Sales promotion examples50+ Inspiring Sales Promotion Examples That Hit The Mark

LitExtension
10 min readJul 4, 2022

By LitExtension

Introduction

Like oxygen to humans, sales plays a key role in the path to success of any business. Thus, driving more sales is always the ultimate goal. But how? The best pathway is to implement a great sales promotion campaign! In this article, LitExtension has put together a list of 50+ commonly used sales promotion examples to skyrocket your sales.

Keep reading to get:

What are examples of sales promotion? Let’s dive in!

Sales Promotion Examples: 30+ Sales Promotion Ideas Worth Your Reading

From a marketing perspective, “Promotion” is the outcome of an offer designed to motivate people to visit a business and buy products. In other words, “Promotion” is mainly concerned with telling the target customers that the right product is available in the right place at the right price.

Over the long history of markets, the principles of supply and demand have generated a pendulum of equilibrium between merchant power and customer power. The customers pick up a few good bargains and your revenue rocks!

So, what are some examples of sales promotion? Let’s scroll down to explore creative sales promotion ideas for your business to thrive!

#1. Free samples

In the world of marketing, providing samples is the most inexpensive way to introduce a new product. Free samples sales strategy is one of the most common tactics to gain customer trials.

As said, this technique is also known as one of the best sales promotion examples for marketers. For instance, LitExtension — the world #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert offers users a Free Demo migration to help users better visualize how the migration process work.

Just make sure your customers can easily cancel the free trial or subscription!

#2. Buy one, get one free deals

“Buy one, get one free” (BOGO) is a phenomenal sales promotion that can fuel your business growth. It is one of the great promotional ideas that help to catch the customers’ attention, increasing the chance they pull the trigger on making a purchase.

BOGO sales can come in a variety of formats, from a straight-up buy one, get one free offer to 4th free when you buy 3, or buy one get 50% off type deal.

#3. Free shipping and returns

Free shipping and returns policy is a marketing and sales tactic that is geared toward online customers. In such a competitive market, the free shipping and returns policy is designed to stimulate a purchase or an action. It is one of the most insane sales promotion techniques to get your next sales promotion noticed.

Maybe you missed the psychology behind free shipping and returns: 84% of consumers say free shipping makes them more likely to shop. The incentive enhances the online experience by removing the barrier that shipping prices impose. Most importantly, customers consider free shipping to be handy, and, convenience drives purchasing decisions.

You may also want to read:

The Quick Guide to eCommerce Shipping for Beginners

10 Important Sales Analytics to Watch For Revenue

#4. Bundling of products or services

Product and service bundling is one of the best product promotion examples, which is designed to encourage sales, cross-selling, and engage customers throughout the year.

By creating a perception for the customer is that they are getting a big deal, merchants can open customers up to new product lines, sell more to customers, save time and marketing costs, get rid of excess stock or non-shifting products, as well as improve customer satisfaction, and create a positive impression of your brand.

#5. Loyalty program promotions

Loyalty program promotion is one of the best consumer sales promotion examples that can significantly increase customer engagement and retention. It is all about valuing your customers.

A repeat buyer of the same goods or a regular shopper at an online store is often regarded as a loyal customer. Since it costs five times more to gain a new customer than it does to keep an existing one, loyalty marketing is critical.

How to build customer loyalty in marketing:

  • Points or discounts
  • Affiliate offers
  • Value-centric rewards
  • Access to new products before anyone else
  • Free gifts or limited-edition merchandise
  • Invitations to store launches or product unboxings
  • Celebrate on social media

#6. Flash sales and discounts

A flash sale offers significant discounts or incentives for a limited time. The main goals of a flash sale strategy are to entice online buyers to impulse buy, boost short-term sales, or unload excess inventory.

A successful flash sale can sell excess inventory, create FOMO, and attract new customers. Besides, discounts can also reduce cart abandonment. A pop-up with a promotional code for a small discount might be just the push the customers need to click “Buy Now”.

Apart from discounts, vouchers and coupons are also the best sale ideas for small businesses! If you are selling on eCommerce platforms, you can take advantage of their gift card extensions, such as Magento 2 gift vouchers or BigCommerce gift cards…

How to run a successful flash sale:

  • Decide on the purpose of your sale
  • Choose the right products
  • Keep the time period short
  • Promote your sale early
  • Check inventory
  • Prepare for shipping

#7. Holiday sale promotion

Holiday sale promotion brings incentives that encourage customers to buy products or services. In 2021, holiday retail sales recorded $886.7 billion! Don’t miss out on holiday deals!

Thanksgiving, New Year’s Eve, Christmas, Black Friday, or back-to-school season are some of the best sale event ideas to leverage.

Here we can list three examples of current product promotions of a brand during Black Friday 2021.

#8. Social media contests or giveaways

As you might know, social media is considered the Holy Grail of digital marketing. Social media contests or giveaways are definitely some of the best sales promotion strategies that help grow your reach, drive site traffic, and generate leads.

It also serves as a promotional messaging technique that offers a business’s views on community matters. But, it is sometimes tricky to come up with a strategy for your contests…

Not to worry, here comes some interesting social media sales promotion ideas that get tons of engagement:

  • Partner with influencers to implement contests
  • Ask your audience to submit ideas for contests
  • Build a social promotion contest
  • Find a live streamer to partner with on a contest
  • Get contest entrants to share something personal
  • Encourage user action with an interactive social campaign
  • Create a daily puzzle for your followers and reward them with prizes
  • Request images of customers using your product in creative ways
  • Utilize a giveaway saas and offer multiple prizes

For instance, LitExtension’s Challenge Us campaign returns 30% of the order value for the two most complicated data migration projects each quarter.

