Published: April 26, When constructed correctly and deployed intelligently, they should enhance, not disrupt, the sales process. A sales promotion is a marketing strategy that aims to boost sales with deals and offers that speak to consumer interests and entice them to purchase a product or service.

A common type of sales promotion is the buy one, get one free model, but there are multiple different types that you can leverage to help you meet your sales goals.

If they're the right fit, a good discount can motivate them to get off the fence and make a decision. In the same family as the discount but as a one-time use with a hard deadline, a coupon can be a powerful motivator. As a tangible or digital thing, the right coupon can compel a prospect to take action, as they psychologically feel as though something's being taken from them if they don't.

One-time coupons also affect the bottom line less than ongoing discounts. Challenges involve consumers taking specific action to win something from your brand, usually a discount or free product. Challenges often take place over social media, where a brand may ask followers to share its content on their own profiles to make entries into the competition.

Flash sales are short-run sales where businesses, often ecommerce and retail, offer discounts on products and services for a short period.

This can inspire a sense of urgency within audiences, and can significantly boost sales if users want to take advantage of a discount before time is up.

Promotional products such as clothing, pens, or gear are novel and can add an element of delight in the right circumstances.

However, as mentioned earlier, they may not hold much sway during the actual purchasing decision. Free trials give users complete access to products and services for a limited time without payment.

The goal is for users to realize the benefit you bring to them and convince them to make a purchase when the free trial period runs out.

The most significant reason why consumers in the U. abandon their carts is due to high, unexpected extra costs like shipping. Buy one, get one free BOGO is when a business offers an additional free product to inspire customers to purchase an initial product.

Customers like receiving free things, so offering a free product can inspire them to follow through with a purchase. If you have a suite of products that add more value together than standing alone, bundling them for a discounted rate can make your offer more attractive.

This would appeal to prospects concerned about value and weighing their options with your competition in mind. Add-ons are a bit more flexible than bundles, as removing them won't affect payment terms. With that in mind, this route is great when needing to provide extra value without risk.

You might include throwing in a premium feature only available at a higher tier or giving them "extra" of something that otherwise has limits. Subscriptions are a sales promotion as products are often sold at a lower rate if a user subscribes to a plan. If a customer were to simply buy the product or service each time they need it, they would end up paying more for the overall subscription cost.

For example, if you offer a free trial size item with every purchase, a customer in your loyalty program may be enticed to buy because they want to try something you offer without having to pay for it.

Similarly, an extended payment term is another way to handle price objections and is a good choice for high-ticket sales because it makes the sticker price a little less intimidating. All you have to do is spread out payments over a period that makes sense, like 3 months. By providing extended-use terms, you give the prospect more time to consider your solution's value before extracting value payment renewal from them.

In the right situation, this builds confidence in your product and builds rapport. The average cart abandonment rate is As a result, a valuable sales promotion idea is to send abandoned cart promotions. In practice, you can track when customers abandoned carts on your site, and follow up with a promotional email with a code or discount to incentivize a purchase follow through.

A great way to run a sales promotion is to partner with an influencer and leverage the relationship they have with their community. To add further incentive, the influencers you partner with can share a unique code or affiliate link that gives audiences a discount if they use it to make a purchase.

Swag is a promotion you provide to sow good will, interest, and loyalty. You can offer discounts on your products and services based on the locations your customers are in. For example, you can run specific promotions if your customers visit specific storefronts.

Customer feedback is crucial for business success, and you can combine it with a sales promotion to entice customers to give it. A discount can then incentivize customers to make a follow-up purchase. If you work closely with other businesses, you can offer discount codes to customers that are also patrons of your partners, and vice versa.

Leverage a healthy incentive focused on time savings or additional services. For example, you might offer a prospect an additional 15 hours of onboarding support for free if they sign by Friday.

Chubbies is a prime example of a loyalty program that can be used for retention and converting first-time customers when combined with other promotions. On the first click of their cart, potential customers are shown free gifts they can unlock and see a reminder of their free shipping promotions.

