Differentiate between sales promotion and advertising.
Sales Promotion:
Sales promotion, in a specific sense, refers to those sales activities that supplement both personal selling and advertising and co-ordinate them and help to make them effective, such as displays, shows and expositions and other non-recurrent selling efforts not in the ordinary routine.
The American Marketing Association offers the following definition of sales promotion.
“The main objective of sales promotion is to attract the prospective buyer towards the product, and induce him to buy the product at the point of purchase.”
Advertising:
Advertising has a longer time-orientation than Sales promotion. Advertising generates interest and builds reputation of a product and its manufacturer. On the other hand, Sales promotion helps to increase immediate sales.
Advertising and Sales promotion are, however complementary to each other. Advertising facilitates Sales promotion by making potential buyers aware of the sales promotion activities of an enterprise. Sales promotion supplements Advertising by converting potential demand into sales.
Personal selling is the only tool of promotion that does a complete selling job. Advertising and Sales promotion can only attract and bring customers to the seller.
Therefore, Advertising and Sales promotion are complementary to personal selling. Advertising prepares ground for personal selling by informing consumers on a mass scale. A customer who has read or seen the advertisement carefully can be handled more easily because he is well-informed. The time and effort of a salesman are saved. Similarly, Sales promotion helps to increase immediate sales by persuading customers and dealers.
