This is one of the constituents of promotion mix, which is concerned with extra efforts for increasing sales.

Though sales promotion is a widely used term, few are clear about its precise meaning. In simple word, we may define it as those activities, other than advertising and personal selling, which aim at sales expansion. A Precise meaning of sales promotion, however, is the efforts directed at increasing the sales and carried out in context of salesmen, dealers and customers.

Sales promotion is one of the four aspects of promotional mix. (The other three parts of the promotional mix are advertising, personal selling, and publicity/public relations.) Media and non-media marketing communication are employed for a pre-determined, limited time to increase consumer demand, stimulate market demand or
improve product availability

According to American Marketing association: Those Marketing activities other than personal selling, advertising and publicity, that stimulate customer purchasing, dealer effectiveness, such as display, shows and exposition, demonstrations and various non-recurrent selling efforts not in the ordinary routine.

Price deal: A temporary reduction in the price, such as happy hour Loyal Reward Program: Consumers collect points, miles, or credits for purchases and redeem them for rewards. Two famous examples are Pepsi Stuff and AAdvantage. Cents-off deal: Offers a brand at a lower price. Price reduction may be a percentage marked on the package. Price-pack deal: The packaging offers a consumer a certain percentage more of the product for the same price (for example, 25 percent extra). Coupons: coupons have become a standard mechanism for sales promotions. Loss leader: the price of a popular product is temporarily reduced in order to stimulate other profitable sales Free-standing insert (FSI): A coupon booklet is inserted into the local newspaper for delivery. On-shelf couponing: Coupons are present at the shelf where the product is available. Checkout dispensers: On checkout the customer is given a coupon based on products purchased. On-line couponing: Coupons are available on line. Consumers print them out and take them to the store. Mobile couponing: Coupons are available on a mobile phone. Consumers show the offer on a mobile phone to a salesperson for redemption

In popular usage, the term 'marketing' refers to the promotion of products, especially advertising and branding. However, in professional usage the term has a wider meaning. It can be divided into four sections, often called the "four Ps," only one of which is promotion. They are: Product - The Product management aspect of marketing deals with the specifications of the actual good or service, and how it relates to the end-user's needs and wants. Pricing - This refers to the process of setting a price for a product, including discounts. Promotion - This includes advertising, sales promotion,publicity, and personal selling, and refers to the various methods of promoting the product, brand, or company. Place or distribution refers to how the product gets to the customer; for example, point of sale placement or retailing

IN Short Sales Promotion is very important part of marketing . So its necessary for customer and producers.

Communication and promotion Marketing communication involves, sharing of meaning, information, concepts, about the products and services by buyers and sellers. Such communications are conveyed with the help of advertisement, salesmanship and sales promotion. A communication will be treated as effective only when it is properly responded by the buyer. The communication must have identical meaning for both sender and receiver. If the communication does not properly reach the receiver or the message received is not the same as the message sent, then that will be called Break down at the message stage. In the market communication, feed back means a response, a reaction over the message sent back by a customer to the sender. In the case of effective communication feed back will be always present.

Effects of Promotion 1. The present day market is very competitive due to the large number of rivals and substitutes. With the help of promotion producer must create product differentiation in the minds of consumers. 2. Promotion is very essential to communicate the use of the product and the nature of the product to consumers and middlemen 3. Nowadays most of the consumers market their products in wider area and the consumers are also very large in number. In such cases personal selling alone cannot be used and so all the steps for promotion are to be followed. 4. During the periods of depression it is essential to maintain at least some minimum market. Therefore it is very essential to use promotion

Customer promotion There the target beneficiaries are the customers. Here the offers are offered to the unlimited customers. Such an offer is always for a short period. If the period increases, the validity of the promotional measures decreases. Trade promotion: There the target is the middleman. They are being offered the incentives with the hope that they will stock more and push the product to the customers. This type of sales promotion is very important effort to seek the cooperation of the middleman. Sales trade promotion: This type of sales promotion emphasis to increase and boost up the morale of the sales people. They are being offered commissions, bonus and other incentives for the increase of sales so that they work directly.

Sales promotion devices used are: Money refund offer Contests of sweepstakes

Price off or temporary price reduction

Objectives of sales promotion: To influence the customer for purchasing the product or service instantly because the sales promotion time is very limited and if the customer does not respond to it quickly, they ma lose the offer. It increases the sales directly by publicity through media that are complementary to the press and poster advertising.

To introduce new product

Coupons

To attract new customers Premium or bonus offer

To face the competition effectively Trading stamps

To maintain old customers

Fair and exhibition

To improve public image of the firm Free samples

To popularize the brand name of the product

A salesman in costume of a clown promotes in the street of London, Dec. 27, 2005. Unsatisfied with the sales result of the pre-Christmas shopping season, retailers in London turned to hunt postholiday sales, offering customers slashed prices.

Photo taken on Dec. 26, 2005 shows a sales promotion advertisement of a store in London. Unsatisfied with the sales result of the preChristmas shopping season, retailers in London turned to hunt post-holiday sales, offering customers slashed price

Photo taken on Dec. 26, 2005 shows a sales promotion advertisement of a store in London. Unsatisfied with the sales result of the preChristmas shopping season, retailers in London turned to hunt post-holiday sales, offering customers slashed prices.

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