In the marketing world, advertising and sales promotion are the two pillars that ensure your brand's success.
These two marketing strategies are absolutely necessary for your company as they ensure that you get a good grip of your market. These two kinds of marketing strategies will help you to build a strong and profitable company. However, you should know the differences between them so that you don’t get mixed up.
Let’s start off with the definition of the two
Sales promotion is a short term mechanism that a marketer applies for a quick sale of goods and services. You can see sales promotions during certain occasions or times. For example, during winter you will see promotion of a new line of winter wear. This is an example of sales promotion, which is targeted for a specific set of consumers during a specific time period.
On the other hand, advertisement is a long term thing that a company launches in order to establish themselves in the market. Through advertisements, companies strive to increase their consumer base by showing the advantages of their goods and services. In short, the companies use advertisements to portray their USP to potential customers.
The first difference stemming from the definition
The first difference that we can identify from the very definition of the two is that advertisement is a permanent thing and the sales promotion is a temporary thing. Advertisements are made with the long term vision, whereas sales promotion is a quick thing to drive sales instantly.
The goals are different in both the cases
The end goal of advertisement strategy and sales promotion strategy are different. The goal of advertisement is not always to drive sales of the company instantly. It seeks to grab the attention of the customers and retain them. On the other hand, the main goal of sales promotion is to increase the sales and move the goods and services of the company and enhance its finances.
The direct and indirect factor
In terms of appeal the sales promotion strategy and the advertisement strategy is also different. Sales promotion has direct appeal to the customers and they are made in such a way that it directly appeals to the customer and drives sales. Whereas, advertisements are not always direct, they can be indirect and in that way the companies make a palace in the psyche of the consumers and this in turn drives them to buy the products of the consumers.
So these are the key differences between advertisement and sales promotion which will help you to design an advertisement campaign and sales promotion.
