Marketing promotions have become increasingly popular with brand marketers and retailers. Promotional incentives give you a unique advertising platform through which you can reach millions of consumers quickly and trigger a response. They generate valuable top of mind awareness for your brand. They excite consumers and motivate them to take action. Marketing promotions can drive traffic to your website and retail storefronts, creating a surge in sales while improving customer loyalty.

Despite the growing popularity, a lot of brand sponsors and product suppliers fail to fully appreciate the potential of launching targeted marketing promotions. They see digital promotions and promotional incentives merely as a way to increase sales. In reality, their potential extends much further and remains largely untapped.

Introduce New Products By Launching Marketing Promotions

One of the core challenges for brand marketers and retailers trying to launch a new product is to encourage consumers to try the product. Doing so requires consumers to modify their shopping behavior, which few are willing to do without an incentive. Marketing promotions can incentivize your target audience and motivate them to try the product or brand you’re promoting.

For example, think back to the last time you visited a large warehouse store, such as Costco or Sam’s Club. Strolling through the aisles, you probably saw several new items that offered generous coupons or other incentives upon purchase. In the food section, you likely saw employees giving out free samples of new foods and drinks. These are examples of marketing promotions that are designed to introduce new products to the marketplace. And they’re merely scratching the surface of the potential of promotional incentives.

Marketing Promotions Improve Brand Awareness: An Example

On Black Friday, Target launched a series of exciting marketing promotions for their customers. The marketing campaign was designed to extend their brand, build excitement in the marketplace, and generate a surge in holiday sales. It began with a $10 gift card given to every shopper who spent $100 during Black Friday. This was followed by their Giftacular Sweepstakes during which $200,000 in gift cards were awarded. Lastly, a Target Give and Get Sweepstakes offered consumers a chance to win a $10,000 grand prize.

These marketing promotions, in addition to generating excitement and triggering sales, thrust Target’s brand to the forefront of consumers’ minds. In doing so, the promotional incentives became a key component of Target’s ongoing customer loyalty programs.

Use Marketing Promotions To Attract Customer Data

Besides introducing new products, improving brand awareness, and building customer loyalty, you can use marketing promotions to attract valuable customer data. This data can be leveraged for future marketing campaigns.

For example, suppose your brand includes products in multiple categories, such as shoes, clothes, and cosmetics. Chances are, your customers will be receptive to buying related products from you within the same category. They’re also likely to remain loyal to your brand across categories. That is, those who buy your shoes may also buy your clothes and cosmetics (with the right promotional incentives). Consider the potential…

Marketing promotions can trigger an immediate response from your audience, providing you not only with customer contact information, but sales-related data. If you mine this data correctly, you can segment your customer base and design marketing campaigns that target specific customers. The tighter your targeting, the better the response.

Key Factors To Consider For A Successful Campaign

The success of your marketing promotions is measured by whether you meet your objectives. Brand managers often launch digital promotions and customer loyalty programs without having a clear idea regarding their goals.

For instance, if an increase in sales is your objective, quantify it by dollars or percentage increase. If your goal is to build a customer database for future marketing promotions, determine the database’s target size and breadth of data. If improving customer loyalty is your aim, success can be tied to an increase in sales volume by customer segment.

Also, depending on the type of marketing promotions you’re planning to launch, you should consider using promotional risk coverage. Doing so will protect your budget in the event of a larger-than-expected redemption rate. It’s also a cost-effective way to offer your customers the chance to win enormous cash prizes.

Marketing Promotions: Tapping Into A Massive Revenue Stream

Brand sponsors, marketing experts, and retailers have discovered that marketing promotions give them a unique way to reach a huge pool of consumers. In doing so, they tap into a lucrative revenue stream. But, that is merely the beginning. When you offer exciting promotional incentives to consumers, you’ll build brand awareness, increase sales, and attract valuable customer data. And if you harness those things properly, they can drive lasting sales with increasing momentum.

Promotional risk coverage eliminates the budget uncertainty associated with offering large prizes, attractive coupons, and generous rebates and premiums to your market. It gives you an opportunity to launch exciting marketing campaigns through which you offer high-value promotions that would otherwise lie beyond your budget. Such promotions attract attention. They excite people and generate an enormous response. As a result, you’ll enjoy a higher volume of in-store and online traffic, a surge in customer registrations, and a growth in sales.

