Sales Promotions as a Competitive Strategy Available to Purchase

Sales promotions are often conceived as having tactical, rather than strategic, potential. This is accounted for by the sheer diversity of promotions, together with the hectic nature of marketing management. Proposes that promotions can provide strategic direction in guiding,targeting and positioning decisions, and can help to develop and maintain competitive advantage. This can be sustained by building a steady stream of promotions, which support each other, within a strategic plan. Competitive advantage can be achieved through cost leadership or differentiation. But cost leadership is more difficult to sustain. It is felt the best way to sustain advantage is to support differentiation through non‐price‐based promotions. These often provide signals of value, which need careful management.