Preparing to sell

You can use promotion to boost sales of your product or service.

Sales promotions are often original and creative and there are many popular options, for example:

• buy-one-get-one-free - attract customers by offering an extra product at no additional cost
• incentives - offer bonus points, vouchers, money-off coupons, competitions, and prize draws to engage customers
• time-sensitive incentives - encourage immediate purchases with limited-time offers
• point-of-sale materials and product demonstrations - use displays and demos to showcase product benefits
• free gifts and loyalty points - reward customers with freebies and points for future discounts
• discounted prices - temporarily reduce prices to stimulate sales
• joint promotions - collaborate with other brands for mutual benefit, either within your company or with external brands
• free samples - provide samples to let potential customers try before they buy
• fair-trade and cause-related products - promote products that support charities or social causes
• finance deals - offer no or low-interest financing, or buy-now-pay-later options
• special deals for first-time customers - convert browsers into buyers with exclusive offers
• online coupons - give discounts to customers who register for an account or subscribe to a newsletter

It is important to ensure that any promotions and offers will still make you a profit even if very successful and taken up by lots of customers.

Pricing

Strategically, pricing is very important as it is part of product positioning. It affects other marketing elements such as product features, distribution and promotion.

There are many ways to price a product, for example:

• premium pricing - a high price for unique products or services
• penetration pricing - an artificially low price to gain market share before increasing the price
• economy pricing - no-frills low price usually associated with economy brands
• promotional pricing

For further information see price your product or service.