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Promotional tools are essential for increasing brand visibility, attracting customers, and driving sales. From traditional methods like business cards and public relations to modern digital marketing tactics, businesses can choose the right mix based on their goals. Key tools include BOGO offers, email marketing, cashback promotions, Google listings, and flash sales. Measuring effectiveness through engagement and conversions is crucial, while emerging trends like AI-driven personalisation, automation, and interactive content are shaping the future of promotions.
The use of effective promotional tools is crucial to a business’s success. These tools help increase visibility, generate interest in your products, and attract potential customers. It has been observed that businesses that invest in promoting their products efficiently in a consistent manner capture a greater market share. The key is to use the right mix of these tools. How? To begin with, learn about the various available promotional tools, their use, and how they can make a difference to your business.
In this article, we have shared information about the different types of promotional tools, ways to measure their effectiveness, and more. Read on to find out!
Promotional tools are strategies used by businesses to market their products and services with the intent to increase their sales. They are also used to spread awareness about a newly launched product and encourage the target audience to try it. Different online and offline promotional tools are used for this purpose. We shall learn about them in detail in the following sections.
Businesses hire dedicated professionals experienced in this field to ensure effective promotion of their offerings. These professionals conduct extensive analysis to assess which promotional strategies work best for your business and leverage those strategies to drive results. The performance of these methods or strategies should be constantly monitored and evaluated to understand their effectiveness. If need be, they must be altered or even replaced with new and improved tools.
Here is a look at the various promotional tools in marketing:
This includes directly providing information about the company’s products or services to the target audience. Communicating about the products via email, social media, door-to-door marketing, and telephone falls under this category. Social media and online forums have made direct marketing easier.
This is a paid promotional tool that brands have long used to increase the visibility of their products and services. Advertising is done through various channels, including newspapers, television, billboards, radio, and social media. Brands mostly hire celebrities, models, and influencers to advertise their products through television and social media.
Many businesses hire public relations officers to promote their brand. These professionals are trained to create a positive image of your products and services. PR often enables companies to earn a good reputation and increase their return on investment. PR professionals use different strategies to build trust among potential buyers and win over clients.
Digital marketing is an essential marketing tool in modern times. It effectively connects brands with potential buyers through online content creation, social media campaigns, email marketing, and web-based advertising. If done right, digital marketing is highly effective.
This promotional tool for marketing is usually used when a new product is launched in the market. It helps increase the likelihood of that particular product’s sale. As a part of this promotion, businesses often provide discount coupons, product samples or bundled offers. These incentives motivate customers to make purchases. If these products deliver good quality, a repeat purchase is possible.
Let us take a list of promotional tools that businesses are using to market their products and services:
This is an age-old promotional technique and may appear quite basic, which is why many businesses make the mistake of doing away with it. However, as simple as it may seem, sharing business cards with potential buyers can effectively increase business visibility. You may add a discount code to your card to inspire purchases. Reports suggest that business cards embedded with QR codes can boost user engagement by 20%.
Many digital platforms allow businesses to publish their blogs and articles. Using these platforms, you can spread awareness about your offerings and provide useful information relevant to your industry. Alternatively, you can start your blog to share information about your products and other information that may interest your target audience. Well-written content helps fetch good traffic to your website and generate genuine leads.
An effective direct marketing tool, offering free samples, can generate consumers’ interest in your brand. You can build trust and drive purchases by giving away high-quality products through these samples. You can get a competitive edge because not many businesses prefer investing in it as it adds to their cost.
Open web advertising platforms enable businesses to connect with consumers by sharing digital content with media houses and renowned publishers. You can choose your targeting options to reach your potential buyers. You can also track the performance of your digital content and campaigns and improve from time to time.
Buy One Get One free schemes attract consumers from different segments. It is a good idea to run these schemes for a limited period to boost sales. It also helps clear your stock to make way for fresh inventory. Spas, salons, and gyms can even run this scheme. For instance, if gyms or fitness centers have empty slots, they can offer a free additional session.
This simple yet powerful promotional tool is being used by several businesses worldwide. It is mostly used to target individuals who have shown interest in your products and services at some touchpoint. They help attract more visitors to your website. Existing customers are also sent e-mails to inform them about new products and discount offers, or remind them about the items in their cart.
This is another powerful tool being used to win over customers. When customers get a cashback, they don’t mind making purchases. Offering cashback promotions regularly can help build a loyal base. It proves to be beneficial for the customers and businesses.
You can announce a discount offer, event or product launch via Google My Business account dashboard. Doing so lets you reach the audience that looks up similar offers or products through Google search or Maps. This way, you will drive organic leads with a greater chance of conversion.
A flash sale urges the shoppers to make the purchase immediately. By offering lucrative discounts and attractive offers during these sales, you can motivate them to buy your products before it is too late. Shoppers usually act fast and skip steps such as comparing the prices, checking features, and reading reviews to avoid missing the offer.
Promotional tools can elevate brand strategy by offering the following benefits:
Promotional tools create buzz about your products, allowing you to stand out in the crowded marketplace. Effective promotional strategies boost brand awareness and attract the attention of your target audience.
By using promotional tools such as loyalty programs, bundled offers, cashback promotions, and email marketing, you can inspire the buying decisions of your existing customers and build a loyal base. These offers also help add new customers to your list.
Many promotional tools are quite cost-effective, even though they are efficient. These include blogging, referral programs, collaborating with micro-influencers, social media marketing, email marketing, and online listings. Businesses of different sizes can benefit from their use.
Merely running different promotional campaigns without assessing their effectiveness is not a good idea. Keeping a constant check on their performance is crucial. It’s important to set both short-term and long-term goals and clear expectations for what each promotional tool should achieve. Regularly reviewing how each tool performs helps you understand what’s working and what isn’t. For example, if a social media campaign brings in traffic but no conversions, you may consider improving your call-to-action or making certain other changes.
Using different tools, you can measure their performance by checking your engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversions. Doing so helps improve the existing campaigns to drive greater results, in addition to planning the new ones better.
Many businesses have started using marketing automation to promote their products, and several others plan to use this technology. Reportedly 62% of marketers believe automation is crucial for their promotional campaigns.
Some emerging trends are AI-powered personalisation, voice search optimisation, and interactive content tools such as polls and surveys. Businesses are also collaborating with micro-influencers and leveraging user-generated content to attract shoppers. Such collaborations are said to be more effective than celebrity endorsements. Chatbots and conversational marketing are also expected to evolve. This will help engage customers in real time and influence their buying decisions.
In addition to offering high-quality products and services, businesses must invest a substantial amount in promoting them. This is necessary to reach the target audience and encourage them to try their offerings. BOGO offers, email marketing, flash sales, business cards and free product samples are among some of the effective promotional tools in marketing. With technological advancement, businesses are using smarter ways to promote their business. Investing in AI-powered promotional tools is the way forward. Businesses must stay updated with the emerging trends and incorporate them to get an edge over their competitors.
Which promotional tools are you using currently, and which ones are you planning to invest in to drive better results?
Blogging, email marketing, social media promotions, and referral programmes are some of the most budget-friendly yet effective tools.
It depends on factors like target audience, business goals, budget, and industry. Analysing results regularly helps refine the strategy.
Yes, when used creatively (e.g., adding QR codes or discount codes), business cards can still drive engagement and visibility.
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