1

Integrated Marketing
Communications

Kirti Dutta
 1

Chapter Thirteen
Customer Oriented
Sales Promotion
© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Contents
• Customer oriented sales promotion

• Pull strategy for sales promotion

• Different ways of customer oriented sales promotion

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

 Super Sale by SpiceJet
• Travel demand has shown fluctuations and traditionally the low demand period
ranges from January to March and July to September.
• To woo the customers and make air travel attractive compared to travelling by
bus or train, airlines are known to reduce their prices and SpiceJet did just that in
January 2015 by announcing their ‘Super Sale’ campaign.
• Under this campaign, half a million seats were offered for sale over three days at
prices starting from `1499 for ‘travel between 15 February 2015 and 30 June
2015’.
• Such sales promotion offer not only helps the airline sell seats in advance, but
also ensures attractive prices for the customer (PTI 2015a).

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

 Super Sale by SpiceJet
• On the last day of the three-day sale, SpiceJet announced that it was extending
the sale by another two days due to the high demand for tickets during the sale
period. The company claimed a surge in booking by 400% on the first day of the
sale with the highest sale being recorded in the Delhi–Srinagar sector (PTI 2015b).
• The same year, during Diwali, SpiceJet announced another sale for 300,000 seats
in which fares were from `749 (excluding taxes) for domestic travel and `3999 for
international travel. Sale period was 27–29 October 2015 and tickets could be
booked ‘for travel between 1 February 2016 and 29 October 2016.
• Not to be left behind IndiGo also followed by giving a discount offering. The net
result was an increase in bookings by 200% of both these service providers’
(Mishra 2015).

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

 Super Sale by SpiceJet
• When it comes to discounts, SpiceJet not only offers destination based discounts,
but theme based ones as well and some of the themes are the pilgrimage, beach
holiday, etc. SpiceJet has taken sales promotion to a whole new level through
their SpiceClub, Fly for Sure, and SpiceMax.
• SpiceClub is a red hot rewards card which is basically like a prepaid card. By
depositing a measly amount of `399, one can carry out cashless transactions with
SpiceJet. The cardholder also gets special access to discounts and special offers
along with a free ticket on his/her birthday.
• Fly For Sure is basically a traveller’s guarantee of flying in the case of a delayed
flight in the next 24 hours. A passenger gets the security that he will be able to fly
in case he misses the fl ight due to some unforeseen circumstances (SpiceJet
2016).
© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Anchor—Wiring People
• Question 1: What was the ‘sales’ offer being made by SpiceJet and
how was it beneficial for the company when the price offered is so
low?
• Question 2: What other sales promotion techniques are being used
by SpiceJet to attract the customers?

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

 Introduction
• It has been well documented that more profits are generated by companies
when customers purchase not only purchase once, but repeatedly.
• However, all companies are incentivizing retailers and channel partners and so
just promoting the product through the channel is not sufficient to ensure
sales.
• On the contrary, if competition incentivizes the channel partners more than
your company, then there is the high probability that the channel partners
would promote the other brand over yours.
• Thus, organizations need to attract and retain the end-customers as well.

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

 Trade Promotion
• Manufacturers take the help of trade partners to distribute their products.
Trade partners could be distributors, wholesalers, retailers, agents, and brokers
as they help the manufacturer to trade their products.
• They are also called the marketing channel or channel partners, as they are the
channels through which marketers distribute their products to the customers.
• These channel partners are important, as they are the primary customers of the
manufacturers. They purchase products from manufacturers and then sell to
the end customers.
• The more these trade partners purchase, the more they will sell, and so
marketers need to ensure that they purchase more and more of their goods
rather than that of a competing brand or brands.

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

Customer Oriented Sales Promotion Defined
• Customer oriented sales promotion can be defined as the short-term
incentive targeted towards the end-customer so as to attract and retain
them.
• This is relevant when companies are looking at pull strategies so as to derive
sales. Pull strategy is when companies direct their sales promotional offer to
consumers so that they ask for the brand by name.

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

PULLING THROUGH SALES PROMOTION

Manufacturer
Seek Brand

Wholesaler Sales promotion

directed towards end-
Seek Brand
customers

Retailer
Create Demand

End-customer © Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

Consumer Oriented Sales Promotion Process

Objective of Customer oriented Sales promotion

Selecting the tool

Implementation strategy
Feedback

Evaluating the results

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

 Trade Promotion Tools

• Sampling - In store; Media; Directly; Company’s sales force; Direct marketing

agencies
• Coupons - Instant redemption coupons; Bounce back coupons; Cross-ruffing
coupons; Response offer coupons
• Premiums - Free in the mail offers; Self-liquidating offers; with the product
• Price-offs
• Bonus packs
• Cashback – Rebate; refund
• Contests and Sweepstakes – games; contests; sweepstakes
• Exchange offers
© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.
 Quick Recapitulation
• Customer oriented sales promotion

• Pull strategy for sales promotion

• Different ways of customer oriented sales promotion

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.

Questions?

© Oxford University Press 2016. All rights reserved.