Measuring and Evaluating Sales Promotion
Sales Promotion is a marketing strategy designed to stimulate the brand’s demand in particular products or services but not part of the communication mix. Sales Promotion is designed to increase and boost sales in a short-term tactic and is rarely used in long-term relationship tactics (Riley, n.d.).
Besides, create incentives are often used in sales promotion for the customer to take action quickly and make repeat purchases. For instance, the marketer offers discount coupons or free gifts to grab the customers’ attention to purchase a particular brand and products. There are different types of sales promotion tools used to target consumers, such as free samples, free gifts, discount coupons, rebates, etc. (Pride et al., 2012, p. 365). According to Shimp and Andrews (2012), sales promotion focuses on short-term orientation and has the power to influence customers’ decisions. Sales promotion has the characteristic in nature, which is to act now because tomorrow is too late; meanwhile, it offers superior value and better feelings of the buying experience for the consumer.
The objectives of sales promotion derived from basic marketing communication objectives, including increasing sales, creating awareness and interest, encouraging trials, and increasing brand loyalty (Kayode,2014, p. 195). There are many different ways of sales promotion to accomplish various sales promotion objectives, and the most used tactic are discount, coupons, or free gift. For example, the furniture store provided a free gift or discount for the customer when the selected items are purchased or reached the minimum spending amount.
Besides, the steps for a marketer that considered using sales promotion are established the sales promotion objectives, tools (Kayode, 2014). According to Kwok and Uncles (2013), the research conducted in the past studies has stated that sales promotion is a tool for an organization to increase sales and profits. However, sales promotions are more effective when the marketer or company-provided benefits to consumers with those purchased products or services (Chandon et al., 2000). Thus, to identify the effectiveness of sales promotion, there are five vital measurements: total sales value and volume, total customer traffic, the total number of purchases, the average value of purchases, and the total profits generated in a sales promotion (Baker,2015).
For instance, PADINI Holdings Berhad company is one of a good example that often using sales promotion in every different season to boost sales. Mega Carnival Sales will fall in March, August, and December and it will up to 70 percent discount and promotion. The customer can enjoy the lowest price and discount only during the season period. PADINI Company will have 10% off for every member cardholders as the company wanted to clear stock whist to push the sales (“Market and company analysis of padini,” 2019). Therefore, PADINI can boost sales and attract customers to purchase the products in a short period.
According to the past studies conducted by Blattberg and Neslin (1993), monetary promotion is the primary benefit for consumers as the sales promotion can provide many advantages and benefits to the customer. For example, Pizza Hut is one of the largest pizza chains in the world. One of the promotional tactics used by Pizza Hut is to offer discount coupons for the customer with the minimum spending of the amount. It was shown in the study that the monetary promotions will provide more practical or utilitarian benefits, while non-monetary promotions provide an enjoyable buying experience (Chandon et al.,2000).
However, Kwok and Uncles (2003) stated that it is not absolutes; for example, “Buy One Get One Free” is also one of the popular types of sales promotion in Pizza Hut where two pizzas are offered at a price of one meanwhile the consumer will get the satisfaction of the buying experience. In other words, the discount coupons in sales promotions provide the utilitarian benefits, and it also provides some hedonic benefits in the redemption of coupons for consumers. In shorts, sales promotion can boost sales in a short period and attract customers to purchase particular products and services. Therefore, PADINI and Pizza Hut are successful in using sales promotion to lead the increase in sales and profits.
Measuring and Evaluating Social Media Advertising
Social media are also known as the “new media” have become an essential part of the 21st century. Social media advertising can be defined as digital advertising that focuses on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and LinkedIn (Deshpande,2020). Kiran (2015) mentioned that one billion people are using Facebook, one of the social media platforms to interact with people and also keep updated to the news and information.
The rising usage of social media has become a common form of communication in recent years. According to the statistics from ITU, the official source for global ICT statistics, release that a total of 4.1 billion users or 53.6 percent of the global population is using the Internet at the end of the year 2019. The statistics showed the growth of people’s use of the Internet around the world. Based on the statistic, social media has its attraction for the people and its influence the ways of interaction between people.
Social media advertising is not only the platform for advertisers to share and receive information with the public, but it also allows interaction and communication with customers. In the rising usage of social media, the organization could build relationships while utilize it to raise the interest of a particular product or service for the customers (Ohajionu and Mathews, 2015). Social media has become an essential component in the area of marketing by facilitating marketing intelligence, promotions, public relations, and as well as product and customer management (Akar & Topcu, 2011).
Social media advertising’s primary benefit is the coverage of area and time all over the world without any limitation. It helps reach the target audience across the world while spending fewer costs and investments in those advertisements. The advertisement used to promote the product or campaign will be distributed to the user based on the information gathered from the target group audience with social media advertising (Kathiravan, 2017). The high usage of social media showed that the business should use it wisely to increase the product or services in consumers (Ohajionu & Mathews, 2015).
Besides, there are five steps to ensure the effectiveness of social media advertising, which included determining the goals, create metrics to measure the goals, establish the measurement tools, monitor and report and lastly, adjust and improve. According to Davis (2012), a social media campaign will be effective when it included both ongoing analytics and campaign-focused measurements.
One of the examples that used social media platforms to promote a particular campaign is the “Ice Bucket Challenge” organized by the ALS Association. The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, and the Microsoft founder, Bill Gates, also participated in this action to raise awareness and follow the celebrities and social network users involved in the “Ice Bucket Challenge” campaign. The campaign was being spread out of social media in the year 2014, and it had successfully increased awareness all over the world (Strub, 2019).
The “Ice Bucket Challenge” campaign showed the success of using social media to promote the campaign. It was viral spread by the public on social media platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc. The ALS Association had effectively using the social media platform to promote the campaign. Also, many celebrities were involved in the “Ice Bucket Challenge,” and therefore, it had influenced hundreds of millions of dollars of donations for the ALS Association (Braiker, 2014).
In short, the “Ice Bucket Challenge” was a successful campaign using social media as propaganda to increase awareness, and many people had participated in the challenge. ALC Association had utilized social media and raised over 220 million worldwide in this campaign. Therefore, it is shown that social media advertising has its influence and power to attract larger audiences quickly.