The main goal of any business investment is to make profits, which comes from sales. For consumers to make purchase decisions there must be brand awareness which is well achieved through marketing communication of the brand which can be achieved through advertising, promotions, public relations, direct marketing, personal selling and sponsorship among other tools of brand communication.
Both advertising and promotions are equally important marketing tools but they come at a cost. The bone of contention has always been: which one should get the larger share of the budget? In budget allocation we say – Promotions, and for the following reasons:
Advertising will mostly target the final consumer of the product while promotions target retailers, sales force and consumers, hence motivating all involved in the sales process from beginning to end.
Human beings remember selectively. It is said that an ad has to be seen or heard at least 8 times before it sticks in the consumer’s mind, while, one real time experience of a brand though a promotion is more likely to stick in the mind.
Advertisements let you buy later, promotions make you buy now. The sales force is usually in real time with the consumer hence able to persuade and convince the buyer to make the decision of immediate purchase. Most offers also have deadlines, hence creating urgency of purchase decision making.
Promotions induce trial purchases which can be an opportunity to get repeat purchases if their attitude changes after trial. In the long run, repeat purchases could turn to customer loyalty.
Some promotions are designed to get rid of stock. Offers such as ‘Two for the price of one ‘ are usually successful in making customers purchase large volumes of a product.
Compared to Advertising which can be broad spectrum, promotions are by far more target specific since their activities may be narrowly targeted to specific consumers.
Ads have high costs for brief exposure, which in turn have to be recovered through the selling price and they are very brief so as to reduce costs while promotions will go out of their way to secure just one more customer.
Therefore, in order to generate more sales, a business needs to invest more in a marketing activity that will generate higher purchases, and in this case – promotions.