Sales promotion: it includes activities other than advertising, personal selling publicity and public relations which are used in the promotiong of the product or in persuading the customer to purchase the product. Distribution of the samples, premium coupon, point of purchase display, off price selling, etc, is the examples of the sales promotion techniques.
Merits:
1. Excellent approach for short term price reduction for the stimulating demand.
2. Can be effective for changing a variety of consumer behavious.
3. Can be easily tied in with other promotional tools.
Demerits:
1. May have only short term impact.
2. Over use of the price for changing a variety of consumer's sales promotional tools may hurt brand image and profits.
3. Effective sales promotions are easily copied by competitions.