Bulletproof coffee asked competitors to tag a buddy in a comment to enter their giveaway:

Check out how to use social media to grow your business:

Sales promotion examples

#9. Referral discounts

Referral marketing is one of the best promotional advertising examples that make use of recommendations and word of mouth to multiply your customer base through the networks of existing customers. In other words, referral marketing is one of the most amazing promotional advertising examples that turn your current customers into brand advocates.

Sales promotion examples

Since referral programs work as powerful word-of-mouth marketing tools, they will work as one of the best promo activities. As you might know, customers who are referred to you are four times more likely to buy.

Be creative with your rewards and try to reward the new customer — not just the referrer!

#10. Recurring sales

Recurring sales is also one of the best sales promotion tools which aim at encouraging repeat purchases. This tactic brings about predictable revenue, expands your customer base, increases customer retention, thus, driving more revenue.

Unlike traditional one-off sales, recurring sales strategies help establish a deeper relationship with customers to attain high customer retention. Recurring revenue can come in different forms, varying from industry to industry.

Some of the most popular recurring sales examples are long-term contracts; auto-renewal subscriptions; usage-based subscriptions; hybrid billing; freemium; user-based billing…

More information:

Pricing Strategy Examples: 10 Best Strategies for SMBs

Increasing Sales for an eCommerce Website with Affiliate Marketing

Other Creative Sales Promotion Ideas

We’ve guided you through 10 popular sales promotion examples. Want to discover new promotion ideas? Keep reading! Here comes a list of 20+ types of marketing promotions to effectively boost your sales:

  • Google My Business offer posts
  • Cashback promotions
  • Charitable cause promotions
  • Shopping sprees
  • Branded gifts
  • First purchase coupon
  • Tripwire (upsell)
  • Site-wide sale
  • Birthday sale
  • Gift card promotional deal
  • Vouchers and coupons
  • Spin-the-wheel promotion
  • Newsletter signup discount
  • Clearance sale promotion
  • End-of-season sale
  • Pre-launch promotion campaign
  • Lifestyle discounts
  • Mystery offers
  • Daily deals
  • Cross-sell campaigns

Bonus reading:

8 Ways to Improve eCommerce Site’s User Experience to Increase Sales

How to Use Video Marketing to Boost Your Ecommerce Sales Strategy

Sales Promotion Examples — All You Need to Know

#1. What is a sales promotion?

Sales promotion is a set of marketing technologies designed at increasing brand awareness and stimulating demand for specific products. In short, sales promotions are marketing and communications activities that maximize sales and revenue.

In marketing, promotion refers to discounts, gifts, coupons, free things… It is one of the most crucial components of the promotion mix. Promotions are usually only available for a limited time, making them so tempting.

B2B sales promotion can be seen in several campaigns such as branded gifts, limited-time offers, or first purchase coupons.

#2. Why implement sales promotions?

So, What are the pros and cons of sales promotions?

#3. Where to run your sales promotion?

Sales promotions can be promoted for free through social media channels, emails, your websites, or they can be the target of paid advertising campaigns like LinkedIn/Facebook ads or Google Ads.

  • Email marketing
  • Websites
  • Social media channels
  • SMS messaging
  • Events, trade shows, and conferences
  • Paid channels

Sales Promotion Tips for Marketing Success

How to promote a sale?

Your sales promotion campaign should include these eight critical factors to effectively catch your clients’ interest:

  • Plan ahead
  • Determine your goal
  • Target your audience
  • Prepare your materials
  • Limit availability
  • Don’t forget to promote your promotions
  • Offer real value
  • Monitor your results

Where to find the best promotion themes?

  • Pinterest
  • Dribble
  • Themeforest

Sales Promotion Examples — FAQs

What is considered the most common type of sales promotion?

BOGO is one of the most common types of sales promotions. It can help increase sales by offering two of a popular product at a discounted price for a limited period and creating a sense of urgency.

What are the 4 types of sales promotion?

Product bundling
Loyalty program promotions
Flash sales and discounts
Holiday sale promotion

Sales Promotion Examples — Wrap Up

As a matter of fact, sales promotions are appealing to customers and business owners. You can use various forms of sales promotions in a variety of industries. Coupons, contests, and sampling are three types of sales promotion activities that are regularly used. No customers like missing out on big deals!

However, like any marketing strategy, sales promotion is not without its challenges.When implemented correctly, it can help you increase revenue, plan growth, expand your market, retain more customers, and ultimately enhance your profits.

Superb eCommerce platforms provide users with great plugins and extensions to successfully implement their sales promotional campaigns. For instance, Magento promotions extension or Shopify free shipping bar

Hope that you have sufficient information to implement successful sales promotion campaigns after reading this article. By the way, LitExtension — #1 Shopping Cart Migration Expert is delighted to help you re-platform to a more powerful eCommerce platform to flourish.

In any case, if you have any questions about our data migration service, feel free to contact our customer support staff

or join our Facebook Community for more informative eCommerce insights.

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LitExtension

Our Automated Shopping Cart Migration Service helps you move your online store to a better e-commerce platform with ease. Learn more at https://litextension.com