Sales Promotion – An important tool for boosting sales!

Increasing the sales has always been a challenge for businesses. In this era of recession sales promotion has become even more important. By sales promotion actually the manufacturer aims to provide addition value to any of the members of the supply chain involved in the selling process and even at times to the end consumer. There have been number of schemes introduced in promotion of sales for the business. There are many hidden benefits for sales promotion, depending to whom the manufacturer is extending the promotions offered. Promotion offers made to the channel members of the distribution network or to the end user, each yield different results. Sales is a process that needs to be thorough and continuous. However, there are times when bottlenecks are created due to many reasons.

One of the most important reasons that results into declined sales is the better deployment of promotional tools by the competitors. We can have number of examples in which promotional tools made greater impact on sales of a company. There are times when these sales promotional tools can decide the fate of a company’s product in the market. These promotional tools cannot only result into additional market share gained but also huge volumes of sale for that product. In fierce competitive environments, keeping an eye on the competitor’s moves is very important. A move late in time can result into disastrous consequences. The producer or manufacturer should be well versed with the promotional tools that can bear fruit. Secondly, the manufacturer should have a proactive approach towards the changes made by competitor in offering the sales promotion. For this, sales force provides a very important, first hand and quick feedback on the proceedings of the market. A well motivated and dedicated sales team can do a lot better in providing the insights in contrast with one struggling to survive with minimal offered pays. Selecting the right member to provide the promotional tools is also very important. Each member of the distribution channel and the end customer, all are very important. There are cases in the history when a manufacturer avoided one and faced great losses. Selecting each member for the promotion depends on the market offerings by the other producers or manufacturers to channel members.

For example, we take wholesaler as a point in case. We can clearly see that wholesalers rely on heavy sales volume to make healthy profits. If the one producer is giving higher rate of profits then the other producer, then the other producer must be able to think through the long term repercussions of this on his business. There may be hidden promotions like free products with every sale offered or anything like that. It is the duty of the producer or manufacturer to actually be able to see through these disguised promotional tools and calculate the hidden profits for the wholesalers offered by the competition manufacturers. These intelligent moves with a proactive approach can help a manufacturer smooth out long term relations with the wholesaler and also help ensure the partnership sustains itself over a longer period of time.