---
title: "May Day Promotional Season: Is It Just About Setting Up Displays and Offering Discounts?"
description: "Many people's most direct impression of retail stores is promotions, which often follow a uniform pattern focused mainly on price—lower prices lead to higher sales. Other aspects are handled by routine and copying experience, with little detailed consideration of execution, especially by distributors, who rarely evaluate the return on investment or long-term effects. This article discusses how to run effective promotional activities."
author: "海游"
publisher: "New Distribution"
email: "zhaobo258@gmail.com"
telephone: "+8615854817671"
published: "2020-04-15"
language: "en"
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# May Day Promotional Season: Is It Just About Setting Up Displays and Offering Discounts?

> Many people's most direct impression of retail stores is promotions, which often follow a uniform pattern focused mainly on price—lower prices lead to higher sales. Other aspects are handled by routine and copying experience, with little detailed consideration of execution, especially by distributors, who rarely evaluate the return on investment or long-term effects. This article discusses how to run effective promotional activities.

Many people's most direct impression of retail stores is promotions, which often follow a uniform pattern focused mainly on price—lower prices lead to higher sales. Other aspects are handled by routine and copying experience, with little detailed consideration of execution, especially by distributors, who rarely evaluate the return on investment or long-term effects. Today, we'll discuss how to run effective promotional activities.

**-01- Clarify the Purpose of the Promotion, Otherwise It's Just Going Through the Motions**

**1. Activate Target Consumers**

1) **New category users:** Category leaders consider how to attract new category consumers through promotions.
2) **New brand users:** Encourage consumers of other brands to try your brand—this is the most valuable type of promotion.
3) **Brand switchers:** Correct misconceptions, lock in consumers, and stimulate more purchases of your products—this is the mainstream promotional activity.
4) **Brand loyalists:** Encourage these consumers to buy more of your products—this provides short-term sales boosts and is the fastest-acting promotion.

**2. For Manufacturers**

1) Build brand power, promote mid-to-long-term sales, and enhance brand equity.
2) Stimulate channel sales to achieve short-term sales volume, value, and share targets.
3) Clear inventory, handling large-date or near-expiry products and excess stock.
4) Competitive traction: proactively preempt competitor activities or passively follow them.

**3. For Retailers**

1) Attract foot traffic, drawing consumers into the store.
2) Increase average transaction value, encouraging consumers to buy more.
3) Clear inventory and collect fees.
4) For both manufacturers and retailers, manufacturers can proactively obtain additional resource support from retailers or passively participate in activities at the retailer's request.

**-02- Promotions Are Not Unexpected Events; They Require Annual Planning**

**1. Plan the Annual Promotion Schedule and Themes**

These times are typically traditional holidays and peak traffic periods. For example:
- January: New Year's promotions, incorporating themes of renewal.
- February: Spring Festival, with themes of reunion.
- May: Labor Day and Youth Day, with themes of travel and youthful aspiration.
- June-July: College entrance exams, with themes of students' hard work.
- September: Mid-Autumn Festival, and October: National Day, etc.

One key point: **Avoid promotions without a theme; otherwise, they may be perceived as clearance sales.**

**2. Plan the Promotion Framework, Clarifying Which Product at What Price for Each Promotion**

1) **Incorporate competitor information:** You can target competitors by running the same category at the same time with price advantages, or avoid direct competition by promoting different categories. The deciding factors are rational planning of promotional expenses and understanding competitors' promotional information and tactics.
2) **Adjust product prices based on cost investment.** Before holidays, to give consumers a direct perception of price advantage, generally raise prices slightly, then lower them during the promotion. Ensure prices can operate effectively during the event period based on cost support, sales forecasts, and inventory levels.

**Summary: Promotions should not be unprepared; planning must clearly describe the five key pieces of information: promotion time, main products, activity intensity, safety stock, and competitor dynamics.**

**-03- Design Promotional Content Reasonably Based on the Five Elements of Promotion**

**1. Promotional Intensity Design**

1) First, see what resources you have: Total resources = brand-supported promotional expenses + planned profit from product sales + profit concessions from retail stores.
2) Then, estimate sales: Estimated sales = actual sales from the same period last year * growth rate of the main product to date.
3) Promotional intensity = total resources / estimated sales. Promotional price = normal selling price - promotional intensity.

**2. Promotional Price Design**

Pricing is a science, especially in modern channels. We often see non-professional pricing like 29.2 yuan per unit or 39.6 yuan per unit, which neither boosts sales nor loses profit.