What really makes this promotion stand out from other loyalty and referral programs is how they use their point rewards to not only push product sales, but also build brand awareness and loyalty through word-of-mouth promotions.

They do this by giving points for anything from social shares to opening an account. Another sales promotion tactic example that centers around referrals comes from GlassesUSA.

Co-marketing or partner marketing can be a highly effective branding and trust-building tool that both expands your reach to broader audiences and boosts loyalty fast.

Incorporating co-marketing into your onsite promotions strategy and combining it with personalized messaging and promotional diversification can be a game-changer. eCommerce discounts and promotions which are segmented by demographics, are a given for any top retailer.

However, lifestyle and interest segmentation can be just as powerful. Not only does it afford you the capabilities to fine-tune messaging to smaller segments, but it enables you to offer diverse sets of promotions that are more likely to convert those groups. This is something that Ann Summers are experts at.

Every promotion Ann Summers runs is highly segmented, based on interests and lifestyle segmentation. Ultimately this allows them to drill down on the specific market segments they want to boost with targeted sales promotion discounts, increasing their chances of converting first-time shoppers and staying relevant to existing customers AKA establishing brand loyalty.

Pro Tip: To really personalize your shopping experience, you want to show each segment only the promotions that relate to them specifically.

Like flash or clearance sales, seasonal promotions should be adapted to specific segments to ensure they convert within your profit goals while clearing older stock out of your warehouses before new seasons.

One of our veteran customers Asics, incorporate various promotions into their product displays to encourage higher AOVs while dynamically ensuring the minimum promotion needed to convert is maintained across all promotions. Coupon campaigns are not new, but their rise in digital popularity and how they are creatively integrated into online stores is.

Strategically placed at various touch-points on various channels, promo codes and automatic discounts offer eCommerce retailers the most multi-level customization. Additionally, the campaign is carried over into checkout pages as a way to upsell and help mitigate journey abandonment. When incorporated with a free shipping checkout incentive, this is a powerful converter.

Codes should be easy to remember and apply, but they can also be used to drive home your incentive. One of the most popular and well-used eCommerce discounts is new subscriber promotions. This leads us to a great example of a new subscriber discount from Build with Ferguson.

The pop-up includes trust-building links to privacy policies to put new site visitors at ease. This way, you boost conversions while putting an end to redundant incentives and profit loss for these awareness campaigns.

You can do this by segmenting traffic and pushing different pop-ups to different buyers new traffic, revisiting customers, or existing shoppers , or you can use an automated intent-based promotion tool that autonomously adjusts promotional amounts according to each shopper purchase intent in real-time.

There is no doubt that bundle deals and cross-selling promotions can boost AOVs. However, to be genuinely successful, top brands need to customize these promotions to stand out from the competitors while ensuring they are not eroding margins and harming brand equity.

A prime example of this in action is the Dollar Shave Model we highlighted earlier in the post. Another brand that has turned strategic bundling and cross-selling promotions into a primary sales driver is Native.

In conjunction with other onsite promotions such as subscriber discounts in their carts, Native offers bundle upsells for their products. However, what stands out is the level of customization they offer for these sales promotions.

Shoppers can either click for a bundle in the variant they have already chosen or click to create a specific bundle in line with their personal needs. This proves once again that personalization plays a vital role in ensuring your frequent customer promotions are optimized for peak conversions and LTV.

Ultimately mitigating brand damage and ensuring you are not leaving conversions — and profit — on the table. In , ultra-personalized experiences should be a critical goal for all your onsite promotions, including your daily eCommerce discounts, restocking or refill promotions, limited-time offers, and cart abandonment deals.

If you can do this on a customer-by-customer level , you will be able to outperform your most significant competitors. The sales promotion examples above all have one major variant in common: they are tested, tweaked, and customized to their unique niche, market, and target shoppers — perfectly synchronized and choreographed.

And to survive the mammoth growth of eCommerce competition expected over the next four years, personalization is vital. Intent-based promotions allow you to reach a potential customer at any journey touchpoint to offer just the right type of promotion, for just the right discount, at just the right moment.

