Discounting continually in your creative business can not only damage your profit margins, but also lead to devaluing your brand as a whole. In this blog post I’ll explore ways you can offer enticements to win more customers without always offering money off your products or services, and maintaining your brand’s position in the market.

Discount Types

Firstly let’s explore the different ways businesses often offer discounts. When looking at each one you’ll need to think about whether your ideal clients will be attracted by these offers, or whether they would even expect them from you at all. Where you position yourself in the market will determine whether each (or none) of these night be right for you and your business. Try and avoid discounting out of fear or panic if a product or service doesn’t immediately fly off the shelves. Be consistent and allow people to see your business is trustworthy and of good quality. The last thing you want potential clients to think is that you are desperate.

1. Launch Offer

   Businesses often offer incentives to buy when they first launch. It can be a good strategy to begin with to get your product or service seen, and most importantly to get those first glowing testimonials that will then drive new sales and bookings. If you do offer a launch discount make sure it is time or number limited and affordable for you. Don’t be tempted to extend the deadlines or quantities if take-up is poor. Instead work on your core messaging so people can see the value of what you are offering them rather than focussing on price.

2. Percentage Discount

   Percentage discounts can often work well as the higher percentage off an item the more likely someone is to think they are getting a bargain. In my experience a percentage discount is really only effective if you are keen to shift out of season/slow-selling stock, or end of lines. It needs to work for you, ie free up more stock space, or perhaps recoup money spent on a product line that didn’t go down well with your customer base. Percentage discounts can work well in things like seasonal sales for these reasons.

3. BOGOF Deals

   Bulk deals work in the same way as percentage discounts, and are really just another way of offering the same price points. The key is not to overuse them, so people who have had their eye on your products for a while are much more likely to take you up on the offer, rather than assuming you will always have some sort of deal on they can take advantage of another time.

4. Freebies

   Free high value items (eg useful downloads, help guides etc) in return for email address sign ups can be a good way to grow a customer base. But again be wary of the clients who will endlessly consume your free content but never have any intention of investing in you for anything more. Better to offer your best content to those already on your email list who didn’t need an incentive to be interested in what you have to offer. Bribery is a sales tactic, but not one I would recommend using to the exclusion of actually just giving good useful content away for free as a way to establish your authority and trustworthiness. Product based businesses might consider free shipping - always loved by anyone shopping on Etsy for example. And here you can build that into your retail pricing rather than having to take the hit yourself.

5. Loss Leader

   A product sold at a loss to attract a client into higher value offerings. A bit like a good lead magnet this can work well for service based businesses if you want to simply get in front of more of your ideal clients. Consider offering them as part of multi-buy deals. The product might have a low face value, but it gives you the opportunity to show just how much more you could do for someone if they were to invest in your higher value products or services. Make sure it is of good quality and of use to the buyer regardless of whether they do go on to invest in you or not. These can often be the worst of the ‘click bait’ offerings that leave you feeling duped. Not something you ever want your clients to feel when thinking about your business.

6. Return Customer Bonus

   Offering an existing customer an incentive to buy from you again is one of my favourite routes with discounting - you are rewarding them for already having spent with you - much better than attempting to bribe someone into that first sale. It could be simple emailed percentage discount offer, or a coupon included within the packaging of an order.

7. Membership Rewards

   Offering some sort of membership plan can be great for establishing a loyal customer base who regularly buy from you - you can offer discounts combined with extra value freebies like ‘how to’ guides, video content and more.

8. Influencer Offers

   Sending your products for free or discounted to a select number of influencers can be a great sales tactic - leveraging their audiences to get you actual sales. Be sure to pick truly aligned people to work with and this can then be a great way to get your brand noticed by more of your ideal clients without having to build those huge Instagram audiences yourself.

9. Cart Abandonment Offers

   Emailing people who have very nearly almost bought from you is a great way to offer discounts - it is far more targeted and much more likely to result in a sale than a blanket offer to all. Keep the offer tempting and time limited for best results (eg free shipping if you checkout within the next 60 minutes).

When to Discount

I recommend running promotions no more than seasonally, ie four times a year. This is manageable for you in terms of marketing (and more interesting for you customers not to be bombarded with constant discount messaging). Obvious times are January, Black Friday, Christmas etc. You may also like to celebrate a business milestone with your customer (eg a business birthday or other milestone).

Early Bird discounts are also a good idea when launching things like courses or workshops, it encourages those early bookings which takes the pressure of heavy marketing close to the actual date, therefore easing stress and bringing money in over a more sustained period. Again, keep them short-lived for maximum impact.

Make sure you talk about your promotions on all your channels so that people actually see them (eg social media, emails, ads), and consider running pop ups on your website to inform visitors.

I hope you’ve found this thought-provoking as well as useful. I’d love to know what sort of discounts you currently offer and whether this has promoted you to rethink your discounting strategy - let me know in the comments!