Are you a coffee lover? You must be wondering how this article is related to a coffee? Well. this article does have an aromatic coffee connection!(I am a coffee lover…And I hope you are too!) If you are a coffee lover then there must be a coffee brand you buy every time you go in a store. What if you see a new brand of coffee in the market? Will you buy it? Like others. you may or may not buy. Let’s check some scenes.
Scene 1– If you have seen a brand new coffee company commercial on TV or on the hoarding near your house, will you buy? You will pay attention but you may not buy( just because the coffee which you have been drinking for years have made you very much loyal or another fact is- may be your mom is buying the same coffee for years and that’s why you buy the same.)
Scene 2– If you see a commercial wherein your most favorite celebrity is promoting the new coffee, will you buy? A few will buy. (Not me though!)
Scene3– If you get a free sample of the new coffee, will you prepare and taste it? Yeahhh…why not.!!!
Scene4– If you get 50% discount on the new coffee as a part of promotion-the same coffee which is promoted by your favorite celebrity-will you buy? Oh yes! I will definitely try. And if I like I might switch the brand.
In the above 4 scenes, scene 1 and scene 2 are the examples of Advertisement & scene 3 and scene 4 are the examples of Sales Promotion. You see I told you it has a coffee connection.
What is the difference between sales promotion and advertising?
- The main goal of Advertisement is informing and reminding about the product.
- Advertisements are a form of mass communication (mainly, but not always in digital marketing).
- The major goal of the promotion is to build the sales in the short time period. There can be many other goals too but mainly, businesses prefer to spend money in advertisement to sell their products and increase ROI.
- The most popular ways of promotion are the discount coupons, two for one special promotion, free product samples, contests, sweepstakes and other special events held in stores.
Let us understand how they are different from each other. First of all, Advertising and Sales Promotion are the main tools of promotion along with Public relation and direct marketing. Advertising is emotional in nature. Advertisers use different emotions in the advertisement to attract more people to buy their product or to create the great recall value (Fevicol uses humor at the best whereas Durex condoms uses sex appeal to arouse the emotions!). Sales promotions, on the other hand, are straight and to the point. It directly shows the value for money irrespective of targeting buyer’s need. The sales promotion campaign comes with the small duration to make sure it pushes the buyers hard to purchase the products at the earliest without wasting anytime behind thinking.
Advertisements will trigger a thought for buying. Promotions will give a push to the thoughts for buying. Also, sales promotion do need the support of advertisement! Businesses use different media to promote their sales promotion activities to the mass. There can be venue promotion schemes at many retail stores but then how many people will be covered if not doing any advertisement?
Advertisement says – see me, check me, think for me, try me, buy me. Promotions says- buy me right now, or you will miss the chance and then regret! Advertisement mainly has long term objective, promotion is an incentive based limited period activity. Normally, advertising campaign are not removed overnight. Sales Promotion is a flexible activity. Sales promotion offers a company the chance to adapt a lot quicker than they may have done with advertising. E.g. – Offers given on a product or service or any event as a part of sales promotion can be changed according to the market and products performance. But this is not the case with the Advertising.
Advertisement and Sales promotions are two different things. Yet there are strong pillars to each other. In short- They share a good camaraderie when integrated.
