Discounts are one method of promoting sales.
The key to taking a product from novelty to "must have" is sales promotion. Promotion affects customers at every stage. As potential customers, it builds their awareness of the product. As interested customers, it provides them with information about the product. As recurring customers, it brings them back for more. There are several different ways to go about promoting your product or service.
Discount Promotions
One tested way to encourage awareness and attract people to your product or service is the discount. No one wants to pay full price for something if they don't have to. If you provide them with a limited time sale, they don't pay full price but still take home your product or service. Profits are slimmer during a sale, but discounts provide all sorts of benefits. For people who were thinking of buying your product or service, a sale can push them over the edge. For those who haven't heard of you before, temporary discounts increase the opportunity for an impulse buy.
Gift Promotions
Gift promotions are common in all genres of product or service promotion, from the prize in the Cracker Jack box to the free toaster you get for dropping by the used-car dealership. Gift promotions offer the customer a win-win situation and, if the gift is valuable enough, make a product or service very appealing. Promote your product or service by offering something that your target market wants (e.g., if you are a carpet cleaner, promote your business with a free hand-held vacuum cleaner.)
Loyalty Incentives
You can turn your existing customer base into advertisements themselves by using loyalty incentives. Loyalty incentives can be impersonal, such as the coffee punch cards offered at various cafes and newsstands, but are much more effective when they are personal. Giving a person with a long and frequent buying history a heavy discount can make them into a loyal soldier for your cause. When this happens, they tell their friends and business associates about you. The impact of the incentive is small because it's only given to select customers at select times, but the payoff can be large.
Coupons
Coupons are one of the easiest ways to promote a product or service. As with the discount, they offer the item at a reduced price; unlike a discount, coupons find their way into many homes in your sales area with the daily newspaper. Internet coupons are becoming more common as well and save paper and cost of printing. Coupons also offer customers who have strayed a reason to come back.
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