Build Market Awareness with Promotions Build Market Awareness with Promotions

A promotion is any event or action designed to increase the awareness and purchase of your products and services. Promotions can be anything, including sales, contests, sales events, promotional items, and more.

Some more common types of promotions include:

  • Sales and discounts. Reducing the prices of your products and services temporarily or permanently can induce additional sales. Some methods of this include:
    • Discounts on orders or sales over a certain amount
    • Buy one, get one at a reduced price
    • Free gifts with purchases
    • Free or reduced-cost shipping
  • Point of Sale Promotions. Once a customer is in your store or on your website, work hard to help them understand the value of making additional purchases. Marketing to new customers is typically six to seven times more expensive than marketing to existing customers. Ensure you work hard to market to customers once they are in your store or website. Examples include product posters, aisle displays, and in-store flyers.
  • Contests. Completed in-store, through advertising, or online, contests are a great way to build a list of prospects and customers and gather contact information. Some contests will even generate publicity. One company sponsored an Independence Day contest for free tickets to a major league baseball game with fireworks by asking people to sign up on their website or in the store.
  • Social media. Research shows that social media works well to create and increase awareness and interest in your small business. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social media sites have unique applications for increasing communication with prospects and clients. Consider posting material relevant to your business on your social media sites.
  • Mail order. Today’s desire for ease in buying positions mail order as an effective strategy. Mail order can be achieved by shipping items from a physical store, through orders generated by paper catalogs mailed to homes and businesses, or through online stores.
  • Customer referral incentives. Buyers like to share their positive experiences by referring others to your firm. Make it easy by providing referral cards and asking customers to use them. When you request referrals, you receive four times more than when you don’t ask.

Incentives will generate even more referrals. Consider incentives that drum up additional business, such as a discount coupon for a future purchase, packaging selected items, or packaged services.

  • Causes and charity. This promotion mechanism links purchases to a cause or charity to boost sales. Examples include donating a percentage of the total sale to a specific charity, promoting an affiliation to a non-profit by asking for donations during a sale, and creating positive public relations about charitable event sponsorship.
  • Customer appreciation events. Lending itself particularly well to service businesses, these events allow you to get to know your customers in a different, more social manner and increase loyalty.
  • Customer surveys. Everyone likes to be asked their opinion. Surveys are a gesture to demonstrate to clients that you believe that their feedback is critical. Survey types include mail-in postcards, email links to survey forms, telephone calls, focus groups, and online forms.
  • Memberships. Providing memberships to your business will build a community of like-minded individuals who bring in others. It also provides an easy way to promote your business and offer discounts to particular groups. A retail store might offer a “membership” that accrues discounts. A service business might offer a membership, allowing customers to access valuable information online at a website.
  • Promotional Items. Promotional items enhance and extend awareness of your business or services. Most companies use items like shirts, caps, coffee mugs, note pads, and umbrellas. Any helpful item will likely be kept and can display your logo or other branding. If you choose the right items, your customers can become walking billboards for your company if they feel good about wearing or using them.

As a by-product, all promotions should increase customer loyalty. In business terms, "loyalty" means a customer will buy and return and buy again.

Promotions help you engage customers and turn them into long-term, loyal fans of your company. Satisfy their needs, and they may not be able to imagine doing business anywhere else.