**Introduce a pricing strategy: the left-digit bias principle.** This is an irrational behavior in economics where consumers focus more on the left digit (the smaller part) than the right digit (the larger part). Sensitivity increases to the left and decreases to the right.

Simply put, consumers pay more attention to the leftmost digit of a price. For example, pricing at 29.2 yuan vs. 29.9 yuan, or 49.6 yuan vs. 49.9 yuan, is perceived the same by consumers and doesn't increase sales. But for distributors selling hundreds of thousands of units a year, this is a huge loss.

When making price tags, it's recommended to:
1) **Make the big number small and the small number big.** For example, for "99 yuan for 2 items," make the "2 items" area larger and the "99 yuan" area smaller, creating a clear size contrast. This attracts consumers to the "2 items" and gives them a sense of getting a bargain.
2) **Price tags should have warmth.** Instead of writing "Spend 100 yuan and save 10 yuan," write "Spend 100 yuan and we'll save you 10 yuan." Same information, different effect.

**3. Promotional Form Design**

Common promotional forms include:
1) **Product discount** (original price 10 yuan, now 8 yuan).
2) **Tiered special price** (spend 20 yuan, save 3 yuan; spend 30 yuan, save 5 yuan).
3) **Combo special price** (two flavors bundled at 20 yuan per set).
4) **Bundle with gifts** (gift the same product or a different one).
5) **Holiday gifts** (e.g., Christmas tree for Christmas).

These forms are common. The design principle: **Don't make your customers calculate or ponder; keep it simple and clear.**

**4. Promotional Timing Design**

Use the strategy of retreating to advance: before the promotion, first restore prices to normal, then announce the promotion, coordinate with stores for DM flyers, and tidy up core display areas like floor stacks, shelves, and freezers (renovate if possible). The first day of the promotion should make a big impact, with continuous promoters and prominent price difference labels, to ignite sales during the event period.

**5. Promotional Communication Design**

1) Summarize possible consumer questions, prepare best answers, and memorize them to gain recognition from target consumers and favor from potential consumers, with good emotional appeal.
2) Summarize product differentiation features, categorize and memorize them, ensuring expressiveness or persuasiveness, fully and accurately conveying brand concepts, with impactful and novel explanations.
3) Coordinate with venue managers, external promoters, and emergency contacts for consistency.
4) Other communication forms: use promotional clothing, loudspeakers, and sample dispensers appropriately.

**Communication is the most critical part of a promotion, directly affecting its success. Therefore, carefully refine scripts, methods, and contacts to ensure high efficiency.**

**-04- All Promotions Must Be Reviewed**

**1. Results Review**

1) Did the promotional items meet sales targets? What was the achievement rate? What was the growth rate compared to the same period? Did basic requirements meet standards (display requirements, number of stores, promoter quality, various details)?
2) Were actual costs within budget? Did the cost-effectiveness ratio increase or decrease compared to the same period?
3) How many one-on-one or one-to-many consumer interactions were conducted? Did they achieve expectations?
4) Summarize new methods and new problems from this promotion.

For promotions, achieving sales and profit targets is the ultimate goal; avoid activities that lose money just for publicity.

**2. Process Review**

The end of one activity often marks the beginning of the next. Reviewing the execution and operation of previous activities provides better decisions and opinions for the next. It's recommended to use the SWOT analysis extensively:

> What are the strengths/profitable aspects of this activity? What are the weaknesses/behind competitors/losses? What opportunities can be further explored? What failures/shortcomings can be improved?

After several rounds of promotional reviews, you can surely find the most suitable promotional model for local consumers, local sales venues, and the sales team's execution.

**Summary: Sales is a game where results matter; sales must close. Without closing, even the best sales process is just a romantic interlude.**

In a salesperson's mind, there is no choice but to close. But customers are often not so "friendly" and like to "hold back." Only by unlocking the customer's "heart knot" can salespeople achieve closure.

The significance of promotional activities is exactly this: it's a process of concentrating scenes, personnel, and consumers to open the customer's "heart knot." Methods are skills and shortcuts, but those who use them must practice to perfection.

This requires promoters to consciously use these methods during promotions, practicing on-site to achieve a "conditioned reflex." When customers raise objections, the response should come without thinking, flowing naturally. At that point, in the customer's mind, there truly is "no choice but to close"!


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