost in sales. In some cases, organizations go way beyond this and offer something fairly extravagant to customers.When Emirates were expanding their operations and taking it global, they offered customers paying over $1000 for a plane ticket a free night’s accommodation at a 5 star hotel, including breakfast. That appealed to many travelers as they were getting something extra for paying a lot of money for a plane ticket.Rather than buying it from a competing airline, many customers decided to opt for Emirates because they were getting something free from their purchase.Price ReductionsSelling your goods at a discounted price is one of the most effective methods of increasing your sales and expanding your customer base. In this current strugglin g economy and even in times when the economy was flourishing and thriving, people always want to find ways to save money.They absolutely love bargains and the best way to get them to play into your hands is to slash your prices. This drives the message, “Buy me now and save your money!” New products can be sold at a discounted price for a limited time to generate a lot of buzz and get more consumers to buy your product. This can be done at any product launch to make it more successful than it otherwise would have been.This is also commonly done during the holiday season and special times of the year, like Black Friday and Cyber Monday. In these times, people are looking to buy gifts for themselves and their loved ones.You can actually make it very easy to sell your product by cutting your prices significantly. This will drive consumers toward your product and steer them away from your competitors. The name of the game is, “Who can sell it at a cheaper price?” If your company is the answer, then you will reap the rewards.There is an age old debate between percentage discounts and direct price reductions. The % vs. $ debate has no definitive answer because different companies use different tactics. Sometimes, a company will offer, for example, 25% discount on products. Other companies may offer a $25 discount on products instead. How you decide to market your price reductions depends entirely on you.We suggest doing research by trying them both and seeing which one is more effective. Stick with the method that is most effective for you.Learn more about how to convince customers by communicating your value. Example 1: NintendoThe first example we will consider is when a company launches a new product at a reduced price for a short time period to shake up the market. In the gaming consoles industry, Sony and Microsoft reign supreme and have sizeable market share leads over their next biggest competitor, Nintendo.Sony and Microsoft have superior games conso les and games library, so even a long-standing company like Nintendo was facing a near insurmountable obstacle to overcome. They were way behind in market share, but they still had loyal fans and people knew what they are capable of achieving.Nintendo decided to launch their new consoles at a reduced price of $250 instead of the regular $300. This was markedly lower than the $400 price tag of Sony and Microsoft games consoles.For cost conscious gamers who want to play fun video games but do not want to break their bank account, they had a very good option of buying a Nintendo console to enjoy the full experience. As you can imagine, this was a huge success and Nintendo is now again a big competitor in the industry.Example 2: Clothing Retail StoresWe looked at an example of price reduction at product launch, but many retail stores also give amazing holiday sales a few times a year, sometimes giving even a 50% off on selected goods! This is an effective method of clearing inventory. S ome of the best times to do this are in the summer, Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and in the holiday season (Christmas and New Year’s).The best evidence of this is clothing retail chains. Brands like HM and Zara offer ridiculously low prices on their clothing articles in their mid-summer sale and holiday season sale. Oftentimes, they will offer products $20 to $50 cheaper than their regular price!In addition, they discount their prices by about 50%! That staggering drop in price draws customers in droves. It is a tried and tested formula for clothing retail stores all around the world. Whenever these moments come around, they slash prices and clear almost everything they have.Gift Vouchers and Discount VouchersMany retail stores collaborate with certain companies and offer various types of coupons to customers at the checkout. A customer buys a particular kind of item and the cashier surprises them by giving them a voucher. It may be a gift coupon or a discount voucher.Customers are pleasantly surprised to receive a coupon because they are getting something that they did not expect to get, in a positive sense. Customers can avail these coupons when they revisit the store in order to get a gift or buy a product at a discounted price.While many retail stores, especially supermarkets, give vouchers to customers, it has become a staple for online businesses to offer customers coupons. As a gesture of good faith for finding the website, many e-commerce stores give their customers free coupons that they can use on their next purchase.This is an effective