Tuesday, March 29, 2011

Ch. 18 - Sales Promotion and Personal Selling

Marketing managers can use sales promotions to increase the effectiveness of their promotional efforts and to offer incentives to buy. Unfortunately for us (the consumer) Apple does not offer many promotions. Fortunately for Apple, they don't need to! Apple sales are pretty good without aggressive promotional campaigns.

Apple does offer some rebates. You can see current promotions they are offering on the company site. At the moment Apple is offering an online rebate for up to $100 dollars back on a printer with the purchase of a Mac and a mail in rebate of $30 back on iWork and MobileMe software. One of their more popular promotional campaigns has been the "Buy a Mac for college and get a free iPod touch" campaign, which usually runs from late May until mid September. Apple also offers education pricing – discounts for students and faculty. This is a great way to entice the student. A college student that uses a Mac during their time in school is more likely to stay loyal and want to use it for work later, as it will be the product they are most comfortable with.


Talking about sales promotion and personal selling and Apple it is of note to mention Apple sales personnel – Apple Specialist. While the personnel at the stores may not be aggressive sales people or may not fall under the definition of consultative selling, they are there to help you and help make the sale. The selling strategy at Apple is fairly unique and great. While one does not feel pushed to buy plenty of representatives are at the store to make the consumer feel more comfortable and informed about their high value purchase and to answer technical questions. While the Apple Specialist at a store may not be following up on a sale they do help build that relationship between Apple and the consumer that makes Apple customers so loyal.

No comments:

Post a Comment