This ensures you are not unnecessarily eating away at profit margins or diminishing brand perception and are still generating increased revenue. Top merchants who have invested in Intent-Based Promotions have seen immediate results, including:.

This means building a well-structured sales promotion strategy from the ground up to ensure you are set up to drive more conversions without diminishing your optimum margins.

Upgrade your sales promotion strategy. The 3-Stage Sales Promotion Strategy Blueprint for Top Retailers. Jump To. Their secret?

One of the most popular sales promotion strategies is offering discount codes and coupons. One sales promotion example of a business using 8 Proven Sales Promotion Ideas And Examples To Close More Deals · 1. Buy One, Get One Free (BOGO) · 2. Free shipping, exchange, and returns · 3 See how to use limited-time offers in marketing. Get examples of time-limited deals and offers from real businesses

Sample deals and promotions - Coupons, contests, and sampling are three types of sales promotion activities that are regularly used. No customers like missing out on big deals! However, like One of the most popular sales promotion strategies is offering discount codes and coupons. One sales promotion example of a business using 8 Proven Sales Promotion Ideas And Examples To Close More Deals · 1. Buy One, Get One Free (BOGO) · 2. Free shipping, exchange, and returns · 3 See how to use limited-time offers in marketing. Get examples of time-limited deals and offers from real businesses

Free shipping is an incredibly powerful incentive for encouraging new and existing customers to make a purchase. For example, 1 Body uses an exit-intent popup that offers free shipping specifically when customers are about to abandon their carts.

You would only take on the added expense of offering free shipping at the time that a customer needs a final push to make the decision and complete a purchase. This would not affect customers who want to move directly to the checkout page. The fifteen-minute countdown clock also leads to more sales by establishing a very limited period of time that the offer is valid for.

Sending out free samples and products also helps with customer retention. People feel valued and like the opportunity to try out products that they may end up loving and then decide to buy in the future.

The addition of a countdown timer is a great way to get customers to act fast. The sight of a timer ticking down, second by second, is one of the best psychological triggers that can be used to create a sense of urgency. Seasonal sales are a natural place to use limited-time offers to boost sales because they have a built-in expiration date.

The Halloween Giveaway in the example below is over once the calendar passes October 31st. When you consider the huge interest that customers have during certain holidays Christmas and Black Friday —the two biggest , you can see why seasonal sales can generate tons of revenue.

The lead-up to a limited-time sale is a great opportunity to build strong email and SMS lists. The fact that the upcoming sale will be for a short period of time, means that prospective customers will plan ahead for it.

Here are some effective templates that can help you clear out the inventory you want to sell. You can use them to display your most exciting limited-edition products. Online store owners are always confronting the problem of high bounce rates and not enough first-time visitors entering their sales funnel.

Limited-time offers for first purchases are a great way to ensure that more visitors make it from your landing page to your checkout process. You can also take advantage of your limited-time promotion by getting visitors to join your email list. That way, you can send them future offers as well.

Pro Tip: Always use a branded business email address like john yourbrand. com to share these promotional offers with your email lists. So that your email does not end up in a spam folder, you also get higher open rates. Choose to run your campaign from any time period, ranging from just a few hours to a full hour period.

Best Buy became famous for their daily deals because they showcase a large discount on a different product each day. Sticky bars are a great tool for promoting your limited-time offers across your entire site.

If you want more customers to make it all the way through your conversion funnel, a limited-time offer is one of the best ways to guide them along. Why not try out one of the limited-time offer popup templates on your site and drive sales now?

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Why run limited-time offers? What is a limited-time offer? Helps boost customer loyalty Even loyal customers love time-limited sales. It can decrease your cart abandonment rate One of the less intuitive ways that time-limited deals can boost sales is through stopping cart abandonment.

Promote free shipping for a limited time Free shipping is an incredibly powerful incentive for encouraging new and existing customers to make a purchase. Check them out below:. Use countdown timers The addition of a countdown timer is a great way to get customers to act fast. You can add a countdown timer to a sticky bar too:.