method of tempting people in buying something from your website as you hooked them in with that coupon. You can increase site traffic with coupons, thereby converting more customers into successful sales.Example 1: SupermarketsThere are many grocery stores and supermarkets that partner with newspapers and magazines and offer a sheet of coupons in them. To the surprise of the reader, they get good discount and gift c oupons in their publication.Stores like Walmart and Lidlare known to do this frequently, to get people to come to their store and buy their products. People need to go to these stores and show this discount coupon when they buy a product, and they will get their reward â€" they pay less than normal. In case of gift vouchers, people can head over to Walmart and Lidl to pick up their free item.This brings a smile on the customer’s face and customer satisfaction is one of the most important things that leads to more sales. When you can satisfy more customers, you will always get more later down the road by word of mouth, thereby generating more sales.Moreover, if you are able to lure people into your store with coupons, then perhaps they will be persuaded to buy something else they like. Hence, you actually get a hidden benefit with coupons; stores attract more customers to their store to potentially sell more goods to them. The combination of happy customers and reeling customers in is what makes coupons so effective for supermarkets like Walmart and Lidl.Example 2: Online StoresThus far, we have discussed in detail about the various deals that department stores can use to boost sales and increase their customer base.However, we also have online stores to consider and coupons play a very vital role in the success of online stores. When a new company decides to offer e-commerce services to customers, they need to find a way to convince customers to buy their goods online. An easy way to break the barrier is to give them coupons when they sign up for a newsletter or register for the service.As a sign of appreciation, many firms do this and it works very well. Consider Amazon and eBay. Being a regular user of their services, I receive discount coupons regularly, which I can avail on my next purchase. This is a good sign of appreciation that consumers have stuck with you for a while and that you want them to stay longer by discounting one of their future purchases .Furthermore, if one of your customers happens to have experienced poor service, then you can give them a coupon as a means of showing them that you still care about your customers and want them to stay with you in the future.Free Shipping and ReturnThis is applicable mainly for online stores, but also for some brick and mortar stores as well. Many people are hesitant to buy some goods online because they are physically able to inspect the product. That is an understandable concern and a legitimate barrier to online purchasing. However, one way to get customers to have faith and trust in you is to offer them free delivery.When e-commerce first started in the 1990s, companies were charging for shipping. Over the years, there has been a shift toward free shipping to get more people into buying things online. Free delivery greatly aided in that shift and now many of the biggest online retailers offer free shipping to customers. In this day and age, it makes no sense not to.Example: Ama zon and EBayAmazon and eBay paved the road to free delivery. Back when these companies started their operations, their competitors at the time were charging customers for delivery, which was a big inhibitor for e-commerce. What these two companies did was quite revolutionary. They sold all of their products at market price and did not charge for shipping.Essentially, this gave customers the peace of mind that they could shop from the comfort of their home and not be charged for it. Amazon and eBay knew that this would be a difficult business model to maintain but within a few short years, they amassed so many customers on their platform that they were always making a net profit.Since then, many online retailers followed suit, offering free shipping to customers. Besides free shipping, you may want to consider giving consumers the option of free returns, in case the product is faulty or not to their liking. Satisfying customers is paramount to increasing customer base and sales, so f ree returns in conjunction with free shipping will almost but guarantee that.RebatesA tactic that is similar to discounts is called rebates, a refund of some fraction of the amount paid. A store will give rebates on some of their goods only when customers purchase a certain amount of products. It is used to promote the idea of bulk buying, because consumers can save money when they buy more things.From the consumer’s perspective, they are saving money when they buy in bulk. From the store’s and brand’s standpoint, they are able to earn more money and clear inventory faster. Customers are encouraged to load up when rebates are offered and it drives excitement in the store when shelves are listed as rebates. More buzz means potentially more sales.Example: Kroger and CarrefourIn many supermarkets, such as Kroger and Carrefour, there are rebates on many products, particularly in times when inventory has stocked up