Student Corner - 255

Tools of Sales Force Promotion

Today we will spend some time on tools of Sales Force promotion. The company’s sales people, the staff, constitute sales force. In this promotion, attention is given to the selling staff so that they take extra efforts to sell the products. To drive them to take extra efforts, one way is to organise selling contests and the winners of the contests, those who sell more, those who attract more customers, those who succeed in communicating pertinent information about the products of the company to the customers, these winners are rewarded with cash, a very sought-after prize.  The winners are awarded with prizes and the losers are encouraged to fight in the next contest. Some companies give some simple prizes, forms of recognition, to all the sales force in the contest. These signs of recognition encourage all, not to lose heart but continue to put in more efforts in sales.

The recognition can be in the form of gifts; or, some travel trips to foreign or even popular domestic tourists destinations, and so on depending on the budget allotted for such promotion.

Next tool is what is called Trade shows. Generally such trade shows are organized by trade-related associations. It is said huge budget about 30% of the budget for sales promotion is set aside for Trade shows. Domestic and international vendors attend such trade shows which offer many benefits to them such as new business partners, new business leads, new customers, new products and also recommendation for innovations, so on.  The greatest advantage is developing personal contacts which very often develop into business relations. Almost all the departments of the governments, State and Central, tend to conduct trade shows; nowadays, a new dimension is added in the name of Road Shows.

Specialty advertising is another Sales Force Promotion tool. The company gives to the entire sales force simple low-cost objects like ball-point pens, diaries, even simple calendars. Well-designed and with very attractive pictures for every month of the year, desk-calendars are also used as tools of recognition. Gifts though simple and not costly please the staff.

So far, we have seen different kinds of tools of sales promotion; and there is every possibility some newer tools might surface in the course of the day as businesses begin to compete for market share. No end to innovation in designing newer tools. We will move on to some other subject in our next.