As the economy continues to struggle, it is more important than ever that you stretch your marketing budget. Moreover, competition is increasing within every space. You need to have a way to differentiate your brand and products to an audience that is bombarded with promotional offers. Promotional risk coverage helps you to design exciting contests and games whereby consumers have a chance to win bigger and more compelling prizes. And you’ll be able to do so at a fraction of the prizes’ value.

Promotional Risk Coverage Protects You From Budget Overruns

Suppose you have a marketing budget of $15,000. You want to design a promotional contest that gives your customers the chance to win a $500,000 prize. The prize value is obviously much larger than your budget; it seems out of reach. Promotional risk coverage makes this type of contest possible.

The risk is placed with an insurance company. To outsource the risk, you would pay a small fixed fee. If a contestant wins the $500,000 prize, the promotional risk coverage takes effect and the insurance company steps in to cover the difference.

This same risk mitigation strategy can be easily integrated with your coupon programs, rebate offers, and high-value premiums. For example, suppose you want to launch a coupon program that carries a redemption value of $750,000 on a popular brand of deodorant. With a $15,000 budget, this may seem all but impossible. Promotional risk coverage makes this type of high-impact promotion possible by removing the risk of a larger-than-expected redemption rate.

When you notice your competitors offering staggering chance-to-win prizes of $1 million, it is not because they have a $1 million marketing budget. Chances are, their advertising budget is limited. They are able to design these exciting marketing programs because they are using promotional risk coverage to extend their impact. You can take advantage of the same opportunity.

Advantages Of Promotional Risk Coverage

The obvious advantage of promotional risk coverage is that it amplifies the impact of your marketing budget. It stretches every dollar. In reality, the benefits extend much further.

First, large prizes, coupons, and premium offers attract attention. They generate excitement and encourage consumers to participate. That gives you a chance to penetrate new markets, establish a presence, and improve brand awareness.

Second, by designing high-impact programs, you’ll quickly build a customer database that you can mine for future marketing campaigns.

Third, programs that leverage promotional risk coverage to offer massive chance-to-win prizes inevitably increase sales. This is due to the exposure you’ll enjoy as your customers get excited about the prizes.

Creative Marketing Campaigns With Promotional Risk Coverage

A lot of companies use promotional risk coverage to launch contests, games, and marketing programs at a fraction of the prize or redemption value. With a little creativity, you can design promotions that leverage this risk mitigation strategy even further.

For example, suppose you would like to launch a promotion that awards a $25,000 guaranteed prize. Promotional risk coverage will not cover guaranteed prizes, but it can eliminate the budget uncertainty of chance-to-win prizes, coupons, and high-value premiums. Instead of dedicating your budget to a $25,000 guaranteed prize, why not design a promotion that blends multiple types of promos? For instance, offer a $5,000 guaranteed prize, a $100,000 chance-to-win prize, and a $250,000 coupon program. Promotional risk coverage gives you the flexibility to design this type of creative marketing program.

Brand Differentiation With Promotional Risk Coverage

Differentiating your brand and products will always represent a major competitive advantage for your company. The challenge is using a strategy that excites your customers while keeping a tight rein on your advertising budget. Promotional risk coverage lets you offer high-value prizes, coupons, premiums, and rebates without concern for going over budget.

Would you like to generate excitement in your market by offering consumers a $500,000 chance-to-win prize? You can do so at a fraction of the prize value. Want to launch a $250,000 coupon program to stimulate a response and attract new customers? Doing so is easy at a small percentage of the program’s redemption value.

Invest the time to explore how promotional risk coverage can help you engage your audience, excite your market, and catapult your sales.

–Cyndi Walker, Promotional Currency

Music Download Promotions have become a universal passion. Their appeal ignores gender, age, and all other demographics. Few digital promotional incentives are as powerful a lever as music download promotions. You can use them to launch a new brand, build consumer awareness about a new product, or to intensify your customers’ loyalty toward your company. You can leverage them to spur sales and build a consumer database for future marketing campaigns.

Digital music is a powerful promotional incentive because there is never a shortage of desired content. New artists rise to the top of the charts on a perpetual basis. That allows you to tap into an endless supply of popular music to build your brand, acquire new customers, and drive ongoing sales.

With the number of portable media devices at an all time high and growing due to the large number of new music capable mobile phones, music promotions have a broader reach than ever before.

Music download promotions can be delivered via a secure code and url. The codes are well-suited to a number of delivery methods, such as on-pack or in-pack, handed out via cards, or delivered via email. The landing pages and download sites can be customized to reflect the full personality of a promotion sponsor.