and needs to be cleared. Customers can buy goods at a rebate.For in stance, rather than buying only one box of cereal, you can buy over 5 boxes and get a rebate for it. This means that a store is selling more cereal because customers are effectively saving money per box of cereal by buying more.Carrefour and Kroger are able to clear their inventory, thereby increasing sales manifold. Studies have shown that you can easily triple your sales if you offer rebates on the right products at the right time of the year.Raffles, Sweepstakes, and ContestsContests give customers a chance to win a prize, like merchandise or cash, after buying a product. This increases customer interaction in the whole buying process and it adds entertainment, something that typical trade is lacking. Instead of simply buying a product and calling it a day, you are able to participate in a contest of some kind.In a raffle, a random buyer is selected by means of a lottery and that person will receive a special merchandise. Sweepstakes are the same thing but instead of merchandise, people could win money instead. This makes things very interesting as customers have the chance to win something of extra value for their purchase. When people have the chance to win something very extravagant and grand, then odds are more and more people will buy your product to take part in the contest.Moreover, you are already acquiring their emails when they sign up for the event, so you can continue to market products to them via email to keep in touch with them and reinforce your brand image. This is very important and perhaps the most significant aspect of holding contests in comparison to the other methods.Example: Sony’s Raffle PrizeWhen Sony launched its X series of Xperia smartphones last year, they held a grand event where everybody who buys a Sony X Xperia smartphone will be eligible to take part in a raffle draw. The prize â€" an Audi A8! Yes, you read that correctly. Buying a smartphone could potentially win you a car!It is tactics like these that make people flock to your store or event and buy a smartphone. By spending only a few hundred dollars, you have the chance to win one of the finest German cars on the planet that is worth thousands of dollars. Sony collaborated with Audi to make this happen, so there is a form of joint promotion in such a situation, another benefit of holding raffles.Instead of one, two brands are being promoted in this method and this creates brand awareness for the secondary company, whereas the primary company will enjoy the large boost in sales. Win-win situation for all.Furthermore, Sony acquired the emails of all customers who bought their product. As a result, Sony continued to advertise products to them and give them good deals, too. This further increases sales and keeps them coming back for more.Free Trials and SamplesMany smaller companies who want to enter the market with their new product face serious competition from bigger competitors who already have a large and loyal following of customers. This pos es a major problem for these smaller firms who want to create a brand image and compete with the best of the best.An effective method is to offer customers free trials and samples of their product before the official launch to generate buzz. Word of mouth is a powerful tool that companies can use to their advantage and free trials and samples are perfect for that.When new customers like your trial product, they will spread the word and gather more customers for you, with little to no effort on your part. The most important thing to consider is that your trial or sample must perform as well as it is being advertised. Otherwise, you will receive no returns on your investment.Example 1: L’Oreal and NestléGiving customers samples of your product is a very common tactic used in the cosmetics industry and in grocery stores, where cosmetic companies and grocery stores give people the opportunity to try their product, completely for free. L’Oreal recently launched their new line of fac ial cleansers and moisturizers but prior to that, they were giving samples of their products to all customers who were in the cosmetics section of malls and department stores.Salespeople were giving away samples and mentioned when this product would be officially launched. This had a positive effect as many people liked their samples and decided to buy the final product.Likewise, Nestlé decided to give consumers in supermarkets and grocery stores free samples of their new line of chocolates. This was done to gain an upper hand over their nearest competitor Hershey’s.Since this was done a few weeks before Christmas, this gamble paid off and many people opted to buy chocolates from Nestlé for the holiday season. Having a person in a store advertise a product with samples rather than it just being on a shelf will instantly triple your sales.Example 2: LinkedIn PremiumA technique very similar to giving away samples is giving customers free trials of products and services. This is ve ry common with online services, which are normally free but the premium version of the plan requires payment. For instance, take LinkedIn. Users can use register, sign up, and start using this professional network free of charge.However, the features can be limited. In order to gain access to