Chapter 16: Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

What’s not to like about Sales Promotions: an incentive to motivate consumers to purchase a good or service? I just like to see what sales people can come up with. I like coupons that entitle consumers an immediate price reduction compared to rebates, where most of the time we forget about the rebates or the effort to redeem them is just too time consuming we don’t even bother so in the end the manufacturer still gets the best deal. I also enjoyed learning about Premiums. What kid can’t convince their parents that the Happy Meal is the best deal because it comes with a toy that will keep them entertained for a merely 2-3 minutes. But hey, it’s free with your meal right? ;)

SAMPLING!!!! MMMM, I know I LOVE SAMPLES! I heard a good date idea was to take a date to Costco and try all the samples, it’s a good appetizer. Whether it is a product of some sort, my favorite samples are for hair care, make up or food samples…no one can resist or turn down a FREE SAMPLE. Sampling is definitely a good way to attract people to your product or food. And what about generating leads these days….isn’t that why we’re all on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and other social networks. When we need something all we have to do is submit a post and all our friends become social leads.

The one thing I have to emphasize per this chapter is Step #7: Following Up, per the salesperson’s responsibilities. We ordered a couch on Christmas Eve and finally received the couch in April only to find out that our specially ordered couch was made wrong. We contacted the Salesperson who assured us that a new couch would be delivered to us a week later. It’s now been 4 weeks and the sales person hasn’t even called to let us know. We will never purchase anything from that store again and we’ll be sure to vocally announce to our friends through our social network(s) not to purchase there either.