With over 3000 music download promotions successfully executed, Promotional Currency is a promotional partner you can count on to deliver. Promotional Currency’s integrated approach incorporates the latest digital currencies with a complete backend management system that includes co-branding, delivery, hosting, and fulfillment. These turnkey mobile promotions are created with a proprietary promotional risk coverage element, enabling them to offer brands response-based tactics within a fixed budget.

Incentive customers to respond through music download promotions with promotional risk coverage.

Promotional incentives are a powerful marketing lever that brand advertisers can use to engage and excite consumers. They play a key role in launching new products, lifting sales of existing products, and cultivating customer loyalty. From the smallest “mom and pop” retail stores to the largest brands in the world, promotional incentives encourage people to experience products they might otherwise ignore.

Creative Ways To Leverage Promotional Incentives

Giving away free items is one of the most effective ways to stimulate a response from your target market. Nothing excites consumers more than the chance to receive something with a high perceived value for free. There are a variety of ways in which you can use free promotional incentives to motivate your audience to take action.

You can give your customers something for free in exchange for trying a new product or service. For example, Starbucks recently launched their Via brand of instant coffee and used promotional incentives to spearhead the effort. They organized a Via Taste Challenge to entice customers to try their instant brew. Customers in the Los Angeles area were asked to order a cup of Via. In return, they received a coupon that could be redeemed for any cup of coffee in the future.

You can also use promotional incentives to create a surge in sales volume around your brand. For example, Estée Lauder launched a promotion in October 2009 called “Your Beauty. Your Style. Your Profile.” They invited women to visit participating counters and receive a free makeover and photo. The photos were emailed to women so they could be uploaded easily to dating and social networking sites. The Estée Lauder logo was in the background of each photo, strengthening their brand.

Using Promotional Incentives To Collect Customer Information

In the Estée Lauder example, the promotional incentives were emailed to women who received makeovers. That means in order to receive their digital photo, women had to provide a working email address. This mechanism helped Estée Lauder to create a database of customers to whom they could market their products in the future. For example, they can email these customers a targeted holiday promotion focusing on the products that were used during the makeovers.

Mobile promotions such as music download promotions can offer this same advantage. When consumers visit your customized landing page to download your promotional incentives (e.g. free music downloads), you can require them to provide their contact information. In doing so, you’ll build a database of customers for future marketing campaigns.

The Advantage Of Delivering Promotional Incentives Online

When your promotional incentives are delivered online, your expenses are limited to whatever it costs to fulfill redemption. For example, suppose you’re offering free music downloads to people who spend $70 at a certain clothing store. Provide a website address and promo code on their purchase receipt that directs them to your download site. They can redeem your promotional incentives online, which helps to minimize your costs while exposing customers to your brand and products.

Or, suppose you want to deliver a “buy three and get one free” promotion to customers’ mobile devices. The cost of delivery is practically zero. The same is true for launching instant win games, skins promotions, offering free ringtones, and other digital promotional incentives. While the cost is low compared to traditional advertising channels, the impact on your audience is high.

Why Promotional Incentives Are Effective

Brand sponsors realized long ago that promotional incentives were a potent trigger for stimulating a response from their market. Each year, billions of dollars are spent to launch promotions that improve brand awareness, drive traffic and sales, and strengthen customer loyalty.

The reason promotional incentives are so effective is because people always enjoy the chance to receive free products they consider valuable. Whether the incentive is a free tank of gas, limited access to an online fee-based service, or free song downloads, consumers are happy to participate. In some cases, they’ll increase their purchase order or buy new products in order to take advantage of a promotion. In other cases, they’ll willingly exchange their contact information to receive your promotional incentives.

Your marketing campaigns are ultimately designed to sell your products. The challenge is to motivate your audience to buy them. Digital promotional incentives will excite your market, educate them about your products, and encourage their loyalty to your brand. And they’ll do so at a lower cost than using other advertising channels. Now is the time to explore how promotional incentives can drive traffic and increase sales for your company.

Promotional Currency is THE leading digital promotions firm, merging digital technology, artist licensing and promotional risk coverage to deliver turnkey, fixed-cost solutions for the promotional marketplace.  Promotional incentives such as music download promotions, ringtone promotions, mobile promotion, skins promotions and online instant win games and sweepstakes are powerful, multi-pronged promotional marketing tools build customer loyalty and drive sales.

–Cynthia Walker

Entertain your consumers with promotional incentives to differentiate your brand and boost sales through increased brand interest and customer loyalty.

