Student Corner - 254

Sales Promotion: Tools of Trade Promotion

All businesses focus on revenue generation without which no business worth the name can survive. Sales promotion is the backbone of revenue generation. If the products you produce do not bring you money but remain as products means your business is on the road to end.  Sales turn your products sources of revenue; hence sales promotion gains immense significance in any commercial engagement. Sales promotion has plenty of tools of promotion and we have seen some of them; it is not possible nor is it necessary to explain all the tools of promotion since there is a possibility of innovation in tools of promotion.  Moreover, depending on the analysts, the list of tools can vary.  We know all companies have problems which are similar but never the same between two companies. Financial strength, market dynamics, choice of the  product and market share of the competitors of the product, network of supply chain, the consumer base and national and international market opportunities, geopolitical situations, national status in terms of GDP ,  so on, all these  factors  analysts take into account while finalising the list of tools of promotion for your company. Therefore, we will stick to the popular conventional tools and we will study now one tool of promotion: Personality Promotion.

Inviting a very popular personality to your shop and request he or she to autograph every product sold there. It has been in practice for quite some time that when a book by a popular writer is being introduced, on that day, the author of the book, the famous writer will be there to put his autograph on the book that is sold. It has been found a successful practice.

Of course, you might be aware of what is called ‘Celebrity promotion’; that is, products are promoted by celebrities. For example, AmitabBachchan comes in ad promoting many products from Dairy Products to Two wheelers; now, the cricket superstar Dhoni seems to be occupying top space in promoting products.

Some time back, an article was published that pointed out that those products that some celebrities promote need not be and are not used by them. We also come across information that says the celebrities refuse to promote a product which they think falls short of quality.

We will move on to some more tools of promotion in our next and with that we shall stop discussing tools of promotion and move on to some other topic.