Leverage the holiday season Seasonal sales are a natural place to use limited-time offers to boost sales because they have a built-in expiration date.

Build your list for an upcoming limited-time sale The lead-up to a limited-time sale is a great opportunity to build strong email and SMS lists.

First-time purchase offers Online store owners are always confronting the problem of high bounce rates and not enough first-time visitors entering their sales funnel. Create sticky bars to remind visitors Sticky bars are a great tool for promoting your limited-time offers across your entire site.

This type of campaign is great to build better customer relationships and improve areas of your business that you never expected needed an improvement. You can launch a promotion campaign for the customers who have purchased a certain number of times from you, to foster further purchases and help them build a habit of purchasing from you.

A promo campaigns with free samples is a great idea that may be more beneficial than you probably think. The research shows that simple gestures significantly influence buying decisions.

The key is to offer a free product, sample or discount before a customer purchases — reciprocity makes your potential buyers feel obliged to repay and order or sometimes to order more than they intended at the beginning.

You can segment customers based on the revenue they bring and create exclusive offers for those who bring the highest revenue. Remember to emphasize the individual character of the discount, to make your customers feel special.

Social media promotions are a variation of a standard referral program. Social shares make your company visible for customers outside your regular audience.

Even satisfied customers need additional motivation to share your message. Therefore make sure to offer valuable rewards for tagging your brand name on a photo or leaving a positive review. You can also reward your customers for social media activity and interacting with your brand.

While trying to cover a particular area with your services, you need to learn about the local audience and their habits. In the long run, global success depends on how well you can fit your sales strategy and promotional marketing to local markets. Sales promotions with local events are a chance for small companies to inscribe into local societies and compete with global market leaders.

You can launch a location-based campaign that target audience within a specified location, for example:. Also, customers tend to shop less when the weather is worse. You can counteract it by launching promotions during bad weather days in specific locations.

Social contests can be a great sales promotion example. Contests are the best when based on things that connect your clients such as common passions or hobbies.

For instance, Dove regularly runs social campaigns to share their values and showcase unique stories of customers. You can launch influencer or affiliate campaigns with sales promotions.

Then, you can count the number of customers acquired with that code and compensate your influencers or affiliates for the brought traffic accordingly. You can create campaigns only for a specific customer group, for example only for NHS workers.

For instance, offer a free coffee for NHS workers only if they purchase any food item in your cafe. This one can be also used for b2b sales promotion ideas.

Learn more : Examples of creative cart abandonment campaigns. The frequent customer program is a variation of loyalty program that rewards customers for their loyalty.

As a frequent customer, your audience can earn free credits for the making X number of orders, leaving a positive review or referring your company to family and friends. Customers can later use these credits to get discounts, charge gift cards for free or get exclusive, complimentary services such as free dinner at selected restaurants.

You can divide the program into different tiers with different perks — the more points, the higher the level and better perks.

This kind of sales promotion can be tricky. On the one hand, it is a very common and effective tactic to enlarge a number of new acquisitions and a list of your subscribers.

In the case of a sign-up promotion, we recommend starting by checking the performance of different discount variants before you decide which one should be your standard sign-up offer. This is another example of psychological marketing.

Adding a temporary free balance drives customers into loss aversion behavior. People endowed with unexpected gains usually try very hard not to lose them. This kind of sales promotion pairs well with gift cards. Discounts, gift cards or coupons can say more than a simple "we're sorry" to unsatisfied customers.

It's good to have a promotion ready to be triggered every time your team lets down a customer. The best effect is achieved if you deliver a discount in a personalized message. Keep an eye on special days like national holidays to send wishes with an exclusive discount.

Learn more : How to include seasonality in your promotion marketing strategy? Each sales promotion idea you decide to use needs to be enrolled on a micro-scale first.

Not every discount or buying scenario will fit your audience. Ultimately, the way you design promotions should target your audience. Any successful sales promotion is a combination of a clever idea, endless testing, customer tracking, and target adjustments. I hope that this list of examples and inspirations will help you find an appropriate promotion strategy suited to your business, wallet, and creativity and boost sales and revenue.

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