How to Make Your Sales Promotion Really Stand Out
With over 90 per cent of consumers chasing sales, it’s no wonder retailers are cranking out millions of discounts each year. And while these discounts are a proven way to attract new customers and boost sales, the complete saturation of sales promotions in the marketplace makes it hard for small business owners to make their offers stand out from the crowd.
So here are a few ideas to keep in mind for maximum impact.
1. Leverage the psychology of discounts
Although economics tells us that shoppers act in the most rational way possible, it fails to mention that shoppers also don’t like to do the maths. This means that you want to word your offer to make it seem as valuable as possible. For example, if you’re selling an item for $250, offering “30% off” may seem less attractive than “$75 off”, even though they’re worth the same dollar amount.
As you create new sales promotions, test different variations to find the right mix for your customer base.
2. Create urgency
More than 80 percent of shoppers admit to making an unplanned purchase when presented with a promotion. So take advantage of this behaviour by creating a sense of urgency with your offer. You can do so by putting a deadline on your sales promotion, such as a “12 hour flash sale” or offering a one-time daily deal.
Another tactic is to put a limit on the promotion itself, such as “first 50 customers receive 20% off”. Regardless of your approach, making the offer seem scarce can greatly boost redemption rates.
3. Provide a sense of exclusivity
People like to feel like they’re receiving something that others aren’t. So make your customers feel special by making discounts seem exclusive to them.
Some tactics to achieve this include: offering a social-exclusive promotion to your Facebook followers, sending a deal via email to your most frequent customers and allowing customers to enroll in a loyalty program.
Part of this approach requires careful segmentation and scheduling, so start thinking of how you can incorporate exclusivity into your campaign sooner rather than later.
4. Personalise and individualise your sales promotion
This approach can be a bit more difficult to implement, but it’s one of the most effective. The idea here is to deliver the right sales promotion to the right person at the right time, meaning that you should add an element of personalisation to the promotion experience.
For example, offering a dsicount on a bottle of face wash wouldn’t make sense 3 days after purchase, but would be well received 4 to 6 weeks later when the customer is almost out of the product.
Similarly, you can offer discounts on related products, such as a percentage off a facial moisturising cream. Or, if you’re looking for a much simpler approach, working to personalise your emails is a good start – even something as basic as including a customer’s first name in the message can make a difference.
5. Focus on sales promotion distribution
No matter how clever or valuable the sales promotion, if your customers don’t know about it, they can’t redeem it. This means that you should pay particular attention and invest ample time in creating a sales promotion distribution strategy.
Common and effective outlets include social media, website placements, traditional advertising and email. One particular benefit of email distribution is that you can segment your lists to deliver various discounts to targeted audiences, and even test the effectiveness of specific discounts on different groups.
6. Never arbitrarily set discounts
It may be easy to create a simple “10% off” coupon, but if you don’t perform the due diligence of studying your overall costs and profit margins, you can quickly find that an otherwise successful sales promotion might risk putting you in the red.
SOURCE: Entrepreneur
