¶ … Marketing

The most important difference between sales promotion and advertising is perhaps given by the scope of each of these actions. In general, sales promotion are destined to encouraging short-term sales of a certain product or portfolio of products, while advertising is generally a long-term action meant to encourage sales from a certain brand over a longer period of time and build confidence with potential consumers. At the same time, the incentive that each of the two actions provides for the customer is different. In the case of sales promotion, the incentive is almost exclusively the price or rather the perceived bargain that the client will have by purchasing the product being promoted. On the other hand, in advertising, the incentive is quite often emotional or otherwise related to the product.

Sales promotions are useful generally around a holiday, because people have an incentive to maximize their volume of purchases during that period of time and a sales promotion would tend to add an additional incentive. Another good moment is also given by a case when a product line is getting close to the end and the company wishes to sell the remaining items. A price discount could thus encourage the client to but a product that is otherwise out of fashion.

On the other hand, advertising is useful when you are attempting to build a brand and the product is new on the market. The advertising could thus be used to promote the new product and provide the necessary information for its purchase. Advertising is also useful when the product is new and innovative, so as to make it better known to the potential clients.

In general, it is useful to combine the two when you are advertising a sales promotion, usually also around the holiday period. At the same time, it is useful to combine them when the budget is large enough to allow such an approach.