What is Promotional Marketing and What makes it important?

BOGO, or up to 50% off on select merchandise - we love a deal that says this and often throngs to a website or a store to browse through the products/services under promotional offers from time to time. While it's an excellent opportunity for buyers to stock up on outcomes during a promotional sale, it's equally fetching for companies. In this post, we delve into the concepts that circle around promotional marketing, why giving your customers a good deal ends up being profitable for you, and the right ways to do it - through tried and tested methods from successful brands.

Promotional marketing entails offering a deal or incentive to a potential buyer, encouraging them to do business with you.

The end goal could be anything - to encourage new customers to try your stuff out, to keep the old customers coming back for more, or just to increase sales overall, during special occasions like Thanksgiving or Mother’s Day. Promotional marketing is a tried, and tested method marketing gurus have used over time, to increase outreach and sales. We've explored two instances where promotional marketing has done wonders for a company:

A terrific promotional success story one can take away from in terms of introduction of a service to a market is that of "Ola" - an Indian startup that introduced the average middle-class Indian to use an on-demand cab service. Before the startup began operations in India, the on-demand cab sector was reserved to the elite - with expensive fares, mainly focusing on trips to and from airports, which were located away from the city.

"Ola" was a disruptor in that regard - in addition to their easy to use mobile application, what they offered majorly to get drivers and riders on board was their offers - drivers got twice the amount of money they actually made through their rides, and passengers got three free rides as incentive for referring the app to each of their friends. Within a year, the startup saw a boom in its revenue solely based on their promotional offers.

The drivers were happy because they were making good money and riders who had to depend on their own transport, deal with traffic woes or overcrowded public transport now got access to affordable on-demand cars that were at their disposal within 5 minutes. These tactics changed the way urban India travels, also making it extremely easy for Uber to launch in India without having done any groundwork since Ola had already broken the logistical barriers.

Success stories we love in terms of keeping the existing customers happy are those of loyalty card incentives offered to customers who are on a membership with brands - like the Starbucks or Sephora cards . Reports from these two brands specifically have proven that the customers love gifting the experience to their friends, even purchasing it for themselves. Because the quality is top-notch, the in-store experience is brilliant, and most importantly, the promotional deals gifted to customers on special occasions add a personal touch and makes them feel like the companies really care about being existent in their lives.

Starbucks offers a free drink to customers in their birthday month, and Sephora customers get to pick from a range of high-end products as a gift on the occasion of their birthday.

Effective promotional marketing techniques entail not just offering deals that make customers go bonkers and wonder if they're too good to be accurate, but as little as a free drink ONCE during the entire year just to keep the customer coming back for more does wonders. Promotional marketing strategies can be made in various ways, such as sending out secret codes in the promotional emails that customers can use during checkout.  Or, if you want customers to come in and experience a newly setup store - sending out flyers/coupons or only messages that promise a little free something when they come in. You can offer a free gift on the purchase of a certain number of products.  All these make a difference and creates excellent promotional marketing that does well in terms of sales. It is also imperative and highly crucial for the sales team to keep track of the payoff the company receives through these offers, so a structural alteration can be made for consistent results.