Many types of sales promotions can induce a consumer to buy your goods or services. A product sample delivered to the consumer's door is a good way to introduce a new product, but also one of the most expensive. Coupons offering a discount off the usual price, cash refunds or rebates redeemable after purchase, and prizes or sweepstakes are also ways of attracting consumer attention.
Measuring Effect of Sales Promotion
Measuring the effect of a sales promotion is relatively easy but requires careful analysis of sales data before and after the promotion. You will also need to keep track of what other marketing and communication efforts and dollars your firm is undertaking at the same time as the sales promotion. Because sales promotions deal in tangible things, such as redeemed coupons or cash refunds and rebates, you can count those and see how many sales were a result of those promotions. Next, compare those sales figures to those your company had before the promotion to see if the promotion resulted in increased sales. To understand the true effect of the promotion, keep other media expenditures and types the same during the promotion as before. That way you are only measuring the effect of the sales promotion itself.
