Promotional ideas for attracting customers at various stages of business development
Promotions can bring a temporary surge in sales or reliably consolidate the brand’s position in the market - the result depends on the correctly selected mechanics and their quality of implementation. Read the article about which stocks are performin
Promotions and loyalty program - what's the difference?
Promotions are one of the most important marketing tools for most companies, successfully used by both startup brands and industry leaders. They are special offers or programs designed to attract the attention of potential customers and encourage them to make purchases.
Promotions to attract buyers and loyalty programs are often perceived as synonyms. But in practice, these are two completely different marketing tools aimed at achieving different goals. Let's consider what their differences are:
- Duration . Loyalty programs are aimed at forming long-term relationships with the audience, therefore they operate continuously. Promotions to attract customers, on the contrary, are limited in time, which encourages consumers to make a purchase "here and now".
- Audience . Promotions are mostly aimed at attracting new customers, and the task of the loyalty program is to transform one-time customers into regular customers.
- Repeatability . Customers can take advantage of promotional offers only for a certain period, after which they become unavailable.
Thus, customer acquisition promotions are temporary activities aimed at attracting new audiences or increasing sales in a specific period of time, while loyalty programs are long-term strategies to retain customers and encourage them to make repeat purchases.
Most often, promotions and a loyalty program work well together. According to Pareto's Law, 20% of repeat customers bring 80% of the company's profits. Accordingly, if with the help of the bonus system you can retain at least a fifth of the new customers attracted through promotions, you will be able to significantly increase the company's income and strengthen its position on the market.
Advantages of using promotions to attract customers
Like any marketing tool, promotions to attract new customers have their advantages and disadvantages. Let's find out in more detail what it is about.
Advantages of shares:
- Attracting a new audience . Well-planned promotions can attract new customers who would normally ignore a brand or product. This allows you to expand the client base and increase the visibility of the company.
- Temporary increase in sales . Promotions encourage customers to make purchases, especially if the offer appears to be advantageous or limited in time. This can lead to an increase in sales volume in a certain period.
- Reputation improvement. Promotions can improve the perception of the brand by the target audience, as they demonstrate the company's attention to its consumer.
- Release of warehouse stocks . In some cases, promotions can be used to increase the liquidity of outdated or seasonal products, which allows the company to free up space in the warehouse for new products and minimize losses.
The main disadvantage of shares is that their use too often can lead to a decrease in the value of the product or even the company itself. Therefore, such a tool should be used within the framework of a carefully verified marketing strategy and according to the stage of development of your business.
Actions at different stages of business development
The life cycle of companies usually consists of four stages: market entry, growth, maturity and decline. At each of these stages, the brand faces different challenges, goals and priorities, and accordingly, the mechanisms of actions to attract customers should be different. Let's consider exactly how:
- Entering the market . For a start-up business, it is important to attract the attention of the target audience, increase brand recognition and capture the largest possible share of the market. Accordingly, promotions at this stage of business development should be aimed at introducing the product and the company to as many consumers as possible.
- Height . When the product is launched and the first sales have begun, the next task of the business is to increase market coverage. At this stage, stocks should increase the frequency of sales and reduce the interval between transactions.
- Maturity . The company has already acquired a certain market share and has stable sales. Now her task is to keep her positions. It is at this stage that the audience's loyalty and commitment to your brand is formed.
- decline This is the final stage of any business. When a recession begins, it is worth thinking about rebranding and developing new markets, which will allow you to maintain a stable income and keep consumers' attention to the brand. In this case, promotions can help to get rid of warehouse stocks of outdated products and present a new image of the company to the audience.
Promotional ideas to attract customers
In today's market, you can find a wide variety of marketing mechanics that help companies expand their audience and increase sales. We won't be able to cover them all in this article, so we'll focus only on the freshest and most interesting promotional ideas for attracting customers.
Discounts
This is the most common way to quickly increase sales. Discounts give customers a simple and clear value - the opportunity to save a certain amount with each purchase, which motivates them to buy more and more often while the offer is valid. The advantage of the discount is that it works well for all consumers — new and existing.
When launching discounts, it is important to ensure that they look harmonious and do not cause reputational damage to the company. For this, for example, they can be timed to some specific event.
For example, it can be:
- Discount on the product of the day.
- Seasonal sales.
- Discounts for calendar holidays.
- Discounts on purchases from a certain amount.
- Referral discounts - for each referred client.
And another important point — customers often ignore a small percentage of discounts, for example, 10% or 15%. Therefore, it is most optimal to include the most marginal positions in the sale, on which you can give the maximum discount, and indicate the discount in the format "Up to 50%". So you will be able to attract the attention of buyers.
Promotional ideas to attract customers
Competition
Running a contest will allow you to create hype around your brand and increase its visibility in the market, while requiring a relatively small marketing budget. To conduct the contest, you can use a system of unique codes that will be automatically issued to the client when making a purchase for a certain amount. At the end of the selected period, hold a raffle and provide valuable prizes to random participants.
In this way, you can increase the average size of the check, attract new customers and strengthen relationships with existing customers.
Loyalty cards
Develop and implement a reward system for loyal customers using virtual loyalty cards:
- discount;
- discount with accumulation;
- cashback card.
This will not only help to strengthen the relationship with the existing audience, but will also be a significant advantage when attracting new customers.
Promotional ideas to attract customers
Gifts for purchases
Such a mechanism motivates customers to make purchases more often and is most often used by companies during periods of active growth. It assumes that after a certain number of transactions, the client is guaranteed to receive a valuable gift.
For example, street food and coffee shops can serve every 10th coffee for free, beauty salons can give a free treatment or a discount after a certain number of visits, etc. There is another version of such a promotion, in which, when buying a certain product, the client instantly receives a gift from partners. This format is most often found in retail stores and is great for promoting new products.
Tasting
Tastings are especially popular in large chain stores. With the help of such promotions, several goals can be achieved at once:
- Increase traffic at the point of sale.
- Increase the number of sales.
- Increase demand for new products - if the client liked everything, he is likely to make a purchase.
The role of EfirCards in creating and conducting promotions
EfirCards is an innovative service for launching promotions and loyalty programs using virtual cards. It helps not only to attract new customers, but also to form their loyalty to your brand.
How it works:
- You create virtual cards with a unique design and the necessary mechanics: discount, discount with accumulation, cashback or stamp.
- Your client scans the QR and issues a card in a few clicks, instantly gaining access to your company's promotional offers.
- You monitor the effectiveness of promotions and loyalty programs in real time and manage mechanics according to business needs.
Using EfirCards, you can also automate communication with customers by sending them quick trigger or personalized messages: push, geo-push, e-mail, Telegram, Viber and SMS. This will reduce the burden on your marketing department and allow you to easily promote any promotional offers.
How to start using EfirCards
Complete a short registration and start using EfirCards's innovative functionality completely free of charge with our special tariff plan for new customers. And if you have any questions, our technical support will easily help you solve them in a matter of minutes.
