Sales Promotion Strategies

There are three types of sales promotion strategies: Push, Pull, or a combination of the two.
A Push strategy involves convincing trade intermediary channel members to "push" the product through the distribution channels to the ultimate consumer via promotions and personal selling efforts. The company promotes the product through a reseller who in turn promotes it to yet another reseller or the final consumer. Trade-promotion objectives are to persuade retailers or wholesalers to carry a brand, give a brand shelf space, promote a brand in advertising, and/or push a brand to final consumers. Typical tactics employed in push strategy are: allowances, buy-back guarantees, free trials, contests, specialty advertising items, discounts, displays, and premiums.

A Pull strategy attempts to get consumers to "pull" the product from the manufacturer through the marketing channel. The company focuses its marketing communications efforts on consumers in the hope that it stimulates interest and demand for the product at the end-user level. This strategy is often employed if distributors are reluctant to carry a product because it gets as many consumers as possible to go to retail outlets and request the product, thus pulling it through the channel. Consumer-promotion objectives are to entice consumers to try a new product, lure customers away from competitors’ products, get consumers to "load up" on a mature product, hold & reward loyal customers, and build consumer relationships. Typical tactics employed in pull strategy are: samples, coupons, cash refunds and rebates, premiums, advertising specialties, loyalty programs/patronage rewards, contests, sweepstakes, games, and point-of-purchase (POP) displays.
Car dealers often provide a good example of a combination strategy. If you pay attention to car dealers' advertising, you will often hear them speak of cash-back offers and dealer incentives.

Sales Techniques
The sale can be made through:
•Direct sales, involving person to person contact
•Pro forma sales
•Agency-based
1.Sales agents (real estate, manufacturing)
2.Sales outsourcing through direct branded representation
3.Transaction sales
4.Consultative sales
5.Complex sales
6.Consignment
7.Telemarketing or telesales
8.Retail or consumer
•Traveling salesman
•Door-to-door
•To tourists on crowded beach
•Request for proposal – An invitation for suppliers, through a bidding process, to submit a proposal on a specific product or service. An RFP is usually part of a complex sales process, also known as enterprise sales.
•Business-to-business – Business-to-business sales are much more relationship based owing to the lack of emotional attachment to the products in question. Industrial/Professional Sales is selling from one business to another
•Electronic
1.Web – Business-to-business and business-to-consumer
2.Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) – A set of standard for structuring information to be electronically exchanged between and within businesses
•Indirect, human-mediated but with indirect contact
•Mail-order
Sales Methods
•Selling technique
•SPIN Selling
•Consultative selling
•Sales enablement
•Solution selling
•Conceptual Selling
•Strategic Selling
•Sales Negotiation
•Reverse Selling
•Paint-the-Picture
•Large Account Management Process

Steps Involved in a Sales Process

A sales process is nothing but a systematic approach towards learning and performing the sales. The reason behind building such a sales strategy is to study the risk factors linked with the seller and the buyer. It is to standardize the process of selling to an extent that even the newly appointed sales agents can learn what actually a sales process is.

The Six Steps involved in a Sales Process are as follows:

•Generating Sales Lead: Sales lead is the identity of an entity or person, who is interested in the purchase of the product or service. It is the first stage in a sales process. Such leads can be generated from direct marketing, advertising, trade shows, Internet marketing or also from cold calling. Every sales-lead needs to be evaluated to get qualified as a sales-prospect. Such evaluations are based on the lead's availability in terms of funding, product applicability and the time frame for purchase.
•Qualify the Prospect: In the sales process, the sales professional has to determine whether the prospect will become a qualified prospect, or not. This could be determined through a set of variables which include authorization of transact business, business needs, money or an economic buyer.
•Identify the need: The next step in the sales process is to identify the need. In this stage, the sales professional enquires about the customers need for the product. If the respondent (prospective customer) has not used the product as yet, he would give them information about the company's product and would inform them on how it could be beneficial to their needs.
•Placing the Proposal: In the process of sales, once the agent is confident enough that he has satisfied the customer's need for the product; he should come up with the proposal. A proposal is based up on what the agent has learned about the customer's needs and thus deciding what product solution best fits. Of course an agent learns this aspect with time as he comes across large numbers of customers. An agent's rapport with the customer can yield positive results.
•Closing the Deal: The final major step is to close the deal. It is one of the most important steps in the sales process. It may happen that a deal that had looked positive in the beginning, might turn negative at closing time. Thus it is crucial that the agent holds the interest of the customer till his final commitment. This step is one of the most important to learn to increase the sales of your organization.
•Completing the deal: Completing the deal is simply the process in which the money is exchanged in return of the product or service. Deal transactions hold a primary position as the hub of commerce.
Though delivering a product or service is not technically a part of sales process, but it is also a highly important step. If the agent does not deliver, then there is no sale of the product