Reaching
Sales Representatives
Step 1
Determine if you want the sales
promotion to be a short-term or long-term promotion. For a product just being
introduced, you will want to use a long-term promotion to help establish the
product in the sales representatives' minds. A product that is at the end of
life would be a short-term promotion as you are trying to get old product off
shelves.
Step 2
Create a spiff-based promotion for
your product that will entice sales representatives to want to push your
product. The spiff can be done on a per-unit basis where every unit sold gets a
bonus, or you can create a spiff based on volume where the bonus is not paid
until a certain volume of sales is reached.
Step 3
Develop a registration system that
will require sales representatives to sign up to be part of the sales
promotion. The registration will not only track sales volume for each
representative, it can also be used as a contact database for future sales
promotions involving sales representatives.
Step 4
Create marketing material that
outlines the complete program to sales representatives, gives registration
information and offers sales pitch information that representatives can use
when trying to sell your product.
Step 5
Stay in touch with registered sales
representatives with weekly sales pitch information updates, and updates on how
each representative is performing in the promotion. This will help to stoke the
competitive fires among the sales representatives and drive revenue.
. . . . . . . . . .
Promoting to
Retail Customers
Step 1
Focus your promotion on one product,
or one family of products. If you make the promotion too broad, then retail
customers may get confused and not participate. If the promotion works for one
product, then you can replicate it for other products as well.
Step 2
Determine which kind of retail sales
promotion strategy you want to use. Some of the popular retail promotions are
buy one, get one free as well as free sample, buy a product and get a free
accessory or a mail-in rebate.
Step 3
Create a comprehensive set of rules
for the promotion and include those rules on all of the promotional material.
Work with your company's legal department to ensure that the rules of your
promotion are complete and effective.
Step 4
Develop a website where customers
can register to receive promotional rewards and find out more information about
the product and company. Ask customers to give their email address for future
promotions. Designate a toll-free phone number where customers can call and ask
for more information on the promotion.
Step 5
Create a retail display that gives
all of the details of the promotion to be placed in all of your retail outlets.