When you say promotional marketing, most people just think “marketing,” especially the non-marketing types. As if what we do is nothing but contests, coupons, and giving out free samples. While that is a part of marketing, promotional marketing is only one small fraction of the big umbrella that makes up Marketing (with a capital M).

Promotional marketing is the idea of promoting your product or service by attracting attention to potential customers. You see this quite a bit in places like grocery stores. The next time you’re walking through your grocery store, count how many promotional marketing items you see: coupons to try a new brand of breakfast cereal, or the free samples of a new food item.

Car dealers and timeshare companies are also big fans of promotional marketing. How many “game cards” have you received from a local car dealer where you would win a prize if it showed up under the silver scratch-off discs.

But there’s more to promotional marketing than just coupons and free items. Contests are another popular method of marketing promotions. Whether it’s a bank giving you 30 seconds in a giant box filled with money and a large fan, letting you grab as many of the fluttering bills as you can, or it’s a golf tournament that will give you a free car if you hit a hole in one on the 14th hole, contests are another great way to bring in potential new customers.

The most famous promotional marketing contest is the Publisher’s Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, where you could win $1 million or more, as well as subscribe to different magazines. We went nuts for these when we were kids, begging our parents to please please enter, because we could win a million dollars!

The reason people respond to these promotional marketing campaigns is they’re attracted to the large cash and prize giveaways. Sure, in our heads we know that the odds of winning are higher than the odds of being struck by lightning, but in our hearts, we hope we’ll beat the odds just that one time.

Of course, promotional marketing experts are worried about the one person who does beat the odds, so promotional risk coverage is available for those promotional marketing campaigns that offer large prizes and cash to winners.

If you want to create a powerful promotional marketing campaign, there are a few things you need to keep in mind.

• Why are you holding the promotional marketing campaign in the first place? Is it to sell more product, collect names for your customer mailing list, or just to increase brand awareness?
• How will you measure success? Through increased sales, a bigger customer list, or based on the number of promotional marketing items you gave away? We don’t recommend measuring this last item, because measuring the amount of money you spent does not always translate well to the amount of money you’ll make from it. Just ask any auto racing promoter who spent $100,000 and didn’t get a single sale as a result.
• Who is the marketing campaign geared toward? Is the promotional marketing item going to appeal to your target audience? If you’re trying to reach young men between 18 – 34, a contest that has tickets to a football game will draw them in, while two free passes to a day spa will not.
• Are you looking for new customers or trying to reach existing ones? The kinds of promotional marketing items you give away will attract one group or another.
• Are you compliant with the state and federal laws? Do you have promotional risk coverage in case someone wins bigger than you thought they would? (Imagine how the car dealer must feel when someone hits that hole-in-one and wins a car he wasn’t expecting to give away.) There are a lot of laws surrounding promotional marketing campaigns, and you could run afoul of laws without knowing it. Consult with a promotional marketing professional to make sure you run a clean campaign that doesn’t get you into trouble down the road.

Marketing Promotions including digital promotions continue to spur billions of dollars in annual sales for product suppliers. By offering promotional incentives, companies can tap into a vast pool of responsive consumers. Promotional marketing professionals often pursue conventional advertising methods to penetrate new markets.

The promotional industry offers a host of powerful marketing advantages to product suppliers. Digital promotions can be used to tap into new, robust markets. These b2b marketing promotions, or consumer targeted promotions improve customer loyalty and offer a channel to build customer databases for future marketing promotions.

The Key Advantages of Digital Promotions:

1.  The value of digital promotions is becoming more widely recognized, yet many companies still fail to fully appreciate their potential so there is less competition in marketing promotions using digital promotions.

2.  Digital Promotions using incentive promotions can be used to educate a market about a new product. When a product is developed, its success hinges upon the market’s awareness. In order to penetrate a retail sector, the supplier must have a way to introduce the product and educate the market regarding its use and value. This education often forms the core of market acceptance and customer acquisition.

3.  Digital promotions can also improve brand loyalty and increase the value of existing customer relationships. Once a product supplier has penetrated a new retail market, it is critical that they continue marketing to those customers. This can be accomplished by capturing customer data online and using it to launch an ongoing string of personalized digital promotions.

4.  Digital Promotions decrease the expense of building customer databases and customer loyalty programs.  Saturating a new customer base with digital promotions offers increases the value of each customer by increasing the lifespan of the customer.

Customers appreciate the value of digital promotions and the companies which offer them benefit from brand association to digital promotions.  Offer your customer promotional incentives of digital promotions and you may just gain a customer for life.