PROMOTION PLANNING
One must be thinking about how to promote his product for quite some time before starting to produce it. Your visits to stores and your interviews with shopkeepers and wholesalers will give you the opportunity to find out what kind of promotion your potential competitors are doing and what could be arranged with the shopkeepers. For getting more relevant information click on https://adposta.com/.
Promotion types
The word “promotion” covers a range of activities to educate people about your products and to motivate them to buy them. Examples of techniques used around the world include:
- Advertising
- Display at points of sale
- Free samples
- Verbal
- Coupons
- Cards or sheets
- Special prices
Advertising
This can be done on television or radio, in newspapers or magazines, on posters and billboards, or through flyers handed out on the streets or in homes. For small agribusinesses, television and national newspapers are not feasible options, but other approaches can be used. In many countries the number of rural radio stations is increasing rapidly, and these can offer the possibility of advertising at relatively low costs.
Exhibition at points of sale
These are special displays of a product or range of products that are made within a store. In addition to the products located on the customary shelves, products are displayed on other sites; often, in the case of supermarkets, near the check-out area. In the surroundings of the store, a cardboard counter with notices alluding to the product can be placed, which can be used for exhibitions, possibly with posters or banners.
Free samples
This technique is especially useful for new products. People may be reluctant to try new products when they find them in the store and have not tried them before. In the markets of developed countries, companies usually deliver small samples of their products to every home in the country. When people go to stores, agribusinesses can take the opportunity to give them samples of products, so that they can taste them. This should be done in connection with good point-of-sale display.
Verbal
Often times, this technique can be quite effective for small agribusinesses. Parties and gatherings can be organized at one’s home or at the homes of employees and friends in order to make tastings of their products. If they like them, they will discuss it with their friends.
Coupons
Producers sometimes include coupons in their packages. These coupons can be used by consumers to obtain a lower price on their next purchase. Coupons can also be attached to flyers. Of course, the use of the coupons requires the cooperation of the shopkeepers, for whom collecting them and returning those to the manufacturer for reimbursement can mean a lot of extra work.
Tokens or sheets
Another technique is to include a small card or sheet in each package or container. When people collect a certain amount of them they can take them to the store or to the manufacturer to be given a gift. Also in this type of promotion, the collaboration of the shopkeeper is often required.
Special prices
Price reduction can be used as a short-term promotional technique. However, it is not enough to cut prices and have your product discounted in stores – you need to communicate to the public that you are doing so. In this way, the price reduction must be accompanied by other promotional techniques such as advertising and displays in stores.
What kind of promotion is being done?
As many stores as possible should be visited during your investigation, although not all shopkeepers are interviewed. The techniques used by manufacturers to promote them should be observed in great detail, especially those that are going to be their competitors. Take a look at what’s on display in stores, such as:
- Posters
- Frills
- Banners
- Point of sale displays
- Special price offers
Shopkeepers should also be asked what kinds of promotions they have run, and why. If, for example, small stores have one or two posters on display, it would be helpful to find out why they are displaying those posters and not others. Which promotions have been the most successful for shopkeepers, and why?
Advertising messages from your competitors
You need to consider not only how your competition promotes your products, but also what characteristics of your products she highlights in her advertising, and which products you would highlight. As examples of the class of terms used we can mention:
- Healthy and nutritious
- Luxurious
- Delicate taste
- Easy to use
- Fruit concentrate
- 100% natural
- An exclusive product
- A good or the best buy