more features that will help in finding a job, users can sign up for a premium account by paying $20 a month. Now that may seem expensive to some, so LinkedIn gives users the option of a 30-day trial period before actually paying for this service.This gives users the chance to try it out and see if it is something that they would like and benefit from. When they are satisfied, then they will pay the subscription fee. This tactic helps in attracting more customers since you are giving consumers the opportunity to try it out for a while before paying for the full version. This establishes trust with the customers and makes them happy. Happy customers means more sales for you.Loyalty Cards and Pro gramsAnother favorite sales promotion techniques used by organizations is the use of loyalty cards and programs. They are frequently used by retail stores and airlines, and in some instances these two industries work together to help customers in both areas, making it a very attractive and profitable sales promotion tactic.Loyalty cards are great for creating a large customer base, which in turn increases sales. Many retail chain stores offer customers the chance to buy a loyalty card with which they can collect points with every purchase. When customers accumulate a certain number of points, they can cash it in to get some merchandise for free or get a major discount on their next purchase. This keeps customers coming back for more because they are enticed into buying more goods to collect more points.A similar idea that airlines use is “frequent flyer miles,” where travelers can sign up for this program and travel with a particular airline to collect miles. After collecting a certain number of miles, travels can redeem the collected miles in exchange for a discount on future flights, or even an entirely free flight. In many cases, travelers have collected enough miles to travel for free on at least one occasion! Hard to believe, but it is true. Frequent flyer miles is a great loyalty scheme that keeps customers coming back for more because they know they will always be able to travel for free sometime in the future.Furthermore, many airline companies collaborate with retail stores, allowing customers to buy goods from a department store and transfer their points on the loyalty card to frequent flyer miles with an airline. This is very appealing to many consumers and they sign up for both services because of it. This is kind of a joint promotion for both brands, so it is a win-win situation for everybody involved.Example 1: SupermarketsMany department sells loyalty cards to their customers, enticing them to reap the benefits of purchasing more goods and b oosting customer satisfaction. Costco was one of the first supermarkets to implement this strategy. Competitors like Kroger and Walmart were well established and already had a large customer base.In order to gain a foothold in the industry, they decided to sell loyalty cards to companies. After explaining the benefits that customers will gain from using it, many customers bought these cards and started using them.In a short time, Costco experienced a huge spike in customers and sales. Their sales nearly tripled because they were giving special offers to loyal customers that their competitors were not doing at the time. Now, they are one of the largest supermarket chains on the planet and that can be attributed to loyalty cards.Example 2: Emirates AirlinesAlmost all airlines these days offer travelers “frequent flyer miles” programs and credit card bonuses to get more value from their travels and enrich their traveling experiences. Emirates is now the number 1 airline on the plan et, due to their excellent customer satisfaction. However, it was not always the case and they had to work hard to get there.Emirates rolled out their frequent flyer program a few years ago, giving travelers the opportunity to collect miles from their travels and use it in future travels. This was an instant success, because people decided to travel more and collect even more miles to cash in on future purchases. Sales soared by multiple degrees from this initiative, but it was not the only plan they implemented.Emirates also gave travelers credit card bonuses, offering customers some perks for buying a plane ticket with particular credit cards. Some of the perks include using a lounge at the airport, where you can sit down and wait for your flight in a relaxing environment. This also aided in increasing sales, making Emirates the best airline at the moment. Many other airlines have followed suit and since then, these programs have become ubiquitous.CONCLUSIONUsing the various techn iques of sales promotion highlighted in this article, your company will experience a boost in sales in a short period of time and gain a large number of customers who will always come back for more. We do advise that if you are looking for long-term results, then sales promotion is not the way to go.You will need to use other tactics to experience long-term gains in sales and customer base. Nevertheless, sales promotion is a very important and necessary aspect of marketing that no company should ever forget to use. In combination with other techniques in the promotional mix, sales promotion (consumer and trade) can easily triple your sales.