Recently, I've been dealing with in-store promotions. Since our promotional activities are basically managed by distributors, results vary, activities become mere formalities, and plans are simple and crude. Money is spent, but few things are accomplished. Today, let's sort out how to design a promotional activity.
Essentially, promotional activities follow a fixed pattern, just like the eight steps of daily visits by route salespeople.
First, let's look at the purpose of promotions: under any conditions of socialized mass production and commodity economy, on one hand, brand owners cannot fully know what products consumers need, where, when, and at what price they are willing to accept.
On the other hand, consumers cannot fully know what products are supplied by whom, where, when, and at what price.
Because there is an objective "information separation" between brand owners and consumers, creating a "production" and "consumption" contradiction, enterprises must communicate through advertising, publicity, personal selling, and other promotional means to convey product information to consumers, enhancing their understanding, trust, and purchase of the company's products, thereby expanding sales.
In summary, the purpose of brand promotions is to tell consumers: promotion intensity, promotion method, promotion price, promotion time, and promotion communication—these five aspects constitute the core five elements of promotion.
-01- First Step of Promotion: Promotion Intensity Before planning a promotion, the most important thing is to clarify the intensity. The intensity is related to the purpose of the promotion. Only by understanding the purpose can you better design the intensity. What are the common purposes of promotions?
1. Handling large inventory age: The older the inventory, the greater the promotion intensity. At this time, consider the quantity of products to be digested or when the existing inventory can be cleared to avoid total loss from expiration.
2. Hitting competitors: Promotions can be proactive or reactive. Proactive promotions adjust intensity to break the sales deadlock with competitors; reactive promotions follow when competitors fire the first shot. The intensity is generally based on competitors, adjusted higher or lower depending on brand strength.
3. Consumer experience: The core of consumer experience is the gap between perceived value and price. The more value for money, the easier to try. The intensity should make the value (psychological price) far exceed the price, at least touching consumers' hearts.
4. Boosting sales: This intensity is easy to calculate: how much money do you have? How much product do you plan to ship? The intensity is easily derived.
5. Regular promotions: A static price system can cause consumer fatigue. Regular promotions should follow a set pattern to design intensity, making product prices operate in waves.
Summary: Promotion design must first clarify the purpose. Only with a purpose can you match the intensity. Promotions without purpose are just busywork.
-02- Second Step of Promotion: Promotion Form There are many forms of promotion. From the consumer's perception, there are two extremes: one is straightforward, like common original price and special price, where consumers easily see the discount; the other is hidden, like gifts with a huge gap between purchase price and retail price, where consumers don't easily perceive the discount. Let's analyze.
1. Discount promotion: Direct: discounts, special prices, coupons, e.g., original price 15 yuan, special price 9.9 yuan. The savings are visible, and consumers like it. Suitable for products with firm prices.
2. Tiered special price: Relatively direct: e.g., second item half price, buy more save more. The savings require simple calculation. This type can increase purchase volume from loyal consumers.
3. Combo special price: Relatively direct: e.g., Coca-Cola often has combos like Coke and Fanta, or Minute Maid and Coke. This can boost sales of multiple items.
4. Gift other products of the same brand: More subtle: e.g., when launching new products, they are often given as gifts with bestsellers, which may be more acceptable to consumers.
5. Gift non-brand products: More subtle: e.g., buy one item, get an electric oven. The value of the oven is hard to measure, and the gap between bulk purchase price and retail price is huge. If chosen well, it can be very attractive.
6. Lottery promotion: Very subtle: set various prizes with winning probabilities, using big prizes to stimulate consumers' gambling mentality to sell products.
Summary: There are many forms of promotion. Brand owners need to constantly adjust and change to avoid aesthetic fatigue from the same type.
-03- Third Step of Promotion: Promotion Price In the market, pricing determines the world. Price is an economic issue, keyed to demand elasticity, and also a psychological issue, keyed to buyers' shopping psychology.
1. Balance the relationship among price, sales, and profit: Price affects sales and profit differently in different situations. Distributors focus more on their profits, while brand owners focus more on distributor sales. As a promotion designer, you need to balance the interests of both to sustain the business.
2. Balance consumer perception and competitor changes after price adjustment: If a product has influence in the market, promotional pricing is a delicate matter. You must fully consider consumer and competitor feedback, and balance the brand's sales targets and distributor profits.
Summary: Price competition is the core factor in promotion design. For consumers, information is instant. So pricing must consider the product, competitors, distributors, brand owners, stores, and consumers, and learn to balance pros and cons.
-04- Fourth Step of Promotion: Promotion Time The choice of promotion time is based on customer traffic, consumption atmosphere, brand days, etc. This requires annual planning and step-by-step execution. Next are unexpected events, i.e., event marketing, which requires flexibility for emergency response. Finally, the duration of the promotion itself, such as long-term or short-term.
1. Choice of customer traffic: Major holidays are times of high traffic in stores. Plan the promotion schedule for these periods each year.
2. Choice of consumption atmosphere: In certain periods, there is a concentrated consumption environment, e.g., 618, Double 11, hot pot festival, daily chemical festival. During these times, consumers have impulse to buy due to the environment, so pay attention to promotion timing.
3. Brand day: Many brand owners establish their own brand days, e.g., May 17 is Keon's daily chemical brand day, with online and offline linkage, and large-scale promotions.
4. Event marketing: This is random, not included in the annual promotion plan. The promotion design must combine with the event itself, immediately set the time, and execute quickly.
5. Long-term and short-term promotions: Long-term promotions should vary in form, intensity, and price. Short-term promotions need explosive power to instantly break through consumers' minds.
Summary: 90% of promotion time design is in the annual plan, 10% is random. If not, the year's promotions won't resonate, and the effects won't solve product brand issues.
-05- Fifth Step of Promotion: Promotion Communication Promotion communication includes the following aspects. Only with full communication can execution be good.
1. Communication with brand owners: Mainly about cost investment: Is the cost within or outside the plan? What is the reimbursement form? Support for promotional items? Then the promotion form, intensity, price, and time.
2. Communication with distributors: Mainly about cost investment: Besides brand support, how much will the distributor invest? Reimbursement form? Promotional item support? Then, are there any objections to the brand's promotion form, intensity, price, and time suggestions?
3. Communication with stores: Determine if the promotion form, intensity, price, and time can get store cooperation.
4. Internal team communication: Design promotion details, communication scripts, work assignments, etc., with a focus on assigning responsibility to individuals.
5. Communication with consumers: Design communication scripts, including how to attract customers, introduce products, close deals, etc.
Summary: Promotion is essentially a communication activity: the brand sends out information to stimulate consumption, transmitting it to consumers to influence their attitudes and behaviors.
Promotion communication is a basic skill for promotion designers. It seems simple, but in practice, it often has many loopholes. Many promotions fail to meet expectations because of communication issues.
Final Thoughts: We often hear salespeople complain about promotional plans from manufacturers. Besides their emotional factors, another key factor is that many promotional plans are too difficult to implement and lack effective interest incentives.
This not only increases pressure on salespeople but also fails to bring substantial growth to store sales. Additionally, many plans are similar, so stores have little interest. Often, money is spent without obvious results.
Designing a perfect promotional activity is not easy. First, you need annual planning ability, combined with the brand's annual product strategy. Second, you need multi-party communication skills to ensure multi-department coordination. Finally, you must be responsible for the overall promotion effect.
So, practicing basic skills is the most basic requirement for promotion designers.